Tydzien Trzynaście / Week Thirteen - Professional (07.05.2012 - 13.05.2012)

As I spend more time in my placement school I am becoming more familiar with the principles of the curriculum they follow – the International Baccalaureate- and the benefits that these can bring to the classroom. This week I have been thinking more about the ‘Key Concepts’ used when teaching the Unit of Inquiry, which for my class at the moment is Natural Disasters. There are six Key Concepts which are used in every class to help structure learning.

The Key Concepts:

Form: What is it like?

Causation: Why is it like it is?

Change: How is it changing?

Connection: How is it connected to other things?

Perspective: What are the points of view?

Responsibility: What is our responsibility?

Reflection: How do we know? 

These concepts are written on large keys, as their purpose is to help unlock knowledge and understanding. The teacher selects the specific ones which are appropriate to the lesson and uses these to establish what the children already know and what they want to know, similar to the use of KWL boards in Northern Ireland. Isbell and Raines (2012:296) highlight that, ‘KWL charts are useful for keeping track of the inquiries that drive the children’s investigations and as a way to document what has been learned.’ While similar in their objectives, I feel that KWL charts can be more effective as they provide a visual stimulus and reminder, whereas the Key Concepts are only done verbally and therefore can be easily forgotten by the children. Hoffman and Schallert (2008:145) discuss the benefits of, ‘coordinating the presentation of verbal and visual information to maximise learning.’ While noting this, it is important to consider that the Key Concepts could be used in a variety of ways like this to make them more effective.

The Key Concepts help to make connections between what is being learnt in the classroom and real life. For example, in this Natural Disasters Unit of Inquiry, the children are not just learning facts about volcanoes, but also the impact which volcanoes have on people’s lives. This helps to make the learning more real and relevant and something which the children can relate to more.

While observing these ideas being used in the classroom I was able to compare these with the ‘Change over time’ strand of the World Around Us section in the Northern Ireland Primary Curriculum (CCEA, 2007:87) such as ‘Change over time’, ‘Interdependence’ and ‘Place’. These two primary school curricula seem to be rather similar, particularly as in the IB, the Key Concepts are only used when teaching the Unit of Inquiry which is very similar to the World Around Us subject area in the Northern Ireland Primary Curriculum.

The GTCNI Competence 14 (2006: 14) states that, ‘Teachers will set appropriate learning objectives/outcomes/intentions, taking account of what pupils know, understand and can do.’ Through experiencing the focus on methods such as using Key Concepts I feel I am further developing this competence and a variety of strategies which can be used to fulfil it.

Thinking ahead about how little time I have left to explore more into this education system, I am looking forward to the ‘school sleepover’ I have been invited to attend in two weeks time, in which all classes stay overnight in the school! I am very excited to see what this will be like, as it is definitely something I have never heard of in Northern Ireland!

                The three of us enjoying the 30 degree heat!

References:

-CCEA (2007) The Northern Ireland Primary School Curriculum, Belfast: CCEA Publications

-General Teaching Council for Northern Ireland (2006) Teaching: The Reflective Profession: Belfast.  

-Hoffman, J. and Schallert, D. (2008) The Texts in Elementary Classrooms, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associated, Ltd.

-Isbell, R. and Raines, S. (2012) Creativity and the Arts with Young Children 3^RD edition, Cengage Learning. 

Tydzien Dwanaście / Week Twelve - Personal (30.04.2012 - 06.05.2012)

Hanging out with my friend Gandhi 

This week we continued travelling and ventured further afield to Vienna and Prague. While our workload here is not as heavy as it would be if we were at home this semester we are still extremely busy most of the time. Having to get up at 5.30am two mornings in a row each week is more than enough for me, so we were very glad to have some time without class or school which we could just spend relaxing and having some well earned lie ins. One of our Erasmus friends is from Vienna and although she did provide us with a map and information about all museums, we decided to have a slightly less cultural visit, and began with a trip to Madame Tussauds and a theme park! Visiting this German speaking country allowed me some more time to try and use my rusty German skills. The longer I am on Erasmus the more I am finding myself growing in confidence when it comes to trying to speak with people such as shop assistants in their own language, regardless of how bad I sound while trying to speak it. 

