The Rol Kids

The “Rol kids” was the group that shows us a different design. They made a great magazine very complete that has a lot of information and interesting ideas that probably has a good reception at the school. They were very creative because they put on this format the theory and presented the plan and organization of the building and the environment of it.

They represented the idea of an adapted education that promotes the inclusive learning and stimulates the imagination of kids. The map was very nice and after seeing that, they made a adaptation of a tale related to a deaf boy that needs to break the barriers for having a better life.

Also at the end of the job, they play another video about a school with their advantages and disadvantages.

In my opinion, I find very interesting the first video about the magazine and the organization of the school and I think that the two last ones are not necessary but I would like it a lot in other situation that fits better.

Presentations of the 19th of March: "Our ideal school"

During the last weeks, we have been watching the videos of the different groups, where students have reflected the bases and characteristics that their ideal schools have.

The first group was “Futupasta”, who presented a good job that contains all the criteria that this project had to have. They use a chapter of the famous cartoons called “Futurama” and decide to change the argument. The characters are looking for the ideal school and remember how their education some years ago was and how the education could be in the future.

The principal ideas that they have introduced in their video are: The adaptation, the use of new technologies, the learning for the different intelligences, cooperative work between kids and also professional community that try to help and are the scaffold in that process of acquiring knowledges.

They were very creative and I think that they included all the methodology and theoretical concepts that we read on the articles for preparing this project and new ideas that make it better. This job was fantastic and very complete.

The second group was “The differents”, they record a video divided in three parts. At the first one, they use a Simpson´s chapter adapting all the contents for the school, where they show us the principal problems of education with and ironic note. The character who was the teacher did not pay attention to the kids, punishing them and ordering a lot of homework. 

At the next part, they show us their distribution of the building, with special zones, sport places, the classrooms and the environment by some beautiful draws in a whiteboard and the last part was a simulated practical class where they emphasize in the idea of having class outside, on this case at the park for studying different subjects and topics at the same time.

 I think that they missed some theoretical advices but it was very funny and at the final part, they singed and danced a song related to the parts of the body and also show us their greatest and cutest scenes.

I like very much these two videos and I was very surprised by my classmates!

2nd PROJECT – "OUR IDEAL SCHOOL" (Simona)

In our second project we had to make a video about the ideal school. It was important that the video sums up all the important criteria that a good school should have, regarding the structure of the building itself, the work between the staff (professional community), the working environment and last but not least, the most important thing: the work in the classroom with children. As listed below, I will comment on each group's video.

The questions I will answer to are the following: What are the main ideas? Why is it creative? What do I like the best?

·      Futupasta:

This group decided to make a video using a scene from Futurama. The main idea is that a group of friends travels to the past and to the future to be able to find out what has to be done to improve school. I think that they included important ideas and most of all I liked the part where "Paloma" is reading a tale to the kids, telling them about the ideal school and how the structure should be. We saw in the video that it is important to respect the children and let them learn in different ways according to their interests. Furthermore, they show how a school and teachers (robot) nowadays fail if they are not scaffolding for the children or don't let them learn autonomously. I think that they adapted very well the ideas and included a lot of methodologies that have to be changed in our schools. It is also very creative and you can understand perfectly what they say in the video.

·      The differents:

A very funny video, that shows in his first part a scene from Simpsons, where they transmit the problems that our schools have. We can see that the children don't like to learn, they don't respect their teachers, don't develop or to things they like. To describe the bad reputation of teachers they show a scene with Homer that wants to be a teacher, saying that it is easy and everybody can do it. I liked that idea, because what happens nowadays is that a lot of people who are not qualified choose the career of a professor only for the reason that it is easy to get in. In the second part, one member of the group draws the structure of their ideal school, which is very well done because it contains a lot of important facilities where children and the staff can feel comfortable. The part I like best is the one where the group learns an English song through moving and dancing. Movement, songs, and such creative things are the best way to learn things.

·      Rigatonys:

I found their video amazing and very funny. The main ideas they treated were the situation in some of our current schools, where we saw a teacher shouting at his class. That teacher was the exact opposite of how a good pedagogue should be and was unhappy with his class and his job. So in the first part the group tried to transmit us, where our school system fails nowadays. The second part they did consists of interviews with teachers and students of a primary school. I found it very interesting and I also think, that the questions they asked the pedagogues were well chosen. They asked them for example, what they would change. Some of the answers were: less books, more activities, more experimental classes. The hear the children's opinion was also very interesting to hear, since they commented that they like to work in groups (cooperative learning) and they find that they get way too much homework. In the second part, three teachers decided to travel to the future to see how a school should be. They learned a lot of things that they should improve and got to know new technologies.

