Last essay and so on..

The last competence area is operational environment which means the networks around education and where the teacher is working. I picked as my essay topic Operational environments around practical training. My own vocational studies were that long ago that there weren't skills demonstrations as they are now, after the training period. But I was aware a little how things are done today since I've worked beside many young people doing their training during recent years. And basicly the training hasn't changed that much. Now it's done in shorter periods comparing to my times the training period was the whole summer. And we got paid for it. It wasn't that planned those days as it is now. The teacher didn't guide us so much, if I remember correctly my tutor-teacher wasn't visiting in my practice place, but then again, the farm that I was working had been guiding many practicants before me.

Once again writing an essay was a tough job. There was actually two weeks of time to complete the whole thing, which wasn't nearly enough of what I needed. Again, I felt lost with the subject, what's a good topic, where do i find the material and so on. It seems that reading the material takes way too much time. Like every time we've had an essay to write I was panicking that I'm not going to get through with this and I don't have a slightest clue about the subject until the last minute. And then it's already a little late to be able to write a good essay. But I wrote one, not a good one, but it's done. I think that I learn the things only after I've read also the essays of the others. For me it's impossible to learn something only by reading from books. When I read also the essays of my peer group members, there are so many aspects about the same subjects that I slowly start to understand the matter. And it was a good thing that we didn't have to make any presentation and we could comment on each others writings in Moodle. Reading other peoples comments and comparing them to my own opinions was very useful. It's different than when we comment on presentations in classroom. There is only the writing, not the presentation that you comment.

The last contact day is already past. It was very interesting to here about other students PTTs. And Rohit's RPL presentation from chemistry was interesting. Why wasn't my chemistry teacher like that in school.? And it was comfortable to here that also others have had the same problems during this education, although they have much more work experience than I have. Despite of different backgrounds we are all same kind.  

All in all I think I have reached my goals for this teacher education: To be competent enough to even try to apply a job around education.

Job hunting

There was a announcement for a position open in Koulutuskeskus Salpaus. They are looking for a person to be responsible for organising stable work in Jokimaa. The title would be Tallivastaava and this person will be responsible of all the practical things in the stables. There are about 40 horses and 3-5 persons working and guiding the students work. I send an application and got into interview. 41 applicants in total and they are interviewing 6 persons.

The interview situation was, well I didn't know that there are still interviews like this. four person sitting in front of me on the other side of the meeting room and questioning me for an hour! There were developing manager (also partly HR Person), some bigger boss from Päijät-Hämeen Koulutuskonserni (lady, who's name and title I forgot already), koulutusalapäällikkö and one teacher (she happens to be a friend of mine from Mustiala). The questions they asked:
- Why did you apply for this job?
- What do you think learning is?
- Do you have experience in working with young people?
-Do you have experience on being a boss? 
- What would you do if a student refuses to come to school?
- What do I think of schools horses?
- How will I manage a situation where five people are looking the same horse and saying different things how it should be taken care of?
- Can you fix things in the stable for example a flat wheel?
- Do you like to tell other people how to do their job?
- How would you market our new manege outside?
-Do you have a driving license and a permission to animal transport?
- What special competences do you have? for example shoeing a horse?
etc etc

Anyway the interview went well and thanks to studies in IPTE I could answer in all the questions. And I asked questions myself too: how are things managed in the stable, the timetables etc.   I don't have experience of being a boss or not that much of working with young students, I don't have a permission to animal transport, I don't have a license to drive a trailer but a small truck yes. But is there a person who has all these abilities? To be a professional horse person, a boss, salesman, capable of guiding students, a handy man and so on. One has to be a superhuman to get a job these days! So it depends if they appreciate more teacher studies and heavy experience in stable work and that I'm a team person or they will choose some handy man to fix stuff around and driving a truck and a trailer.  Not to mention that I have useful experience from abroad and I could guide also foreign students. Plus if there's a need I could be a substitute teacher also. Well we'll see how things go and if I don't get the job it's not the end of the world.