At the opera!

One our second last night we went to the Opera as we had been told that no visit to Vienna is complete without this. Although this is something I would not usually be interested in, I did enjoy it and thought it was a worthwhile experience, particularly as it is something I may never do again. We decided to spend our last day in Vienna visiting Schönbrunn Palace, which was once a royal palace but is now the property of the Austrian Republic and is open to the public as a museum. The whole complex includes a zoo which claims to be the oldest one in the world, a maze, a palm house and a sundial house as well as extensive gardens. This was a lovely end to the Vienna part of the trip, before we boarded our overnight sleeper train to bring us to Prague. This was a very nice place to visit, but I definitely didn’t think it compared to either Krakow or Vienna. We found the old town to be very similar to many of the old towns in cities in Poland such as Poznan, Krakow or Warsaw and so enjoyed spending time there, but apart from that we didn’t find the city to be as enjoyable as others we have been to. Nevertheless, we did enjoy our time there and found the few days we had flew by before it was time for our ten hour train journey back to Poznan and back to reality. 

Enjoying some local food 

Schönbrunn Palace

Tydzien Jedenaście / Week Eleven - Cultural (23.04.2012 - 29.04.2012)

I am definitely becoming more appreciative of the opportunities provided through Erasmus. As we had some time off university and school due to national holidays, Anna and I decided to make the most of it and started our adventure in Krakow. I found Krakow to be quite similar to Poznan, albeit on a larger scale and it was also a lot more touristy, something which was noticeable from the moment we arrived. Our first day consisted of exploring the local area and we got a private tour on a golf buggy around the Jewish Quarters and the Ghetto, which was extremely interesting.

Memorial in the Ghetto

Upon deciding to come to Poland, I knew Auschwitz was somewhere I had to visit. While this doesn’t fit into the idea of a ‘fun holiday’ I felt it was important that we visit somewhere which is such an important part of recent history, particularly for the country we have been living in for the past three months, helping me to gain a better understanding of the history of Poland. Death camps such as Auschwitz are something which I have always struggled to fully comprehend and so the visits helped with this in some way, although I still can’t quite get my head around what happened there. Being in the concentration camps – Auschwitz I and Auschwitz II–Birkenau – and recognising places from famous photos and movies was quite surreal and chilling. One part which I found particularly disturbing was the section of ‘Standing Chambers’ in which victims were forced to spend the entire night standing alongside three other prisoners before being sent back out to work the next day. Often this could continue for twenty nights. Our Polish tour guide was unsurprisingly bitter about many of the stories she told us and helped me to understand why the Polish nation is now such a proud and patriotic one. She gave us examples of scenarios to help us understand how the Holocaust actually came about. One example centred on explaining how people ended up in Auschwitz. She had us think about our own countries being in economic trouble, with high rates of unemployment. It was relatively easy to understand how ‘foreigners’ could become targets to blame for the shortage of jobs and allow people an easy group to direct their anger at, similar to what the Nazis did. While in no way does this explain or justify the horrors of concentration or death camps, it helped me to understand how many of these people ended up with no other place to go. 

Auschwitz II–Birkenau

This led me to think again about immigrants living in Northern Ireland. It is no secret that these people are so often treated badly. Smith (2009:45) notes that, ‘Over half of all migrant workers in Northern Ireland reported having experienced some form of racism or racial abuse. The PSNI recorded an increase in racial attacks from 643 in 3004-2005 to 746 in 2005-2006.’ These figures are rather shocking and so it is unsurprising that Belfast was given the unfortunate title of the ‘Race Hate Capital of Europe’ (Chrisafis, 2004). From my time on Erasmus and through travelling, I am developing further understanding of the need to have tolerance and respect for people from different communities and cultures, and the benefits that this can bring. 

References:

Chrisafis, A. (2004) Racist war of the loyalist street gangs, Available at:  http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2004/jan/10/northernireland.race (Accessed on 29th April 2012)  

Smith, M. (2009) Transnational Ties: Cities, Migrations and Identities, New Jersey: Transaction Publishers.