Comenius Newsletter Spring 2014 - murciaeduca.es · 2014. 7. 2. · Comenius Newsletter Spring 2014 Development of teaching models to support methodological skills Preparatory visit

Comenius Newsletter Spring 2014

Development of teaching models to support methodological skills

Idea of the project

Development of teaching models to support methodological skills is a

multilateral Comenius Project 2013-2015 between the following five schools:

1. Grundschule Baiersdorf, Baiersdorf, Germany, homepage: www.grundschule-baiersdorf.de

2. Volkschule Stainz, Stainz, Austria, homepage:

www.vs-stainz.at 3. Eggeslevmagle Skole, Skaelskoer, Denmark, homepage:

www.eggeslevmagle-skole.dk

4. Colegio Rural Agrupado Entretierras Torre Pacheco, El Jimenado -

Torre Pacheco, Spain, homepage: www.murciaeduca.es/crajimenado 5. Wilds Minne Skole, Kristiansand, Norway, homepage:

www.minskole.no/wildsminne

The influence of international studies of educational achievement such as PISA,

TIMMS and the yearly OECD-report has made the schools aware of differences

between the pupils' achievements both inside and between the countries in

Europe. These studies clarify among other things the link between the used

teaching methods and the pupils' learning results. Methodological competence

is an important basis for successful learning. It is the schools' responsibility to

develop the pupils' methodological skills.

The goal of the project is to develop and exchange models of teaching that

concentrate on promoting the acquisition of methodological skills.

Therefore the partners of the project develop together and exchange teaching

methods to increase the pupils' learning strategies. For successful learning it is

important to have the competence to choose between various learning

methods and use them.

http://www.grundschule-baiersdorf.de/

http://www.vs-stainz.at/

http://www.eggeslevmagle-skole.dk/

http://www.murciaeduca.es/crajimenado

http://www.minskole.no/wildsminne



The project focuses primarily on educational, methodical and school

organizational issues that must be discussed by teachers and school leaders,

processed and implemented in the partner schools with students in practice.

Participating primary schools learn from the exchange of best-practice

examples from each other and develop specialized and interdisciplinary

teaching models with the objective of acquiring and promoting method

competence for students mainly aged 6 to 12 years.

The project will therefore give the pupils, teachers and headmasters valuable

intercultural knowledge. These issues will be addressed through the mobilities

and the local activities.

Between the project meetings local activities to similar topics will take place in

each partner region. The link between the thematic project meetings and the

local activities will support and guarantee the systematical progress of the

project.

We will create a website (wordpress) that will be used to produce newsletters

and twitter. This is the way to document the process.

We will produce a conclusion book to implement new teaching models. We will

offer information about our activities to the local newspapers in order for them

to publish articles. We will write summaries to reflect what we have done at

each mobility.

The project will be evaluated (survey) through the qualitative and quantitative

indicators.

Cooperations with universities are planned.



Preparatory visit in Germany

The first meeting with all the participants in our Multilateral Comenius project

2013-2015 “development of teaching models to support methodological skills

took place in Baiersdorf, Germany from the 3rd to the 6th of February 2013.

Four of the five involved countries met. We had two long days of meetings to

prepare the final application to be sent to our local offices for Educational and

Culture Lifelong learning program Comenius. We learned a lot about our

different – and equal – schools, and discussed both methods of teaching as

well as ways of organizing the schools.

We spent time visiting classrooms at Grundschule Baiersdorf. We started with

a warm Welcome ceremony at the Gymnastic hall, were the pupils had

prepared songs for us, among other things. They sure knew how to talk

English! We also visited classrooms to experience “best practice examples”.

The teacher had prepared activities in German/Orthography with methods

called carousel, STEX, placemat and gallery.



Additional program during our Preparatory visit in Germany

We also had time for informal meetings with the teachers, both at school and

at dinner at the headmasters home, and we had an excursion to Fränkische

Schweiz.

The Norwegian team left later than the other countries, and therefor they had

the privilege of sightseeing in Nürnberg as well.



Scenes from Nürnberg…

Presentation of the 5 schools

During our stay, we also had a thorough presentation of the different schools

that are participating in this project. We had to write a description in our

application – in addition to a presentation for each other.

Veronika from Austria presents her school.



The German School - Grundschule Baiersdorf

Grundschule Baiersdorf is a primary

school from grade 1 to 4 with about 25

teachers and 250 pupils aged between 6

and 10 years. Baiersdorf (7450

inhabitants) is situated in northern

Bavaria 30 km to the north of Nürnberg

and 30 km to the south of Bamberg. The

school was built in 1959 and has been

renovated between 2005 and 2007. A new sports hall in 2008 and the renewed

outdoor facilities in 2009 have been the last achievements.