Special needs-course

One part of vocational teacher's work is to be able to recognise the special needs of each student. Special needs don't necessary mean handicap, it can be some other kind of difficulties in learning too. The amount of special needs students has increased a lot in last few years. So it's a must to be able to organise teaching in diverse ways so that every student has the possibility to learn and get the competence to work in his/her field. (by the way, I hate that I have to write his/her, it's clear that I mean what ever gender in general!) Anyway also for this course there was very little time and we only had a quick peek into the special needs education.

Education and society: operational environment

So I got passed from the education and society-course wuhuuu! Actually Education&society-course was a good base to learn about the operational environment in education, which is the theme for this autumn and the last area of competence I need to figure out. The next course was about networks in education. For this course we had a group assignment to create a map of networks where the teacher works and answer some questions about education in vocational institute. We chose to do one task which combined the map and the questions. We used Jari's work place Kanneljärven Opisto as an example and drew a map of the networks that Jari has in his work environment. We had an idea to create a new education program for Kanneljärven opisto. Doing this we answered the questions given in the task and it turned out to work pretty well. Now I know at least something about how the world of education works, where the money comes from and what other things there are going on besides teaching. The networks-course was important and a big issue, sad that there was so little time to discuss about it. Well actually for the first time in my life I had to watch the news and read about the government decisions and realise that they really have an impact in my life.

Now I have started to write the last essay. It will be something about using digital tools in practical training period and a little part about how the operational environment around practical training works.

Have I forgot to write about last competence area essay?

Yes, I was supposed to write about it three months ago.. Spring time our topic was Guidance of learning. I wrote my essay about Guidance of learning to learn. As I did my PTT in Mustiala in the spring I started to think about the basic lifelong learning skills, reading and writing. How can I as a teacher guide students to learn to learn. Reading and writing are just one tool for learning. I was a little surprised that students in higher level of education lack a competence for example in writing a simple essay. Although I thought I gave clear instructions about the learning tasks related to my course, I got back unstructured short reports without their own opinions or reflections for the topic. So in my own competence essay I was trying to find some useful tools to guide students. My own writing is getting better and now I maybe know something about my problems in it. I still have problems in structuring text, use of headings and how to define my subject. But this time I was pretty satisfied for my essay and I got positive feedback from it. I also noticed while reading the reference material that there is a huge difference between the teacher and a student in how they understand scientific writing. Also a huge responsibility for a teacher who is guiding for example a thesis work. But good that I got time to read about it. I learned a lot last spring.  

Contact days continue..

Got distracted somewhere.. but anyway, friday 18.9 we started a course called International networks in professional education. Seems hard and I don't like it. Lots of finance and administrative terms and words and things I'm not familiar with or have no interest at all. Well the task related to this course hopefully clears things up. But what if it doesn't?

In friday afternoon we had people from FUAS lecturing about their work. I almost fell asleep it was so boring.  

Contact days 17.-18.9 2015

On thursday 17.9 we started a course Student's special needs guidance and specific support. ( terrible course name!). It was very interesting but went a little slow because the teacher wasn't clear with the english terms and concepts. And during the day there should've been more doing not just talking and lecturing. But I think I got a hold of what the course is about. There's only one task for this course and it seems, not hard.<---wrong english. 

Education and society

The summer went by too fast. The autumn studies started already in august with Education and society-course. It was done in Moodle, also the exam. I'm still waiting for the results of it but I have a positive feeling about it. In the beginning of the course I was very confused ( as allways), I have never been good at studying history or I haven't been interested of it. Already reading the course material made me feel desperate. I thought that I'm never going to get through with this. But I kept reading and at the same time reading the answers of my peers in discussions. One assignment was to make a comparison between finnish and some other countrys vocational education systems. I chose Italy because I had lived there for some years. I didn't even know that there is vocational education in Italy! Well of course i knew that there has to be some kind of system but I've never known anyone who had studied in VET in Italy. Maybe because my own field, equine studies, there is no qualification in Italy. Reading about italian history in general was actually very interesting and it opened my eyes in many ways how history still has an impact on italian lifestyle and working life. The essay I wrote wasn't that excellent but I passed. Huh. All in all the course was useful and I learned a lot. Just had to read the instructions for each task many times to know what to do. But with talking with my peers we had them figured out right. I hope. If I pass the exam I'll publish the answer to the final question in it.

