Sanasto, another association you might want to get familiar with...

Another association through which you can sort of get your money back if you're already a published author, based on library loans.

http://www.sanasto.fi/front-page/

The Finnish Association of Non-fiction Writers

Currently or about to start writing non-fiction work (i.e. course manual) and looking for financial and legal support ? This is for you!

http://www.suomentietokirjailijat.fi/en/

NEWS ABOUT FINLAND IN ENGLISH

YLE:
http://yle.fi/uutiset/news/

New collaboration between Helsingin Sanomat and Helsinki Times (now possible to read articles from HS translated into English)
http://www.helsinkitimes.fi/


Six Degrees newspaper
http://www.6d.fi/6d/

PISA related article

Shedding (new ?) light on Finland's PISA results 2013: The American perspective

New City of Knowledge project in Ecuador

I lived in Ecuador for a while... ages ago. A few weeks ago I was asked to host 2 guests from Ecuador at HAAGA-HELIA, as part of an official visit organized by the Finnish Ministry of Education and Culture. This is when I heard about the Yachay city of knowledge, a groundbreaking, ambitious and innovative project with a cutting edge university due to welcome its first students in the beginning of next year.
Interested or just curious to see what a small, not much spoken about South American country can achieve ? Check the video...

Pisa results 2012 slides available on Slideshare

If you missed yesterday's Pisa results webinar hosted by Andreas Schleicher it is now available on slideshare.

PISA 2012 Evaluating school systems to improve education from OECD Education

I hope it is possible to listen to the presentation and not just look at the slides. Some of them are rather complex and need oral explanations.

All in all, it was a rewarding experience to take part in this webinar, not only content wise (even if the focus was just on mathematics) but also method wise. It worked pretty well even if the sound quality wasn't optimum and thus made it a little harder at times to follow the conference. In the end participants had the chance to ask questions and the speaker did a good job at answering them.

As we know, Shanghai got the best results in all 3 subjects which made me wonder if there is any  price to pay for the students. I got the answer in today's (5.12) Helsingin Sanomat: pupils study very hard during the day and also at home and spare time doesn't exceed half a day per week. Also, self reflection is not encouraged. Parents and children are mostly interested in the grades rather than by learning itself.
And of course, Shanghai (together with Hong-kong) are exceptions as other regions in China suffer from the lack of qualified teachers, poor infrastructures and a huge number of pupils per class.

Did anyone take part in this webinar ? Any reflections you would like to share with us ? This is the place!

PISA RESULTS

If you are interested in Pisa results and related news, check the following link. Note that you can sign up for Pisa day (this will direct you to another page where you can have access to "Pisa in the news" and "resources") and  register for a webinar with OECD deputy director for education and skills.

http://www.oecd.org/pisa/

Recent news

http://www.helsinkitimes.fi/finland/finland-news/domestic/8490-funding-of-polytechnics-to-become-result-based.html

Feel free to share more links and comments in this blog!

November contact days and beyond

Thanks for your active participation during November contact days. Here are some comments and hopefully more food for thought.

About the guest speaker's lecture on legal issues in the teaching profession (slides on Moodle)

-All in all informative and interactive. The law can be interpreted in different ways by different people, namely employers, employees, students, parents…In most situations one can manage without a lawyer but if you are not a member of a teacher’s union yet you might want to consider to become a member of OAJ. Not much info in English though but you should be able to get some help in English too. If you’re not a member of any union and you lose your job, you are only entitled to the minimum unemployment benefit (680€/excluding taxes). If you lose your job, note that the union can financially support you only if you have been a member for 10 months. 

-Legal aspects vary according to the types of institutions, i.e whether you work for a private, state or municipal institution. In the last two it proves to be easier to discuss your rights. 

-According to the guest speaker « State schools are the ones with special needs ». I’m not sure what he meant by that but I assume he had the linguistic aspect in mind. In fact the state schools include the Finnish French school, the Russian school and the European school. 

-Qualification is still the key to full time permanent employment. In other words, the teaching certificate you will receive in December 2014 can make a difference. 

-UAS vs Polytechnics : the « old » terminology seems to die hard in many official documents. Note that the Finnish term remains unchanged : ammattikorkeakoulu.

About 3.3 empirical kick off session (slides on Moodle)

We hope you not only enjoyed the candies but that you also benefited from the session for tackling the empirical part of the assignment ! If you’re interested in our colleague’s Kimmo Mäki’s PHD thesis and understand Finnish you can find it at the library. Alternatively you can read the abstract in English.

Education Society and Culture

-One of the highlights of the contact days : 4 teams,  4 different approaches to sharing your findings with the whole group both content and method wise (cake metaphore, drama, filmed interviews, real time poster making). 

-Congratulations on your creative, illuminating, inspiring, varied, and untraditional « presentations » !

Teaching and Learning kick off (slides on Moodle)

The main objective was to open up teaching and learning from both a theoretical and practical perspective. Kolb’s learning cycle provides a framework for learning from one’s experiences. You can continue the activity we started together by relating the 4 stages of the cycle with your own experiences in a teaching and learning context. This might prove to be a useful tool during the teaching practice process. 

November contact days evaluation

What did you learn ? 

What could you transfer to your workplace and how could it be implemented with your students ? 

What do you need to learn more about ? etc. 

You can ponder these questions in the Moodle Wiki or equivalent.

Reminders, deadlines and other points

-If need be, keep working on your PDP and submit the new version(s) to Moodle

-13.1: Plan for Teacher Activity in Communities and Networks (3.3) in combination with Learning at Work (3.2) ; Teaching and Learning (3.2) 

-Keep elaborating the case that you and your team chose last Tuesday in connection with 3.3. More info will come later about the implementation part. 

-Mistake : 12.5.2014 : 3.5 (and not 3.3) Developmental project plan (see list of tentative deadlines)

-The earlier your start with teaching and guidance counseling observations (part of 3.4), the better. It might be a good idea to share your teaching schedule with your team and in fact the whole group (Moodle general discussion forum). And of course, you can also observe your colleagues or any teacher at any school. This shouldn't be a problem as schools are usually very open in Finland. Discuss with your team what you could focus on during these observations.

Best of luck with the assignments, meetings and whatever you will undertake before we meet again in January.

PS: any urgent questions ? David can probably help when Irmeli is on vacation! 

Welcome!

This will be a place, where the guidance counselors of HAAGA-HELIA School of Vocational Teacher Education English Group 2013 share and reflect during the next 1,5 years. We suggest all of you in English Group 2013 subscribe to this blog either by joining the blog as a reader from the gadget in the left margin, or by subscribing by email, also that gadget is available on the left. The blog layout is still under construction, but already now you can check our Google Calendar and follow the newest bookmarks on our Diigo-site. More to come later, when David and Irmeli are back onboard in August. Stay tuned! - Irmeli