SUMMARY OF THE 3RD PROJECT PRESENTATIONS - Ayperi SAL

INCLUSIVE SCHOOLS (Amigos del Football)

Amigos del Football made a presentation about ‘Inclusive schools’. They started with the definition of the term and mentioned some important characteristics of the inclusice schools such as diversity, heterogeneity, equal rights for each student.

They talked about Gordon Porter, Tony Booth, Mel Ainscow and Gerardo Echeita, who support inclusive schools.

They highlighted the point that ‘inclusion’ and ‘integration’ are not the same terms. Integration means different people trying to have place in a group of people. However, inclusion means that everybody has the same rights and we all should respect each other. In our life we have to respect diversity so this kind of schools are ideal also to prepare the students for the real life. Despite its advantages, sometimes there may be difficulties due to the different policies and didactics.

They also talked about some strategies such as creating inclusive cultures, producing inclusive policies to get an ideal inclusive school.

We watched two videos: ‘Amanda Berri’s School’ and ‘O Pelouro’s School’. These videos were about the importance of the respect to the different learning styles and speeds. ‘Multiple Intelligences’ can be a good strategy to achieve this respect and promote a good learning experience.

To sum up, inclusive schools not only prepares the children for the real life but also promotes a good learning experience together with the important values such as, respect, understanding, empathy etc.

ICT AND LEARNING DISABILITIES (Cronicas Viajeras)

The topic that Cronicas Viajeras presented was ICT and Learning Disabilities. Their conceptual map was colorful and there were clear, brief explanations on it.

They talked about autism and its difficulties in social life, imagination, language etc. The technological devices that help these difficulties improve are tablets, games (pictogram, just dance, sing star).

The difficulties for the children with down’s syndrome are distractions, poor differentiation between old and new stimuli. Again, with technological devices like whiteboard and cameras, the memory and concentration of the students can be improved.

As a result of motor disability; physical and motor difficulties, unadapted facilities may create problems fort he students. At this point, mp3 musics, computers and laptops can be helpful to make improvement.

If we search and follow the benefits of technology fort he students with different needs, we can create a good, memorable learning experience for them.

ICT AND SCHOOL IMPROVEMENT (Team Perk)

Team Perk made a presentation about ICT (Information and Communication Technology) and School Improvement. Everything keeps changing and more and more technology is integrated into our lives. As a result, education system also is affected by this developments. Nowadays, the children grow up in connection with technology and they know how to use it. Using technology in the learning process can make the students more interested in the subject and we can make use of the technology as future teachers.

Sometimes it may be difficult for a teacher without technological skills to use it in a beneficial way. So, it is very important that teachers should follow the technology and try to improve their skills to create an effective learning atmosphere.

SOCIAL AND EMOTIONAL LEARNING (Wanderlust)

The presentation topic of Wanderlust was Social and Emotional Learning. I think this topic worth to understand deeply and put in the practice in our classrooms. Because we’re all human, we are learning not only theorical subjects but also life in the school. The diversity of the people also means diversity of the feelings. We, as teachers should be a good example fort he students about knowing and understanding ever emotion and feelings. This also helps them improve their empathy skills. We can’t be in the same mood all the time and this is very human, so the younger they learn these social and emotional situations, the better adults can they be.

In my opinion, understanding our feelings and making empathy with the people around us are very important skills that should be learnt and if we teach these subjects also in our classrooms, we can grow a healthy and happy society.

LEADERSHIP AND SCHOOL EFFECTIVENESS (Dumbledore Teacher’s Army)

Dumbledore Teacher’s Army team presented their topic with a colorful and clear conceptual map. They talked about the importance of a good leader fort he school effectiveness.

Why is leadership important for schools?

In fact, leadership is important in every part of a management. And the schools are the most important kind of management. In a business or factory, you manage the workers, finance, products etc. However managing a school is not only material but also a moral situation. If a school don’t have a good leader, there may be many difficulties in arranging school needs, lesson durations, children development, teacher quality and so on. Tos um up, leadership is important for every organization and the schools are the most important ones.

What are the characteristics of a good leader?

Firs of all, a good leader should be a good decision-maker. He/she must be able to affect people with a good diction. But if he/she doesn’t have a fund of knowledge and eager to learn new things, he/she can’t affect the people in a good way. As a result, a good leader must have a fund of knowledge, a good diction, ambition and should be organized.

INCLUSIVE SCHOOLS (Unknowns)

The Unknowns also made a presentation about Inclusive schools, which was presented by Amigos del Football. Each group highligted different points about it and they gave different information, so we had a chance to understand this topic deeply.

They started with a definition and gave the names of the people important in this subject like Porter, Ainscow, Booth and Echeita. Then, they talked about general ideas of the topic: inclusive education is the right of all children, they have chance to learn together and know each other. Also it’s important to remember that inclusive school is related to multicultural education. We can say that the inclusion is a single system for all and learning objectives are flexible.

Inclusive schools promote values such as democracy, justice, respect, dynamism, interaction, awareness and as a result we have a formative learning environment. After touching upon some benefits and difficulties of inclusive schools, they asked some personal questions, which were upon to discussion. Together with the videos, I think it was a attention-catching and informative presentation.

WAYS OF LIVING TOGETHER IN SCHOOLS (Modern Students)

As I always say, the school is the place where the students start to learn about life. As a result, learning to live together in the world starts with learning tol ive together in schools.

There were three main points in the presentation:

School maditation, which is a kind of technique to solve the problems in the school such as bullying, discrimination and disrespect towards the diversity. Thanks to the teachers, students learn how to solve their own problems and respect each other.

Program to support peers, which is similar to school mediation. The most important thing here is the cooperation and effective communication between the teachers and the students.

Archeology of feelings in school is a metaphor which was developed by Miguel Angel Santos Guerra. There are five steps in this process such as discovery, excavation, indagation, protection and exposure.

At the end of the presentation we saw a program called Kiva, developed in the University of Turku. Their aim with Kiva is to promote an anti-bullying approach, which shows us how a perfect school must be.

LEARNING COMMUNITIES (Musical Chairs)

Our presentation topic was Learning Communities. We preapared our conceptual map cooperatively and it was a very fruitful group work for me, so I’m sorry that we couldn’t have a chance to present it in the class.

The main idea in Learning Communities is that school and education are generally considered as it is about just between students, teachers and parents. However, in school we are actually educating the people that will form the society, we are educating future mothers, fathers, drivers, citizens and so on. Consequently, not only students, teachers and parents, but also every citizen should take the responsibility of education.

Community Learning gives us a chance to take this responsibility in coordination with the school. For instance, if a teacher teaches the students jobs, just talking and reading about different kind of jobs may be boring. However, if volunteers come to class and introduce their jobs to the students, this experience can be more enjoyable, attention-catching and memorable. The students can be informed by different point of views. They also can have chance to know social life of the volunteers.

This cooperation between everybody is actually what makes community learning special.

CONCLUSION:

In this last project we were informed and prepared for the different situations we may face in our classrooms. I think it is very important to know and learn these kind of things rather than just scientific and theorical information. The schools are the place where we learn and prepare for the life and I am sure with these important information we will do our best to give our students a great learning experience and a peaceful environment.