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. 

Tydzien Dziesięć / Week Ten - Professional (16.04.2012 - 23.04.2012)

I enjoyed being introduced to the Storyline approach this week. In class, we experienced it in a practical way, as we took part in a Storyline situation ourselves, allowing us to fully understand how it works. This approach was developed in Scotland and aims to ‘recognise the value of the existing knowledge of the learner.’ (http://www.storyline-scotland.com/whatisstoryline.html Accessed on 23rd April 2012)

Camilleri (2002:35) explains that, ‘The storyline method provides a structure for organising learning and involves three basic components of a story: the setting or scene, the characters and the plot or critical events.’ The lessons take the framework of a story, with key questions being used in a way that the teacher knows the sequence the lessons should take, but not the actual content, as the children will provide this through their responses.  As Brandford (2007:68) notes, ‘Whilst the teacher has the outline of the Storyline, it is the pupils who will create the detail and content.’ This is what happened during our class, as the teacher set the scene of the class being residents in the village of Bogardia, and each of us had to take on a particular role such as; school teacher, butcher, mayor, gardener etc and we then had to work together to solve problems surrounding the fictional village.

This approach really appealed to me and I found it to be something which I can see myself using as a teacher. I could really see the benefits of this approach, with particular emphasis on improving pupil motivation. The Northern Ireland Primary Curriculum (CCEA, 2007:4) requires teachers to help pupils ‘develop their motivation to learn and their creative potential’, something which the storyline approach facilitates greatly.

The main idea of this approach is supported by the Northern Ireland Primary Curriculum (CCEA, 2007:2) which states that teachers should ‘integrate learning across the six areas of learning to make relevant connections for children’ and storyline provides excellent opportunities to do so. This method of active learning provides many opportunities to also meet the skills and capabilities as set out in the curriculum. For example, they will ‘be given opportunities to engage with and demonstrate the skill of communication and to transfer their knowledge about communication concepts and skills to real-life meaningful contexts across the curriculum.’(2007:5) The Storyline approach aims to help children develop the skills of becoming independent and working to find out information themselves, rather than simply being taught to from a textbook. The situations given should be real life situations which the children have previous experience of, such as opening a restaurant or pet shop. This also links to the focus which the Northern Ireland Primary Curriculum has on, ‘Thinking, problem solving and decision making’ (CCEA, 2007:8) and will provide children with numerous opportunities to develop these skills.

While learning about this approach, I found myself comparing it to the topic based learning which is common in Northern Ireland. Skinner (2010:95) highlights that, ‘Storyline is a clear improvement on the weaknesses of traditional topic web approaches. There is a natural, organic move from one subject to another as answers to key questions are researched and as the storyline unfolds.’ It is clear that this method brings many benefits with it and it is one I am keen to try out for myself.

This week has been a busy one as I was in school for three days and had quite a lot of work, but we managed to fit in a day trip to Warsaw with Anna’s friends from home, which was really good fun and it was definitely worth going to. Our other trips seem to be falling into place now, which is very exciting and due to how little free time we have left it seems like it will be no time until we are going home!

Birthday cake time!

Palace of Culture, Warsaw.

References:

-Brandford, V. (2007) Chapter Seven: Use of storylines to develop reading and writing skills in the modern foreign language. In Pachler, N. and Redondo, A. (Eds) A Practical Guide to Teaching Modern Foreign Languages in the Secondary School, Oxon: Routledge.

-Camilleri, A., (2002) How Strange!: The Use of Anecdotes in the Development of Intercultural Competence, Strasbourg: Council of Europe Publishing.

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

-Skinner, D. (2010) Effective Teaching and Learning in Practice, London: Continuum International Publishing Group.

-Storyline Scotland. Available at: http://www.storyline-scotland.com/whatisstoryline.html (Accessed on 23rd April 2012). 

Tydzien Dziewięć / Week Nine - Personal (09.04.2012 - 15.04.2012)

The Berlin Wall

Having enjoyed my first visit to Germany so much I decided to pay Berlin another visit, this time with my boyfriend, Matthew, who I finally got to see after two months apart! I was a bit disappointed in my lack of ability to be able to speak much German, despite having learnt it in school. Being there made me realise that I do actually like the German language and this has inspired me to investigate taking up German classes when I get back home.

