To do list for summer and autumn 2013

As for now, May 2013, I still have the following things to complete:

-writing the Core Plan with the Safety Procedures in the School
-carrying out the teaching practice, blogging, and writing the final report
-completing 2 more credits worth optional studies
-recording and editing a video from the teaching practice
-applying for the Certificate

I will write the core plan in the summer 2013 and then move on to do the teaching practice in September-October 2013. I will carry out the teaching practice in Savonia university of applied sciences in Kuopio, teaching basic Russian and business English courses for business and/or tourism students. Since the teaching practice must be done in English,  I will need to teach an international group. I will keep blogging during the teaching practice phase, and after this I will write the final report.

I need to select one more optional course. I hope to find something relating to practical teaching or interaction skills. Due to my work I probably cannot travel and take a contact teaching course, which is a pity, because those courses have the best selection. I will look at some online courses, as well, either in Finnish or English with the idea of completing that in the summer.

My plan is to finish the studies by the end of the year 2013. I think the schedule is realistic, considering the fact that I work almost full time, but still there will be some flexibility to have my teaching practice in the schedule.

VOC II closing: reflections on day 1

Today we have received and given feedback on the 5 topics that were covered during VOC II: global and multicultural activities, sustainable development, special needs education, interaction with working life, and entrepreneurship.  It was nice to gather once again as a group and hear other people's processes, feelings, and ideas.

First we shared of our current situation and future prospects as a vocational teacher in pairs, and then presented each other's main points. For me, the biggest challenges have been educational science. This has been the most unfamiliar topic, and there is a lot of learn. Not only we need to master the numerous theories, but also apply them into our teaching, and consider which theory best suits a given situation. I am yet to complete the teaching practice, which I also see somewhat a challenge. On the other hand, these two entities are the ones are, and will probably be the biggest point of growing. It looks like about half of the group will graduate soon and other half will continue studies. I will carry on with the core plan and teaching practice, which I am looking forward to.

We received a compilation of feedback from the topic that we had prepared in small groups. Our topic was Global and multicultural activities. The general feedback suggested that it was relevant, interactive, and appropriate. The development points were to give more individual feedback of the tasks, and to have organized the page in a more user-friendly manner. These points were valid, but I was glad to see that the material was appreciated by the fellow students.

Finally we were to evaluate our current competences in these five speficic areas accoding to the criteria of Bloom's taxonomy. I gave myself a 5 (expert-level knowledge) on global competency. I have completed a Master's degree on intercultural communication, my current work relates to this, and I also have almost 10 years of firsthand experience of living in different cultures and interacting with a multicultural group of people.

Here is my evaluation of the competence areas that we studied during VOC II:

Global competence	5 -expert	Authoritative knowledge and experience, long-term firsthand exeprerience in living in several different cultures, creative viewpoints , working professionally in this field, MA degree  in intercultural communication
Entreprenership	3 - competent	I recall the methods and the content of what has been taught.
Special needs	2 - beginner	I understand the concept and how it relates to vocational education
Interaction with working life	4 - procifient	I have a lot of working experience of how labour market works, I have studied and practiced work application skills,
Sustainable development	4 - proficient	I have quite a broad exepriene on the topic, as well as several applications in real life.

Educational Science

Today's topic was to dig into learning theories from the point of educational science. Among the theorists presented were Piaget, Émile Durkheim, B.F. Skinner, Maria Montessori, Lev Vygotsky, and David Kolb. Here are a few words on those who have impressed me most.

Kolb developed his learning cycle with two opposing dichotomies: active experimentation versus reflective observation, according to learners’ preferences. The other contrasting dichotomies are abstract conceptualization and concrete experience. These four describe different learning styles. For the ones with the same learning style, and the teacher can give them tasks that suit their learning style. According to Kolb, these four areas represent steps of learning, so complete learning occurs after a finished four-step cycle, or a certain student may use just aspect. The four teaching and learning activities, are, respectively, a diverger, an assimilator, a converger, and an accommodator. A student who will master one learning style, will become successful in his trade. (Source: Wankat & Oreovicz: Teaching engineering, pp. 292-296). This learning theory attracts me, because it takes different character traits and personalities into consideration. I have studied psychology and relationship  studies and learned that your message hits the target when you present it in a listener-sensitive way, so that they can understand and relate to it. Students are not an anonymous flock of people, but individuals with some recognizable learning types. Analyzing and observing people comes naturally to me, and I will definitely make use of this theory in my teaching.

