Here again

I don´t know how to start… the white paper scares me at the beginning. I have just started, so the next will be easier. I don´t know what I will write, well… maybe I have the global idea ;) but I want to be spontaneous because other times I think a lot in what I has written and I review many times my texts. Now, I want to go where my thoughts guide me. Do they guide me or do I guide them? I don´t know.

What I know is that I have a lot of questions in my head. Why I am writing? Why now? Why here, on this blog? As I said, I want to be spontaneous, so I have to be coherent with this. Because of that I am going to start with the first answers that I consider. I am writing because I feel I need it, because I want to stop during a moment, because want to organize my ideas, because I want to “explore” what is happening inside my head, how I think… maybe to do a metacognition investigation? Jaja

Why now? Because the semester is ending and the time for me has passed “flying”, as we said in Spanish. This semester has a lot of complex ideas, a lot, a lot. And I need time to assimilate them; I think it takes more time that to understand them. So now, I have found one moment to think about all this.

Now, I am realising that I never think: Now I am going to stop and reflect about this or that. I just do it “unconsciously” and during my reflection I realised that I am taking perspective and assessing one situation or action. In these moments, like now, I have some kind of stress because I don´t know how to do it exactly. I feel that there are too many things to reflect, a lot of things to change, many things I don´t know. I feel so small with a lot of questions. So it is a chaos on my mind. Due to this “stress” I usually stop my reflections because it is a sense not comfortable for me, maybe because it is not familiar and none has teach me to do it, to solve it, to overcome it… Perhaps I don´t know how to manage my feeling or my thoughts. Or maybe, I stops to reflect because it is difficult and I am lazy jaja. It could be. Are they hypothesis? Keine Ahnung, as we say in German. Well this is the first time I write about how I think.

Another thing I often do is to think that I should make reflections usually, but at the end I never do it, like most of my own propositions. So now, I am not going to propose this. I will reflect when I need to do it, like today.

I am hungry, I am going to eat. I will answer other day to the last question I did (Why am I writing on this blog?) When? I will see it.

Laura

Reflection

This subject has changed my mind because I had a different view of education. Now, I know education is one of the most important parts of our life.  Education is a concept that evolve many things, not only memorize and repeat (this is not education) but, development, cooperation, revolving problems, think, be critical… These are the keys of education. We are in society, we have a family and friends, so we need to know how to speak with them, how to express our feelings, how to play in teams, be punctual, be efficiency at work, be responsible every moment, respect other people…

This pype of thinks we should teach to our students. We need to adapt the curriculum and make our own classes. But before, we need to study and finish our degree, build our theory and be critical with the other ones. With Mina We have worked a little bit this, it was great for us.

In this subject we have worked by groups, it has helped to me so much because I developed many skills. In this semester I have matured a lot. Now, I have more reasons to be here, in Magisterio. And I have changed a lot of minds, for example the minds of my friends because before they laugh when I said I want to be a teacher. But I have explained them my reasons. Now, they know education is very important for everybody.

I am very happy with my work; of course I could do better. So the next semester I will strive more. In some years I will read this and I will remember my first days at the University, our philosophy, learning processes, developmental psychology, communication and, of course didactic classes. I am laughing at home because I remember our presentations in didactic, like the day that we danced La Macarena in class. It was very funny and we learned a lot.

PISA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AjdYm0fSRmU

PISA: Programme for International Student Assessment. This is built by the OCED: Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.  

PISA is a triennial international survey which aims to evaluate education systems worldwide by testing the skills and knowledge of 15-year-old students. To date, students representing more than 70 economies have participated in the assessment.

The objective of PISA is to know if the students are prepared to act in the society. With these exams, experts can evaluate different subjects like maths, science or language. Experts don´t want that students are able to repeat the content but to resolve themselves their real problems and use their knowledge to their life.  

PISA wants to control if the skills are being develop by the students. Then, it contrasts the results with the other countries.

Some conclusions that PISA said are that girls are better reading and boys better in maths.

In my opinion, PISA don´t value some competences very important like: cooperation, responsibility, work in groups or be critical. I think they are very important in education. If a student can understand a text but no to work in groups, or for example not to be responsible or to be always late… in the future this student will have some problems to find a job, to have a family or to keep the friends.