We believe that school should be a living space as well as a learning space, so

our main focus is on the pupils’ individual needs. We encourage and challenge

children according to their skills and try to develop their self- and achievement

motivation as much as possible. We try to open their eyes and minds in

different directions. Our school is taking part in contests like “Känguru” for

pupils who like mathematics or the yearly reading-competition.



Our school day begins at 8.15 and ends at 13.15. Optional work groups are

offered to the pupils in the afternoon such as ballet, choir, computer, theatre,

gardening, pottery, self-defence, basketball, tennis and ice skating. A

mediation course allows pupils to settle their disputes themselves.

Pupils can attend the after school care club until 17.00.

Festivities like our “rendezvous of artists” last summer include parents and

families of our pupils and offer great chances to intensify our relationship.



The Austrian School – Volkschule Stainz

Primary school Stainz is located in a suburban area in the south-west of Styria.

There are a lot of small schools in our area. The capital of Styria (Graz, 260

000 inhabitants) is 30 km away. We benefit from our regional structures. We

have good connections to parents and to the local institutions. We closely work

together with the school authority; therefore this project is of great importance

for us.

In our school there are 145 pupils at the age from 6 to 10. 12 teachers are

working in our school. A part of our pupils use the childcare in the afternoon,

which takes place in the schoolhouse. At the time there are no pupils with

special needs and with social problems in the school.

Together with our project partners we want to reach the defined aimes and

endorse them in every step. By this project we want to get to know the

pedagological situations of our partners, we want to share our experiences and

we want to improve our own methodological skills.

Team Austria: Walter Eichmann and Veronika Langmann



The Danish School – Eggeslevmagle Skole

Eggeslevmagle School is a public school situated in West Zealand, Denmark.

We are a Danish school with about 725 students and in this year we are in our

second Comenius project and have some experience with international project

in EU. The students are aged from 6 to 16 years.

Eggeslevmagle/Skaelskoer is a fairly disadvantaged area and a socially

deprived area. The town Skaelskoer has about 6.000 habitants. The pupils

come from the town and the outskirts as well as the countryside areas. We

receive pupils from primary schools from 7th form as our community has

several primary schools scattered in our countryside and our neighboring

islands. We feel the school has a huge responsibility to develop the young

people into tolerant and open-minded persons. We do have a lot of students

who have never been abroad and therefore are very much attached to their

local areas.

The school has developed an international class which has become quite

popular in the region - there are (June 2013) only 4 public schools in Denmark

with international classes - and having a future partnership with other

European countries will give a lot of opportunities to develop our students as

well as our school. We do believe that a Comenius project offers ideal

opportunities and teach our youngsters to become European Citizen and we

think that we can offer a lot to this future project.



The Spanish School – Colegio Rural Agrupado Entretierras Torre

Pacheco

Our primary school is divided into three branches that are located in three

small villages along the coast of southeastern Spain (In the Murcia Region).

We are located in an agricultural and disadvantaged area with low

socioeconomic status. We have about 190 students and 23 teachers.

We are involved in a Spanish-English bilingual program, using CLIL

methodology (Content and Language Integrated Learning) to teach in English

for 30% of our curriculum. On the other hand, we teach French to students

aged 10 - 12. At the headquarters of the school (Jimenado) there are 8

classes, 7 of them have same aged students within the class, and there is a

mixed-age class with students of 5th and 6th grades. In the branches of

“Meroños” and “Los Olmos” there are mixed-age classes, i.e. groups including

students of different ages and academic levels in the same classroom.

We are hard-working people who apply new information and communication

technologies, are interested in learning, in seeing our school progress, and in

forming collaborative projects and activities where pupils can be involved in

order to apply what they learnt. We believe that this multilateral project would

help our students to broaden their horizons, know about European schools, to

express themselves in English and to improve their oral skills by talking to our

partners about our country, and our teachers will have the opportunity to

exchange innovative methodological skills to improve academic results of the

children.



Team Spain: Fulgencio Garijo Castellanos and Antonio Ortiz Calvo



The Norwegian School – Wilds Minne School

Wilds Minne Primary School is situated in the southern part of Norway. It has

approx. 330 pupils in the age 6-12. The school has about 40 employees, where

25 are teachers. The teachers work 2 or 3 together in teams, but they are also

organized in teams with teachers from step 1.-4th and teams with teachers

from step 5.- 7th.