B.F. Skinner’s theory is about operant conditioning, and it falls into the form of consequence, with either positive or negative reinforcement, which is represented by the teacher giving thumbs up or down. The second scenario is positive or negative punishment, where negative feedback is increased and positive feedback is diminished. The theory seems a bit naive and simplistic, making me think of Pavlov's famous salivating dogs. One thing does not work for everyone, but everyone needs affirmation and cues that he is on the right track. The theory, as well as the methods, implemented as such, are outdated, but of course every teacher aims to give a student some credit for a work well done. When I look back to my own days in school and university, the encouragement, recognition of my talents and skills by the teachers have been defining moments in my career path. In secondary high my Finnish teacher commented my good writing skills, and in the university my Russian teacher always believed the best about my linguistic and interpretation skills. And here I am, an interpreter and translator, writing and using language in my profession, and loving it. Without those teachers I may not have become aware my skills, and I'm ever grateful for my teachers, even though I didn't always believe their ultra-positive comments at the time. In vocational education, the idea of the operant conditioning theory is to apply pedagogically appropriate outcomes by reinforcement. Thus, active learners see results of work of action and project-based learning, feeling proud of their achievement.

A Russian psychologist Lev Vygotsky had ideas of facilitating independent learning with progressive lessons, age-appropriate activities, and manipulatives, while addressing the whole child. He argues in Mind in Society (1978) that learning is more than acquisition of the ability to think: it is the acquisition of many specialized abilities (the toys, games, books etc.) for thinking about a variety of things. As far as adult learners are concerned, Vygotsky developed the idea of the zone of proximal development, social development, and collaborative learning. The latter works best in fields where you tend to focus on group projects on, such as cooking, demo sessions, mechanics an so on.

Maria Montessori has another inspirational theory. She developed her theory among the school-age children, and it’s fundamentally a model of human development. Her philosophy was to provide the children with an environment with a lot of activities and choice with the emphasis on independence, freedom within limits, and respect for a child’s natural psychological development. She believed that the children under the age of six have an innate path of psychological development, and older children and developing adults engage in psychological self-construction by interacting with their environments. Monessori has stated: “Never help a child with a task at which he feels he can succeed.”

Sources: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montessori_education

https://sites.google.com/a/nau.edu/educationallearningtheories/home/maria-montessori-1

Constructivism
Constructivism teaches that learning is an active, constructive process, and the learner is the one who constructs and organizes knowledge. The learner links the former knowledge, past experiences, and cultural factors into new one, thus constructing his own subjective representation of the content. I will be able to apply the theory of constructivism into my teaching. I have been teaching English privately for professionals, who need special-field English in their work. In my coming teacher practice I will be teaching English or Russian language. Russian lessons teach the basic grammar, vocabulary, and communication from the beginning, and the English classes focus on professional language, such as Business communication and correspondence, or special-field English, e.g. for physical therapists. When teaching languages, it is important to construct knowledge and linguistic skills step by step, and former knowledge of other languages helps in this process. There were several theorists who contributed to constructivism, the most famous being Vygotsky with his Zone of Proximal development, Piaget, John Dewey. (Source: http://www.learning-theories.com/constructivism.html)



Learning outcomes

I learned that even though there are lot of theories and the best-known ones are very old, if not outdated, there is something in all of them that makes sense and can be applied to education. I don't think that one can apply just one theory into teaching; maybe there is one that best represents and suits the subject at hand, but I would argue in a successful teaching there are elements of many theories, or rather approaches, that a skilled teacher merges and mixes in suitable situations, applying different methods for a different group or even individual (just think of a special-needs student!). Even in one session there can be several approaches, for example when you teach a new language, there is group discussion through collaborative learning, then simple reciting of new words and pronunciation (positive/negative reinforcement), and tackling the grammar through constructivism, proceeding from the familiar and easy to more complex rules.


Juhani Pihlaja argues that since there are several different perspectives to many phenomena, much more theories are needed than in natural sciences or medicine. The theories are, in a way, discussion or dialogue with their objects, as well as the concepts, which are the raw materials of the theories. If the teachers are able to apply this understanding into teaching, educational materials, and exams, we could be able to lower the shaft of different theories, and at the same time we could approach the objectives and contents of (tutkiva oppiminen) and constructing the knowledge. (Source: Pihlaja, Juhani: Kiehtova kasvatustiede, p. 40)