I like this type of exam that PISA makes:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FhtpB1RalDQ

Approaches to the curriculum

Plato.
He thought that education has to produce 3 types of people. Leaders are the best type but they are a minority. The objective of education is getting the harmony.
In primary children need to develop their senses and they have to be inspired by heroes. It is necessary they improve their physique. Teachers are in control and the mustn´t teach, the main method is the Socratic one. Dialogs are the most important thing.

Rousseau.
The aim of education is getting the 3 principles: Liberty, equality and fraternity. Education has to achieve that people have an independent thought.
In this stage experience and sensation are more important the knowledge or reason. Only when the individual is enough mature, he or she is able to get social academic disciplines.
Nowadays children are treated as children, like Rousseau suggested.

Dewey.
The aim of education is that people could be individuals for a democracy. So, the need to know how to solve themselves real problems.
In primary education there are 3 stages: Games and creativity, techniques and reflective attention. Each stage is more complicated than the before one.
Nowadays children work cooperatively and schools have to prepare for life in the real world. So pupils need to solve themselves their real problems.

 

There are a lot of theorists and we have to be critical with them. Everybody has to build his/her own theorist. My theory is a mixture of all of them because, in my opinion, each one has something important. For example: Children are children and not adults, creativity is very important, work cooperatively too, everybody should have an independent thought… And all the time we need to advance and not to stagnate.

The end is closed.

INCERTIDUMBRE

Incertidumbre, inseguridad, confusión, miedo

es lo que siento.

Que dé mis primeros pasos sola

es lo que esperan de mí.

Valentía, fortaleza, seguridad,

dicen que es conveniente para mí.

Por vez primera he de trabajar la práctica

y dejar de estar tan a la teoría atada.

Me siento cual niña antes de ser

de la mano de sus padres soltada.

 

One week and, after that, Christmas.  All my subjects are going to finish. I have learnt a lot of things. These things are different because I was used to learn only contents. In this semester I have changed my mind; now I can understand better the curriculum, I know what is the meaning of child development, I can compare different theorists, I studied the different between behaviourism, constructivism and socio-constructivism. I forgot a many things I studied the last year but I am sure that I will never forget whatever I have learnt this semester because I really understand them and I use them in my live.

When the semester will finish is the moment to practise everything, using the theory that I leanrt.

The zone of proximal development

The zone of proximal development (ZPD) has been defined as "the distance between the actual developmental level as determined by independent problem solving and the level of potential development as determined through problem solving under adult guidance, or in collaboration with more capable peers" (Vygotsky, 1978, p86).

 We, as a futures teachers, have to know where are situated our students and then teach them. Each student has his/her own position in the graphic, so we need to adapt to them. If we want the build new knowledge, we need to teach them they have to use their previous knowledge. Students should help each other sharing their previous knowledge.

 

In class we worked this.  Jesse gave us a problem, we needed to get a mathematical formula and we only had these pictures. We did this exercise by groups, we used our previous knowledge and we share it. For example, Isabel studied “bachillerato cientícico” so she knew more maths than the rest of the group. With her knowledge and our ideas, we got the solution. After that, we explained our result to the rest of the classmates.

 

Didactic unit

We did a didactic unit by groups; my group did it using brainstorming. Firstly we introduced the brainstorming to the whole class because a lot of people didn’t know its meaning.
Brainstorming is a didactic strategy which consists to tell different ideas or concepts that people have in relation with a concrete topic.

 

The objectives of our didactic unit were:

-   Promote the participation.

-   To make the people think in their own.

-   To respect the turn of speaking to the rest of the people.

-   To reduce the shyness, because all the ideas which are connected with the theme are valid.

-   To know how to work in different ways (individually, smalls groups…)

 

We did some activities:

-   ACTIVITY 1: In groups, they have to discuss in which things they save up energy (brainstorming).

-   ACTIVITY 2: Ideas – In each group the students have to work in one of the ideas that they have presented before.

-   ACTIVITY 3:  TABÚ – Each member of their group has to explain with words his/her form to save up energy without saying the words which appear in the sentence.

I think it was funny and at the same time our “students” were learning. Two days ago I thought that brainstorming was a strategy only for children. But when we did our didactic unit, I realized that it is not true. We are not used to do this type of activities. We do usually everything faster. We need to think about our decisions often.

We should use brainstorming before reading a text. If we do it, our brain will be prepared to read the text. Or for example, when we have a conflict, we should keep calm and make a brainstorming to find a solution.