These visits to Berlin have made me realise the numerous opportunities we have for travelling while we are here, something which we had previously been overlooking. Thankfully, even though we are over halfway through our time on Erasmus, we have still been able to plan a few trips and nearly all of our free time until June has now been filled. We have booked a long weekend to Milan in May and are also still trying to sort out the details for our upcoming trip to Krakow, Vienna, Budapest and Prague! I feel much more confident when trying to plan trips like this than I did when first arriving here. Most of the other trips that we have been on were planned by our Erasmus friends and all we have had to do is just show up, so I am enjoying taking responsibility for planning the trips and developing my independence in this way. 

Matthew at the Berlin Wall 

Daytrip to Szczecin 

After nine weeks I am still struggling to learn Polish, despite having six hours of classes a week. In spite of how much I complained about it in the first few weeks, that is nothing compared to how difficult I am finding the work now, as we move onto more complex aspects of the language. I have reached a stage where I feel like giving up with Polish, particularly as I  know I only have fourteen lessons left (not that I’m counting...) but I know it is important that I don’t do this. I have also got out of the habit of trying to speak Polish when in shops and restaurants, so I need to force myself to make more of an effort with this. One of the reasons I feel it will be beneficial for me to learn Polish while here is the vast number of Polish people currently living in Northern Ireland. This is something I have encountered both in my personal life and also while on School-Based Work. The 2010 school census showed that over 5000 primary school children in Northern Ireland have languages other than English as their first language (Northern Ireland Assembly, 2011:6). Having already taught classes with many EAL children, I feel that having a knowledge of other languages will always be a benefit to me as a teacher. The concept of a multi-cultural classroom is one that really appeals to me, so I am enjoying the experience of living in a different country and developing personally.

Holocaust memorial

Checkpoint Charlie

Reference:

Northern Ireland Assembly, (2011)  Migration in Northern Ireland: a demographic perspective, Available at: http://www.niassembly.gov.uk/researchandlibrary/2011/7111.pdf (Accessed on 22nd April 2012) 

Tydzien Osiem / Week Eight - Cultural (02.04.2012 - 08.04.2012)

Holocaust victims

This week provided me with numerous opportunities to learn about and experience the cultures of other countries. At the beginning of the week, I spent several days in Berlin with Anna and my friend, Carrie, who was visiting. While in Berlin, we paid a visit to the Holocaust memorial and museum. It was this museum which gave me more understanding of the impact which World War Two had on Poland. For example, I had forgotten that almost half of the victims of the Holocaust were Polish, meaning that three million Polish people died. The enormity of the number of deaths was really reinforced by this visit and left me feeling a bit shocked. I think the fact that it affected where I have been living for the past two months made it seem more real to me, whereas before I had simply just read it from textbooks.

At the Holocaust memorial

I also enjoyed getting to see the Berlin wall as it was something I had to study about when learning German in school, so it was very interesting to actually see this in person and it gave me more understanding of what life at the time would have been like. This made me think about the divide in Northern Ireland and the barriers that still exist today, something which is reinforced by the ongoing use of Peace Walls in Belfast. This is something which most people we meet here want to ask us about. For example, this week, when some Polish people heard we were from Northern Ireland they proceeded to pretend to shoot each other with machine guns, while shouting ‘bomb’ and ‘IRA’ at us... It’s always interesting to see how your country is viewed by others!

The Berlin wall

As this week was Easter week, I was able to experience the celebrations in the International School. Hearing the children share the Easter traditions of countries such as Korea, Mexico, Australia, Poland and Spain was something I was very pleased to be able to take part in. I have found myself really enjoying the multicultural environment in this school, particularly as I have been able to observe how the children from different cultures interact and behave differently. The GTCNI competency number fourteen states that teachers should develop, ‘a knowledge and understanding of the need to take account of the significant features of pupils’ cultures, languages and faiths and to address the implications for learning arising from these.’ I feel that even after a brief period of time in this school, I have further developed this competence and hopefully will continue to as my time here goes on. The Easter celebrations in school included an Easter egg hunt, making cookies, an Easter buffet with mainly typically Polish food and an Easter show with Easter bunnies, which was definitely my favourite part! Every week there seems to be some sort of celebration or event going on in the school, definitely much more than I have ever seen at home.  As I spend more time in school each week I have found myself thinking that I would like to try and get a job in an international school when I graduate and this is something which I plan to investigate more.

