WHAT I HAVE LEARNED ABOUT THE LATEST PROJECTS - Elvira Astola Parejo.

AMIGOS DEL FOOTBALL:

They talked about inclusive schools. They started the presentation giving us a clear definition and the main characteristics so we could understand everything better.

Later they made a difference between inclusiveness and integration; it is so common to confuse both terms because they are very similar but, we talk about integration when someone have a disability and he/she needs to integrate in the society; and we talk about inclusion when the society changes and it adapts to the people necessities.

They also talked about four important authors (Gordon Porter, Tony Booth, Mel Ainscow and Gerardo Echeita) and their thoughts about the schools who introduce this technique. There are a lot of vantages in this type of method but there are also a lot of disadvantages and barriers like for example policies, diversity and didactics but to solve them someone have created strategies like creating inclusive culture, producing inclusive policies or evolving inclusive practices.

Finally they show us two videos of examples of those schools here in Spain so we could watch the method. The videos where so interesting and clear.

In conclusion, they talked about the importance of an inclusive school where everyone have the same opportunities and feel as comfortable as the others. And also the importance of the methodology they use, where all the works are in groups but they also work alone; after all the effort, they have a diary assembly to talk about the progress of each pupil.

THE UNKNOWNS: 

They talked about the same topic so the summary would be almost the same.

Apart of all the information that I talked about, I would like to emphasise on a point they talked about, the general ideas. They talked about it so clear and it is also so clear in the presentation: ‘’Inclusive education is presented as a right of all children.’’, ‘’Inclusive school linked to multicultural education.’’ and ‘’the inclusion is a single system for all and assumes that learning objectives are flexible.’’

In my opinion, inclusive schools are so important and we have to try to change our nowadays schools because the benefits are greater.

DUMBLEDORE TEACHERS ARMY:

‘’WHY IT IS IMPORTANT LEADERSHIP IN SCHOOLS?’’

In my opinion, leadership is an important fact in schools because we always need someone to make decisions and not all the people have that confidence to decide.

‘’WHAT ARE THE MAIN CHARACTERISTICS THAT A LEADER SHOULD HAVE?’’

A good leader should have some important skills like being innovative, trust, recognize, being clear, accountable, self-awareness, astute and being decisive.

With this aspects, we will find leaders in school working as businessman, organizer and institutional expert.

‘‘- As businessman: the leader has to take care that the environment don't affect to the pupils and teachers and also he has to take care about the development of the children and the school as an institution.’’

‘’- As an organizer: has to bring qualify teachers, creative concepts and institutional methods that will define the quality of the education following a reform plan. They also motivate children, teachers, parents and the hole community to participate in the school and in education.’’

‘’- As an institutional expert: they have to stablish information based on expert communities that make all peolple responsable of pupil learning and school develop.’’

talked about learning communities. They gave us a definition about those communities which are formed by a mix of teachers, students and volunteers who want to work on it, and all of them have to collaborate and cooperate to get the objectives.

MUSICAL CHAIRS:

They divided the relationship topic into three points; the first one is the relationship between students and teachers where they talked about the importance of the help but also the help of the parents because they are the people who (normally) have more knowledge so they can help and share their ideas with the students. And also they are so important in the motivation of the pupil, they are the ones who can make he or she being super motivated so they have to try it. 

Then, the relationship between students and volunteers where the volunteers help depending on the experience they have so they talk about it and make it funnier and more enjoyable. And the third one, the relationship between volunteers and teachers which is so important because they are the ones helping the pupils.

In conclusion, they talked about learning in communities but also about the importance of helping other people. For that they add the fact of having a good relationship between everyone because as we all know, it is better if you work with someone that you feel comfortable with.

WANDERLUST TEAM: 

They made the project about Social and emotional learning; they basically talked about this two feeling in relation with school. They started the presentation making an introduction of the actual situation on schools and also talking about some examples of school were emotions are so important. Then, they talked about an author, Rafael Bisquerra, who is so relevant because he talks about the importance of the feelings, he thinks working on that point at schools is as important as a normal subject like language or biology.

Finally they show us some videos where we saw schools that work this type of things and also appears some teachers and specialists talking about the situation and about the importance of the topic; they apply some different methodologies so the pupils take in account that the feelings matter and it is good to feel different and to share it with the people they love and also it is good to know how to control their own feelings.

This last point was related with the multiple intelligences that we have studied a lot this term so they made a relation between all the points and it was so good because it helped us to understand everything better.

TEAM PERK:

They talked about ITC and improvement schools; they started the presentation talking about ITC in nowadays school and also about the advantages like for example the fact that it makes the class funnier and better and motivate the children to participate and being attentive to what it is happening and the disadvantages like the prices of this material and the digital divide that it is a big problem nowadays and we have to make an effort to solve it so everyone in schools work in the same conditions.

Later they emphasises on the importance of some pages and apps and the advantages that they have, like, for example, pages where you can find useful information or the fact that you can contact with someone in the other side of the world. And, referring to the apps, they talked about the interesting ones in relation with the school and the subjects; those apps that helps you to have new knowledge and learn new things, at the same time that you develop some important skills.

MODERN STUDENTS

Made their work about ‘ways of living together in school’ where they first talked about the actual problems like bullying, violence or exclusion; then about the ways you can solve them like for example some strategies like showing and teaching important values to live together and respect everyone; and make it by group mediation where teachers, pupils and employed – non teaching stuff should collaborate.

Then they talked about the program to support peers where the main objectives are the improvement of coexistence and the idea is to finish with the bullying, the foster collaboration or encourage the direct participation. 

The keys for this program are to share responsibilities so everyone helps to solve them and it could be easier; so, if those steps are followed, we would find incredible results.

The next point they talked about was a book ‘’the archeology of feelings’’ of an specialist, Miguel Angel Santos where he talk about finding and discovering you own feelings in five steps (discovery, excavation, indagation, protection and exposure.)

And, finally, they talked about ‘Kiva international school’ wich is located in Finland and their program is basically based on educate the children, promoting ‘anti-bullying’ classes and a lot of wonderful values.

MY OWN WORK: 

Our topic was ‘ITC and learning disabilities’’. It was so interesting, I really loved doing this project because I get a lot of information about people’s disabilities and the importance, advantages and results of using new technologies in class.

We focused on the three disabilities that you can see on our conceptual map; we also put the technologies they use and the results they get.

Even if it doesn’t appear in the conceptual map, we also talked about other disabilities like hyperactivity or difficulties with the concentration.

Finally, as all my classmates, we put a video of the topic; as we talked about different things, we decided to search for different videos and make a new one where all of them were mixed. It was a great idea because we cut the important parts and I wasn’t boring.

Finally I would like to add some comments; the first one is that I haven’t emphasise a lot on the videos of my partners because if I do I would repeat myself a lot but all of them were so clear and represented exactly the topic they were talking about.

And the second and last thing I would like to say is that all the works were so good, I thinks all my classmates and I have done a nice work and put so much effort on it. And also I would like to repeat myself saying that I have learned a lot with this project and It was so useful and easy doing it, we worked on time and because of that the results were so positive.