  

PTT assessment

Assessment criteria is written in earlier posts. as said earlier the students submitted their work in Moodle almost in time (one is still missing but she did the presentation in the classroom, she thought that it's ok and she doesn't have to submit any written task. It's clearly said in instructions, a written essay and presentation in class.) One student was present in only one contact lesson to present her work. She is a participant in one of students entrepreneur project and it obviously takes a lot of time. Her written tasks were mostly copypasted from google and done clearly only for the credits of the course without a big passion to get good grade or learn something new. But who am I to judge anyones motives.. She did what was asked for minimum and that's it. For the future I will demand more and make more simple instructions for learning tasks. The spring time is also difficult season to teach, students (and teachers) want to get everything done before the summer and obviously a course that is not that big of a deal is the last thing on their minds. Was for me also when I was studying. For agriculture students it's even harder because the summer season starts in may. ( the farmwork on the fields is done in may mostly) Also one point is that for these students, this particular course is continuing in the autumn with practical work so they don't "need" my part of the grading before that. So why bother to submit everything before.
After going through the essays I wrote my thoughts about the assignments to my supervising teacher and we came into same conclusions about gradings without reading first eachothers evaluations. This means that I am not completely lost and there is still hope for me to learn to teach.
Some questions came up to my head:
How to assess students learning if one is not present in the classroom and the tasks are planned to be interactive?
Do we need numbers in higher education and why?
I don't think that the students read eachothers essays, (peer assessment)
For me PTT was too short and I would've needed longer period of time to teach and correct my own actions and mistakes. 
I learned probably more about the course objectives than students.
All in all next time I will be teaching I will prepare more the assignments and make everything connect to grading, there is no better way to motivate students than credits.

PTT

The first contact teaching day I gave the learning tasks for the students and we talked about studying, learning and agricultural studies in general. (and our horses) The aim of this was to clear a littlebit about where the students were with their studies and what they already know about the subject.
In the end of the lecture we did the first assignment about the safety in traffic with horses. That went well, students were active preparing mindmap posters and presented them in the end and we had a short discussion. This assignment was relatively easy, maybe even too easy.

At the second contact day we had  one student telling about riding in paralympics. It was her presentation for some other course as showing her competence. I had prepared one powerpoint about equestrian vaulting. As another subject I had a great idea to go through the rules and competing system about distance riding: why do I have to talk all the time, can I make the students to prepare the presentation and search the information? Everyone had their own laptops open. Sounds good doesn't it? Well it didn't work. Students barely lift their eyes from their laptops and no one said more then one word. I ended up talking to myself and searching info for the powerpoint that I asked the students to do.. I was a littlebit shocked and felt stupid as they didn't respond in anyway to my questions or jokes. Strange because the first lecture went well and we had discussion and interaction. After the lecture my supervising teacher said that they are many times very quiet group and different to get in contact.

The rest three contact times went pretty much the same. I was mostly talking by myself. The students had done their assignments almost in time and we presented them in the classroom. They didn't even comment on each others presentations. (When I was studying myself ten years ago we had very much discussion and opinions about horses and sports and we played and joked about things in the classroom. It wasn't allways so relevant but interaction anyway.) I tried every time to create conversation and asked them questions like: How do you see this particular subject? Why do you think... and so on.. but I got maybe one or two word answer from one student. The presentations about the assignment were ok, but the written parts were weak. I thought I had made good instructions in Moodle for each learning task and how to prepare them but either the students didn't read them or I should've done better. Students did find the info I was asking but didn't use much their own thinking to analyse and that was one objective in the course.   

Practical teacher training: planning

I was doing my PTT in Mustiala on march-april. The course I was teaching was Hevosurheilu. It is a 5cr course in total but my part was 2,5 cr. The course is a part of a 15 cr module Specialized horse business which is one possibility to have as a minor subject. Students were on their second year of studies so I figured that the group is familiar with study technics and they know eachother pretty well. The group remained small, only five students.

I started to plan the course about three weeks before the first contact day. I read through last years course material collected by my supervising teacher. I decide to use the same kind of learning tasks with small changes. I didn't want to change everything because I was afraid I'd fail plus I didn't have a slightest idea of how I was going to get through it. So I thought that if my supervising teacher has done the course for ten times with almost the same learning tasks, why change it.