The school has over the last three years focused specifically on pupils learning

and social skills. We ensure education for all through "MILL", that is Many

Intelligences, Learning styles and Learning strategies - with main focus on

Learning strategies. We have also worked with ICT (using smart boards in all

classrooms) and focused on the management of groups in learning - classroom

management.

Our school has pupils of various social backgrounds. We hope to broaden our

perspective when it comes to teaching Learning strategies when working with

teachers methodological skills. These are connected themes, only different

perspective (pupil-teacher perspective, and teacher-pupil perspective).

Wilds Minne School, Kristiansand, Norway



School Vision: “Learning and development for all”

Value Platform, "DU = dyktig og unik" (Dyktig –

skillful, Unik – unique)

At Wilds Minne School we are focusing specifically on students learning and social

skills. We ensure learning for all through focus areas MILL (Many Intelligences,

Learning strategies and Learning styles), ICT and focus on the management of groups

in learning - classroom management.

The School was established in 1959, and today there are approximately 339 students

and about 80 of those attend after school daily. Although the school buildings are old,

the school's new outdoor area was completed in the spring of 2010. In 2012 the town

house Roligheden opened, and the school disposes now its own gymnasium in the

joint use of recreational Administration and Roligheden kindergarten. The gym is used

on a daily basis throughout the year, and additionally used as a venue for various

school events. There are approximately 40 employees at the school. The

management, teachers, day-care employees, workers, caretakers and cleaners are

working together for a better environment.

“How do we teach them if we don’t know how they learn?”

“When children do not learn the way we teach them, we must teach them the

way they learn.”

The two quoting’s from Dr. Rita and Kenneth Dunn emphasizes that in all types of

learning we believe it can improve pupils motivation, achievements and self-



consciousness if they are encouraged by their teachers to use their different skills and

assumptions for learning; their different intelligences.

Wilds Minne School believes that an exchange of experience between schools in

Europe through our project “Development of teaching models to support

methodological skills” will improve the way we already teach our pupils and

furthermore that it will develop their digital competence and language skills.

The objective of the project is to improve and further develop our school’s focus areas

– MILL (many Intelligences, learning strategies and learning styles) through the

exchange of experiences between the schools. Special emphasis will be on

collaboration with other schools who work with learning strategies - to expand

opportunities for students to become familiar with their own learning strategies (own

intelligence), sharing experiences with the preparation of the learning strategy

staircase which our school has developed. The sharing of “best practice” with schools

in Europe will stimulate our students and teachers furthermore.

We want everyone to feel comfortable in a good and safe environment, both physically

and mentally. Wilds Minne has been an LP-school (Learning and Pedagogical analysis)

since 2006. Kristiansand municipality developed this model further from 2012 in order

to make sure all schools in the municipality use a certain standard when it comes to

working with the students' learning environment. All teachers at the school are

familiar with the model. It is not a teaching program, but a discussion model for

teachers, technicians and assistants in schools - to ensure good monitoring of pupils'

learning environment.



Overall ambition for FLiK in Kristiansand is an inclusive learning environment for all

children and youths in Kristiansand. The moral purpose is that every child and student

shall realize their potential for learning and growth, ”No child left behind.”

International, national and local research emphasizes the significance of learning

environment in terms of learning development and student achievement. Purposes are

to establish a common developmental and educational platform for improving learning

environments for all children, students and professional adults. We want to create

practices that can effectively respond to child/student diversity, identify and replace

”wrong drivers” - policy forces that has little chance of achieving the desired results -

with ”right drivers” that ends up achieving better measurable results for all children

and youths..

Effect targets

Enhance social and academic learning outcome.

Reduce scope of segregating measures for children who may need extra

preparation.

Create learning communities that provide experienced affiliation - reduce bullying.



Partners in the FliK- project are

1) Laboratorium for research-based school development and pedagogical practice

- LSP), University of Aalborg.

2) Center for practice-oriented educational research, University college of

Hedmark

3) The University of Agder (situated in Kristiansand)

Team Norway: Hamed Dawood and Eirik Nørskov Nielsen – and Jorunn Aanensen Kalvik (photographer…)



1st Comenius Meeting in Denmark

Summary by team Spain

Teachers of the Danish Center "Eggeslevmagle Skole" welcomed into this

meeting twelve teachers from all the countries members of the Association of

education.

The first activity was an interesting welcome that students of the higher grades

offered about their country, their culture and their school.

Activities included the participation of teachers in various kinds of different

educational levels, to apply different methodologies in various curricular areas.