Easter bunnies!

Making Easter cookies

  

Reference:

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

Tydzien Siedem / Week Seven - Professional (26.03.2012 - 01.04.2012)

Reading the story of Finn McCool to my class.

My time in school this week has allowed me to gain further insight into the school’s ethos of enabling all children to become risk takers. I found this to strongly echo the Northern Ireland Primary Curriculum (CCEA, 2007:9), which states that ‘Children should be given worthwhile experiences across the curriculum which allow them to develop skills in taking risks for learning.’ While this is stated as a requirement by CCEA, I have not observed this as being a priority in many schools in Northern Ireland as much as it is in ISOP. Worzbyt (2004:156) notes that, ‘Risk taking encourages children to move out of their comfort zone and experience life as it was meant to be experienced.’ Over the past two months I have been able to see how these young children are becoming more and more independent and self-confident as they are encouraged to be risk takers.

Teaching Strategies class with our 3D representations of Poland.

University class this week has led me to believe that we have a very good education system in Northern Ireland, something which I may have previously taken for granted. During ‘Teaching Strategies in Early Childhood Education’, we often compare the education systems of the various countries represented within the class. These discussions often conclude with the education systems in the United Kingdom and America being viewed more positively than those in other countries such as Spain, Turkey, Georgia and Taiwan, for example. This week we focused on Jerome Bruner’s constructivist model of teaching and while I was not overly familiar with this theory, I was able to see how many of the ideas within it are strongly evident in the majority of schools in Northern Ireland. For example, the use of KWL boards to give structure to a topic, as well as helping pupils to have a sense of ownership over their work and a valued voice within the classroom. My peers explained that in their countries, the majority of teachers do not take an interest in the prior knowledge of the students, nor what they want to learn. Rather, the teachers focus on simply delivering the materials they need to, often in teacher led ways, with the students taking a passive role. Legge and Harari (2000:3) suggest that teachers need ‘...to give enough guidance to enable the student to have the means to learn’, something many of my peers feel does not happen in their countries.

Grade 2's trip to the dentist.

This concept of allowing the students to have an opinion on what they want to learn is something I have been able to see in my placement school, albeit on a smaller scale. After the children completed their morning spellings test, the teacher began to write their new spellings on the board, but rather than simply write them from a prepared list, she asked the children to suggest the words they wanted. They mostly chose words based around a film they had been to see on a class trip to the cinema the previous day. This was something which I had never seen before and I found myself really liking this idea, as I could see how the children were choosing words which were relevant to them and ones that they wanted to use. While I understand that this might not be suitable to use on a daily basis, I feel that this is something I would like to use myself as a teacher, particularly after an event such as a class trip. Again, this idea helps the children to feel ownership over their work, which Evans and Philpott (2009:61) suggest causes them to be more motivated.

Outdoor arts and crafts.

As well as being given some lessons to plan in advance, my teacher has given me several lessons to teach on the spot. While this can sometimes result in me feeling a little stressed as I have no chance to check through the material before hand, I do feel that it will benefit me greatly and help me become better at thinking on my feet, something which wouldn’t be one of my strong points. I have also found myself more willing to take risks than I have previously been while on School-Based Work at home. This is mainly due to the fact that my work is not being scrutinised as much as it would be, and the placement is more relaxed with no tutor visits. 

References:

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

Evans, J. and Philpott, C. (2009) A Practical Guide to Teaching Music in Secondary School, Oxon: Routledge.

Legge, K. and Harari, P. (2000) Psychology and Education, Oxford: Heinemann Educational Publishers.

Worzbyt, J., (2004) Teaching kids to care and be careful: A practical guide for teachers, Oxford: Scarecrow Education.