The PTT-plan template of HAMK sucks, so I planned my classes only on word and powerpoint. I just gathered the subjects for each contact day and made a rough timetable for it. As many times, a lot of stuff to go through and only five contact days, three hours/ day. Time management was one thing that I wasn't so sure of in the beginning. I had no idea how long it will take to go through with everything. This, I think, will be easier with routine. And I wasn't so sure of how much work I can demand from the students outside the contact days. They are not obligated to be in the classes, what if nobody shows up in the classroom? Well, they did and four out of five students were in the class every time! Yeeii.

I started the actual planning with making assessment criteria for the course objectives. (read the previous posts). That was the most difficult thing in the whole PTT. And it probably is one of the most difficult thing in teachers work, assessment. After making criteria sort of visible many other things came clearer. The students, though, didn't seem to take it very seriously or they didn't understand them, allthough I showed the criteria in the beginning of the course. I was talking to a friend of mine who is studying to become as lähihoitaja in vocational school and I asked her about how their teacher is presenting the criterias and does she understand them, she said that it would be nice if the criteria would be written so that they can be understood with common sence. This is probably true, that many times a teacher writes the criteria in littlebit difficult language and uses words that aren't yet familiar for the students. Also the students aren't yet familiar what the criterias mean and why are they made.

The planning of the criteria and learning tasks was one thing that I got positive feedback and I was pretty satisfied for them already when I made them. That's sure one thing that I afterall have to be able to trust, my own feeling and instict. Plus I am a professional in my own field, why couldn't I pass my information and skills for others aswell?
to be continued..

Models and methods

In guidance of learning course we were learning about teaching and learning models and methods. In peer groups we were presenting different pedacogical models such as: problem- and project based learning, collaborative- and cooperative learning, drama pedacogy and experiental learning and progressive inquiry and learning by developing. We presented progressive inquiry and learning by developing. In progressive inquiry the learning happens in the process imitating the thinking of scientific researchers. Learning by developing is a model created in Laurea University of Applied Sciences.  
Why it's important to know about pedacogical models? Pedacogical model helps the teacher to organize teaching and gives a structure for teaching and lectures.

Teaching methods are the concrete tool to teach. In my own teaching field if thinking about basic vocational skills, the most applicable and the most used and effective is probably demonstration method. I think this is also the way that I've learned my basic skills taking care of horses and stablework. First show how the skill is done at the same time explaining the facts needed and then let the student try and ask to explain the actions.  

Assessment continues

Assignment given to the students:

Groupwork done in the class considering everymans rights (jokamiehenoikeudet) in Finland. Presenting the outcomes of what needs to be considered when riding a horse in the public areas and roads, (safety aspects)

Safetydocument in stable business and customer services. In the presentation are described: what is a safety document, who makes it and why and when, what is in it and how often it should be updated.

Analysis of diverse equine sports in Finland, individual assignment about a chosen equine sport. Including: history, description of the sport and it's rules and competition system, horse material, how wide is the sport,  what are the chances for the sports in the future. Entrepreneurship possibilities and how much money is around this sport.

Assessment criteria:

1- knows the safety ways of actions and what influences on safe operational environment, knows the law of everymans rights, is able to describe the diverse equine sports and it's rules and competition system, reporting and working is clear and systematic

3- can analyse, notice, argument the aspects of safety and develop safety operational environment, knows the everymans rigts and knows how to apply them in practises with horses, can analyse  equine sports and their impacts on the whole equine industry, can analyse the rules and competition system and it's influences on horses and sports, reporting is analytical, clear, systematic and professional

5- analyse, argument, develop and promote safety in the operational environment, knows the everymans rights and takes them under considering in planning the actions and business around equine sports,   can analyse versatilely, creatively, professionally diverse equine sports, competition system, rules and their impacts on equine industries, it's future and challenges and possibilities of entrepreneurship, reporting and working is clear, analytic, systematic, professional, creative, versatile and holistic.

