Special needs education 5.05-9.05.14

Special needs education by Simo Uusinoka, M.Ed., Senior Lecturer & Irmeli Lignell, M.Ed. Senior Lecturer

  As Simo mentioned in his presentaion Special needs education is the practice of educating students with special needs in a way that adresses their individual differences and needs. he considered different definitions about What is a special or special needs education? and briefly explained a history of the special needs education. 

Teachers' role and responsibilities in this case diagnosing students' education and support needs, prescribing the programs to meet these needs, developing instuctional objectives and goals, preparing lesson plans for an entire class, modifying strategies and curriculum content to meet the instructional objectives established  for individual students.

  After theoretical part we was divided into groups and we worked in the groups. We had an activity like a station, at the every station we had certain task to do. By doing these tasks we tryed to understand deeply this topic. Because all those tasks we performed as students who has some disabilities. We got a bit experience and different emotions.

 Thanks a lot Simo and Irmeli.

Guidance and counselling 23.04-30.04.14

Study guidance and counselling by Päivi Pukkila, M.Ed., Senior Lecturer & Taina Poutanen, Senior Lecturer.

We had a productive week with Paivi and Taina. They are experts of the field. Fisrt of all I want to focus on What role does play councellor? As said Paivi on the lesson The main roles which plays counsellor are 
•Empathic and understanding•Respectful and caring •Concrete and being spesific •Genuine and being real •Immediacy – what’s happening now?•Confrontation – tell it how it is•Self-disclosure – personal information    (Carkhuff: Art of helping)
          In the Basic education study counsellors start their work with 7-9 grade students. The objectives and content of the study counselling is determined in The National core curriculum. The class based lessons consists 76 hours and considers next themes: 
–7.th grade: self-knowledge, learning skills
–8.th grade: professions, occupations
–9. th grade: upper secondary schools.
 Study councellors responsible for personal counselling, study visits, work experience periods, co-operation with parents, student welfare team etc., National joint application system (grade 9), transfer to the next school level.
       In the general upper secondary schools study counsellors have one compulsory course in counselling which is defined by a National core curriculum. Study counsellors are in charge of the personal counselling, planning the studies and courses, Matriculation examination, career counselling, tutoring students training, students welfare team, marketing.
      Taina gave us such as very useful presentation about the Career counselling. We did some activities with Taina abot Self-knowledge. 
  1st task. We worked  in a group of 5. Fisrtly we wrote on the paper our successful event in our career. Then we shared our thoughts. After that we draw up a picture of our competences and skills.
  2nd task. Hand-Inventory of competencies. Where she draw a hand, then in every finger she wrote competencies which she has. It is like what kind of competencies do you have and which one do you need to develop. It will help to find out strengths and weaknesses. 
  On the reflection day we had a lesson with both of lecturers. We did a lot of work.
    The first activity was 'Remembering the future' where we should think about us after 5 years, our goals, dreams, what we achieved. Then we imagined that we met after these 5 years and talked about our achievements, job etc. Then we just expressed our thoughts. 
    The second activity was 'Thinking hats'. Red hat - feelings, emotions; Black hat- ctiticism, bad sides, risks, mistakes; White hat - facts, knowledge; Green hat - creative thinking, ideas.
In the groups we discussed about this week from these points of view and wrote our statements. 
  Thanks a lot for our lecturers, they did big work with us.

CIMO 22.05.2014

    Today we have been to Helsinki and visited Centre for International Mobility and Cooperation in Finland. It has been existing for 25 years. They gave us presentaion about their work, direction and deeply information. Established in 1991, CIMO is an independent agency under the Finnish Ministry of Education and Culture and they are funded by government, EU, Nordic coutries foundation.

   The main task of this organization is to promote international cooperation and mobility in the Finnish society with specific emphasis on education, training, working life, culture and young people. To this end, we implement various exchange, trainee and scholarship programmes. 

CIMO also supports the teaching of Finnish Studies at universities outside Finland, with a focus on language and culture. One of the key duties is also to gather, process and distribute relevant information to serve the needs of our many different customers.

Multicultural and inter cultural learning 19.05-23.05.14

During this week we worked with Riitta Metsänen and Leila Nisula.
First of all Leila gave a presentation about 'Internationalizing the higher education'. then we discussed about What does culture shock mean? In a group we did short presentations.

Kiipula VET

6.05.14

We have visited vocational school for special needs students. First of all project director Mr. petteri Ora gave us a short presentation about this school, history of this school, some information which consists of different projects. The first school was found in 1939 year, the Kiipula foundation found in 1945. As I mentioned they have an exchange projects. Students and teachers have possibilities to go abroad for 2-3 weeks. It is important they do their best to find job for their students. They work with companies collaboratively. The Kiipula vocational college has  a project involves prisoners. It is like a rehabilitation center for them. 

 After this principle Mr. Markku Aunola continued explanation about this college. Firstly he described his own experience. He worked as lecturer in HAMK, then he changed his job and now he has been working for 14 years. 

 Principle of the college described the path of becoming a teacher for special needs students. 

   Vocational teacher:

- higher education;

- 3 years of working experience;

- 60 credit pedagogical course;

- 60 credits special needs teacher training.

 Shortly he spoke about salary of teacher and special needs teachers earn 20% more salary than others. 

  The college designed for 600 students. The government allocates about 33 000 euros per student. 

During the meeting our teachers asked different questions. We had some kind of discussion. 

Seminar in a Lahti

Kemppi oy company.
  This company has partnerships with vocational schools.
  They provide Equipment machines and softwares.  Industrial company. 
You should have different skills for your working life. In the graphic we could see what we should develop for it.
  He asks in the interview What you can do?  What kind of skills do you have for this job? And you should know what to answer. 
  'Talk less work more' he liked this statement when he was in India.
Thinking about other things usually we are missing our main goals.

Singapore's experience in a work based learning.

Financing 100 from government.
Policy of ITE's : hands-on,  minds-on,  hearts- on.

17.04.14 lesson observation

Today I have observed English lesson in the Kauriala upper secondary school.  Riita is English teacher and firstly she gave for students test where students should complete the sentences. After this task she gave them answer and they discussed about some challenges that they had during the test.
Secondly they did grammar tasks. Main grammar topic was the passive voice. Thirdly they translated from Finnish into English. I have noticed that they weren't so active.
Then Riita gave them written on the paper sentences or statements and in small groups discussed about one of them.
At the back sat two boys. They sometimes disturbed, but teacher didn't pay attention to them.
Next task was about names. She told them history of her name. Then in a groups of four students answered for the questions in the book. We also participated in this discussion.