In 0th grade we observed how students used laptops; these laptops are shared

by several classrooms. The use of the PDI for reading a story (2nd grade) or

PowerPoint presentations to support the explanations in science (8th grade) is

part of the daily development of classes. Students work in various groupings -

large group, small groups, in pairs and individually – and computers remain a

common tool. At higher levels the students carry their own computers to

school. In 4th grade teachers could observe how students worked chronology

(timeline) simultaneously performing different tasks with computer and text

books.

Another lesson that teachers could take part was Maths in 8th grade. Students

- in pairs - worked calculation of probability with dices, recording the results on

their computers and then explaining its findings obtained through practice. In

this classroom it is important to highlight the continuous interaction between

students and teacher and the fact that is was developed in English.

In 7th grade students developed a cooperative work about richness and poverty

in the world. To carry out this project they worked on their computers,

searching information and creating their own reports to make the final

“newspaper”, using TITANPAD.



Spanish Team

Fulgencio Garijo Castellanos

Belén Celdrán Gallego

José Luis Navarro Gil

1st Comenius mobility in Denmark, 07.-12.10.2013

Summary by team Germany

Preparations organized by the host

Accommodation: We enjoyed the nice view to the sea and had a

comfortable stay at Hotel Kobaek Strand.

Food: The selection of restaurants and the selfmade snacks made us feel

welcome and like real vikings.

Cultural Program: The Program was very well chosen and had a lot of

variations. The viking museum was one of the cultural highlights.

Eggeslevmagle Skole

Setting: We have been impressed by the huge school area and the

buildings where the kids have many opportunities for being active.



Technical equipment: Smartboards and laptops are installed in all

classrooms. We discovered consequent learning and early media

education.

Classroom hospitation – the lessons

The teachers gave a lot of positive feedback to the students.

The lesson program was visualized for the students.

Pupils talked about their learning processes and progress.

A lot of pupils had Impressive English skills.

The used method of “project work” was very motivating for the pupils

(topics: Christian IV, food).

Teachers and pupils talking time was sometimes not in balance.

The focus was on the use of media. A clear distinction between media,

teaching methods and learning methods is desirable.

Thank you very much…

for the perfect welcome-presentation,

for the warm and familiar feeling,

for the organizing efforts,

that the Danish team took part in the activities,

for a lot of fun, humor and nice evenings.




Summary by team Norway

Hospitality and professionalism from the staff

Buildings and surroundings look neat

The surroundings invites to activities for the pupils

Good to see different classes and grades

Pupils were friendly, well behaved

The teachers looked relaxed and comfortable



Teaching Methods

Well prepared lessons from both Janne and Line – and the other teachers at school, some with hand-out sheets

Some differences in teaching equipment/materials and computer

software

Some similarities and some differences in teaching methods compared to Norway

What did we also see…?

Smart boards, blackboards, computers - computers in special cabins to move

around in the school buildings, new and old classrooms, well equipped

classrooms – a variety in what you see in the classrooms of the different

grades, smart phones, playgrounds, sportsfields, iPads, wall decorations,

teachers secret rooms… YOU NAME IT!

Activities taking place

Pupil-teacher conversations

Pupils working alone

Pupils working in pairs

Pupils working in small groups

Pupils working with computers – from the first to the ninth grade

Pupils working in books

Pupils participating and not participating

The Comenius project so far

Good leadership from John in variety of activities every day

Well lead by Markus, makes us “hold the line”



Team building/Social bonding - important

The different schools have brought friendly staff in to the project!

Interesting pedagogical discussion along the way


Summary by team Austria

Austria goes to Denmark!

From the 7th October to the 12th October 2013 we had our first Comenius-

meeting in Denmark, where we got a lot of positive impressions that we

brought back home.

Our Danish colleagues made a very warming reception and they caused us

beautiful and varied days.

We were surprised about how much all the students at the Danish school work

with modern media. Smart Boards and Computers are used from kindergarden

on in everyday situations. As a result of this work all the students are well

prepared for future demands.

With a “jealous” eye we recognized the big school area, which gives so much

room for moving and activity. We were very impressed about that as well.

All in all we have seen new things and we had a great and interesting stay with

all our Comenius partners!

Dear John, Lia, Janne and Line, thank you for all your preparations and for

your charming hospitality!

More info on www.comeniusfive.wordpress.com or follow the

project twitter account @Comenius201315

http://www.comeniusfive.wordpress.com/

Documents

Comenius Newsletter Spring 2014 - murciaeduca.es · 2014. 7. 2. · Comenius Newsletter Spring 2014 Development of teaching models to support methodological skills Preparatory visit