This was the most difficult task, until now, but I did it and I think I did pretty good. Not perfect but as the first criteria I've ever done, it's ok. I started to look assessment through the learning outcomes and then how to get there. How the assignments done will help the students to get the knowledge and what and how will they be evaluated. Then by one part at the time I wrote the tasks and what are the contents and points that I will wan't the students to think and notice. And what will they learn from them.  Then I compared the levels to the assessment criteria from Hamk and this is my outcome.

Assessment and so on..

We got an assignment from Irma Kunnari and I'm not sure yet what to do with this and the deadline is tomorrow..

The aim of the assignment is that you develop your pedagogical competence by deepening your theoretical, practical and self-regulative knowledge about assessment.

1. Design the objective of your own assignment – What kind of things you like to focus on? What could be useful for you – and also for your practical teacher training? The idea is that you learn something new and interesting about assessment. You can  for example concentrate on assessment methods, peer assessment, self-assessment, using digital tools in assessment or you can investigate how students can create evidence of their competences in an innovative way.  Use the ideas ( and material) brought up in contact day 13.2.2015.
2. Design the ways you learn: Do you need to read and explore about assessment ( see you books in this course or find new material from the net)? Do you have the possibility to try new methods in practice? Do you need to interview somebody? Etc.
3. Present your learning outcomes in your personal blog ( in your personal way) by 11.3.2015. Remember to write what were your references ( links to nice material in the web for the others also). Please elaborate: What did you learn? How did you learn? What was most meaningful findings for yourself?

Question 1. Everything about this is new to me!

Question 2. I have read and watched videos about assessment but it seems that assessment is always just a small part of book, guides and other material related to teaching.  But in real life it is not! Everything has to do with assessment criteria. I think that this is possible to learn properly only by doing and failing several times.Here's some material I've been reading:
https://www.avoin.helsinki.fi/opettajille/arviointi.htm
http://www15.uta.fi/arkisto/verkkotutor/arviointi.htm
http://ftpmirror.your.org/pub/wikimedia/images/wikiversity/fi/9/9d/Oppimisenarviointimenetelmat.pdf

Question 3. Read again  parts 1. and 2.

Back to question 1. As I'm starting my PTT next week I probably should learn to make assessment criteria for the course before that. So my objective will be creating assessment criteria for the course Equine Sports. Grading is done by numbers 1 to 5. (Why do we need number in the first place? I don't think anybody looks at them after graduating.)

Learning targets for the course: The student can define the types of equine sports, competition systems and requirements of horse material and framework for equine sports in Finland and plan and organize a horse event in a safe manner.  

There will not be a final exam but I will give the students two learning assignments to do which they will present in the classroom. Plus the tasks we will do in class.   continue..

I really should write more often my learning diary..

The christmas break was needed...

 In january we started a new subject: Guidance of learning and assessment.

Again a subject that I know nothing beforehand.  (I hate to start every task with this sentence.) This course we learned (and still continue) about how to guide students in learning process, how to use and study in different learning environments and about assessment. It seems that the assessment is the most hard and difficult thing in the whole teaching.

We did a presentation about learning environments in february. In a good learning environment are considered its physical, psychological and social aspects. Always the goal of the studies has to be in mind, what is the meaning and the wanted outcomes of the studying? How to organize the learning environment so that it benefits learning the most? In my teaching field, horses and equine industries, the best way and the best learning environment is working in the stable. Or to organize the events around horses, like trotting races or riding competitions. This brings me into planning my PTT course: Equine sports

The course is 5 credits in total but my part for the PTT will be 2,5 credits since the other half will be organized in the autumn. The course contains the different equine sports we have in Finland, how they are organized and the safety aspects included. Students will also learn about the rules of everymans rights considering horses and riding. I started the planning by trying to make the assessment criteria but it's too hard and I just have to get more knowledge about it before I can actually write them.  The other thing difficult (well everything about this is extremely difficult and I don't wan't to fail!) are the teaching methods and so on. We are now doing assignments about pedacogical content knowledge and I hope to learn something about the methods and how to apply them in real world teaching. It's so hard when I still have to learn these things my self and at the same time try to plan my teaching without being sure of what do these theories mean. Am I thinking about the right things even?