In the third part, they show videos of the structure of their ideal school, which is separated in two buildings (school itself and sports facilities). From my point of view, the video is very good because it shows first the organizational issues our system has. Furthermore, it is creative and funny and the group combined a lot of ideas. What I liked best, was the interview with the children, because I think that we should ask them more often about what they feel.

·      La Banda del Patio:

The idea of this group was to make a video, using a scene from the well known animated film for kids "School's Out", produced by Walt Disney, which I also used to watch as a child. The main ideas were that the children thought about how they could improve their own school, relating to the work in class and the teacher's community. They emphasized that it's important to have facilities for people with disabilities and that it is important to support the student's critical thinking. Although it was a little bit short, I think that they did a good job in choosing a scene from soap for children, which fitted very well on the topic of this project.

·      Rolkids:

This group combined a lot of different things, which I personally liked a lot. They decided to present the main theoretical ideas in form of a magazine. It included important things that describe an ideal school. Related to creativity, they absolutely did a good job and also chose very nice and interesting videos. The first one was about Pedro, a deaf boy, and his first day at school. The barriers that such children have in school are shown as a monster, which can only be beaten if all work together and do their best so everyone can be able to understand the content, learn and do the best out of his potential.

19/03/2015

The last thursday, two groups os classroom show us their videos.
The first one was "Futupasta group", their idea was too fun because they did all like if it was a chapter of Futurama but it was addapted with the school.

• First of all, they talked about the ideal school. They included the kindergarten (in first floor); the I.T. room, the playground, a gym, and a swimming pool (in the centre of the school);the special spaces as the laboratory, music's room, art's room...(in second floor); and one of the most important: the library and theacher's spaces (in the third floor)

I like this school because it has everything that is important to develop children's mind.

• Then, they talked about the teaching of the past and his teacher and the new methology. Here they said that teacher has to be a scaffolding and a guide for their students.

Another interesting ideas of the video were:

• They mention to use the cooperative learning as a new methodology.
• Their school was thing to everyobody can feel integrated; inclusive.
• the new subject in the curriculum: "house education" in the way to understand that everybody has to help at house ( women and men)

In short, I like a lot this video because they could explain us perfectly what was the ideal school for them and it was very interesant and I enjoyed and laughed a lot. 

The second grup was "The Differents". Their fist scene was so funny because they adapted the idea of the bad school into "The Simpsons" chapter. They said, for example, that teachers never give attention to the children, students just used to work individually or for example, they always had a lot of homeworks. 

Another idea that I liked a lot was that they wanted to teach in a practical way, for example, to teach the parts of the body, they went to a park and were doing physical exercise and then, they sang a song about that topic. 

I like this group in the way that they were funny, but I have to say that they missed a lot of information, like what was to them the perfect school, new ideas to the curriculum, how has to be a good teacher and moreover. 

Presentations 19.02.2015

The two groups that presented their work this day were Escuela de Bocación and Futupasta.

To beginning with, one main idea that my group explain was the MULTIPLE INTELLIGENCES. This concept of Multiple Intelligences means that each student learn by a different way, and we, as teachers, should know and foment them in class, because we have to teach to the diversity classroom and adapt it to the different kinds of intelligences we will have.

Another point was about the different cooperative learning techniques: TAI, TGT and Group Investigation.

The TEAM ASSITED INDIVIDUALIZATION aims to create an atmosphere in class without competition and combines both cooperative learning and individually-places instruction; each student receives an exercise which is personalized taking into account their characteristics and needs, it is also essential respect the rhythm of each student and help them.

The TEAM-GAMES TOURNAMENT is a kind of game which aim is not the competition, but help the group that each student belongs and answer the question relaxed and thinking, without a limit of time, it is more important that they learn.

The GROUP INVESTIGATION. With this technique each group choose a subtopic and decide with the teacher their plan, distribute the tasks and choose the procedures that they will have to fulfil. Then they develop their plan and present it in class, this is when the other students can make them questions and at the end the teacher and the rest of the students evaluate together what they have done.

Another important idea was that the students should know how to be AUTONOMOUS, that is why the teacher should be like an scaffolding, to help the student during the process and disappear little by little until the student can learn by his own.

The last main topic was the EVALUATION: the group Futupasta explained it very well. The teacher does his own evaluation, each group evaluate the other and inside of the groups they have to evaluate themselves. But there is also another kind of evaluation, the teacher does it to himself to know if he has fulfil what he wants and also if the students have learn the main ideas of the topic.