What I have learned from Working-life Orientation

Working-life Orientation is one of the VOC2 5 themegroups, which student teachers have created a learning environment for other group of students to learn about working-life at Finnish Vocational Education and Training institutions.

Imange from: http://www.millennium-project.org/millennium/challeng.html

 

Here are my answers for the questionnaire in the part 6: What did you learn?

 

 

 

1.     Find in the framework of working-life oriented learning the key aspect you find most important at the moment. Why did you choose this aspect?

Thank you for the teacher team of working-life Orientation, I have learned quite much about the working-life learning through the tasks given to us from the excellent learning environment.

I would say the key aspect I have found from the framework of working-life oriented learning is that I would like to expend my views on working-life from now to the future aspect. Because the future is the time which new technologies will play major roles to improve globalized educational systems, I would like to be the one of the changing forces to get there.

 

2.     What are the working-life oriented learning environments that you have experienced as most useful and why?

I have done two working-life learning experiences as a job-seeker to know about whether I would like to change my career from IT engineer to teacher. It was useful experience to get to know about working-life in Finnish educational institutions. Although, I have learned, managed and collaborated well through performing my tasks, I have found my-self that the working places were not ideal for my future.  So the best learning from the experiences was I need to move forward to develop myself further and find other opportunities sometime later. 

 

3.     In your opinion what are the key factors for successful working-life oriented learning guidance and why?

In my opinion, key factors for successful working-life oriented learning guidance is to find the position of myself where my natural skills and attitudes to be contributed when collaborating with all the parties.  In the natural state of mind, I am more collaborative and creative to resolve any problems or issues occurring in the working-life environment.

 

4.     What was your personal take away from the interview about developing your future working-life competences?

I as a prospective teacher of ICT subject, I would like to seek more information how world will be changed and why. This is because not only for my sake of knowing but for guiding students to the right direction considering the overall picture of global changes.  This kind of future know-how will help me to be motivated for further searching and developing my skills needed in the future.

 

 

Written by SMKD

Working-life in 2030 based on the foresight reports

Working-life Orientation is one of the VOC2 5 theme groups, which student teachers have created a learning environment for other group of students to learn about working-life at Finnish Vocational Education and Training institutions.

Here is the interview that Minna and I did in order to accomplish the task described in the part 4 Competences Development. This task has been guided to use oral interview method, however, we did the interview via email due to challenges in time arrangement.

 

 

Read the article 'Future or Fiction?'  and reflect it during the interview.
 

 

Minna:

 

A. What are the challenges of the future working-life from educational point of view?

In my opinion the challenges from the educational point of view are the facts that the students spend less time in the classroom learning "the traditional" way. In this the teacher (tutor) has to plan (and tie) the teaching material directly to one student and the working place. Since most of the learning takes place at a working place this can also be challenging from the educational point of view. The teacher has to make sure the students are familiar with the theory of the subject they're learning. The teacher needs to work closely with the working places and students. This means that the (teaching) material is different depending on the place where the student is learning.

B. Why do you think that the prediction of the article Future or Fiction was or wasn't realistic?

I think there was some truth to the article. I don't think that this will happen in five to ten years, more like fifteen to twenty years. This requires changes in several areas, laws, curriculum, attitudes etc. I do think that the vocational studies will be even more practical in the future. I think that the lenght of the vocational education might shorten and a lot of the teaching and learning will move to the working places. This will require the teachers to create new methods of teaching the theories before the students take them to practice.

C. Think about your educational history and describe what are those learned skills that have carried you further in your working-life?

I think that in my educational history the fact that I have studied abroad has widen the way I think about people and the world. I have learned to become active and open to new things. I think this has carried me where I am today. Also my education and working experience in different parts of Finland and Europe and growing up in a bilingual city has probably made me a more open person to new things than maybe the average "typical Finn" might be.

D. How do you make sure that your knowledge about the future working life is up to date?

I have to keep up the good relationships to the working life and create new ones. Also being open to new possible working places is also crucial. I have to reguarly step into the role of the student and be willing to learn myself and from the students. I also need to be willing to recieve feedback from students and act upon it. In my field of work I do hope that in the future there will not be simulator teaching and computer programs that teach basic nurses. In my opinion I think that when working with people (and for people) this is impossible to carry out and learn how to become an expert in the social field.

 

Mikyong:

 

A. What are the challenges of the future working-life from educational point of view?

 

Some of challenges in educational level are already started as a form of online teaching, and it will lead the future trends of education to be changed more rapidly. Driven by new telecommunication technologies, and more easily accessible divides and applications will be the force of changing educational systems. Nowadays, Mass Open Online courses (MOOCs) are available for higher-level students for free of charge. It will be big concerns for the schools which are not able to change their inefficient education systems.

Furthermore, I think that not only educational systems but also business will be moved to the direction of mobilizing the way of working and collaborating employees and customers based on online business platforms. In the future, I think we may have very different working-life styles than current working-life concepts. Probably the future vocational teachers may not need to develop their subject-related competences in depth, but tailored coaching and consulting skills to develop as more required working-life competences.

 

B. Why do you think that the prediction of the article Future or Fiction was or wasn't realistic?

 

I think that the article is quite realistic based on the current changes in the education system driven by MOOCs and Finland has aims to achieve the best educational system in the world.

But I would like to mention couple of points which may not correct foresights. If we think more logically about the future changes comes from many dimensions. First of all, the article says that the teacher will teach only the basics of the field and the teaching is integrated to the actual working places. But I am not quite sure about how the working place can be arranged if there are new types of working-life in the future. For example, if mobilized business requires employees to work in their home-office as a virtual working environment, working-life oriented learning should be moved also into the virtual world not into working places.

And other point is, in the future, teaching materials would be ready by some other teachers in locally or internationally, and the materials will be stored in the educational database system which is available for all the parties connected to the school system. So the future teachers may not need to use more time to plan and complement the teaching materials but use less time to make tailored materials for students’ need. If this tailored material can be produced by the future machines, there will not be so much work to do by teachers. 

 

C. Think about your educational history and describe what are those learned skills that have carried you further in your working-life?

 

If I think about the new future technology which will do quite much of teachers’ work e.g. transferring knowledge and competences to students, thus teacher’s roles will be changed as technology advanced. As the foresight 2030 report says that skills needed for students in the future will be media reading skills, self-management and expression, and practical life management and working-life skills. I think what I am learning and going to learn from the iVET program is quite much related to the skills needed in the future.

Applying the future trends of global and multicultural working environment to my situation, my skills learned from the previous work e.g. communication, intercultural and international collaboration skills may play the roles alongside with the above mentioned skills.

 

D. How do you make sure that your knowledge about the future working life is up to date?

 

We live in the life-long learning era, and I imagine the future learning will be more fun, enjoyable and accessible via internet for all the people who want to continuously update their competences. So considering the future trend and Finnish excellent educational system, I will easily update ICT field of working life competences by utilizing MOOCs, other methods of leaning media or learnings provided by open universities as examples. I will try to keep in mind, mental flexibility, open and positive mind as for adapting the future changes.

 

 

Source:

·       Foresight 2030: http://tulevaisuus.2030.fi/en/working-life-in-the-future/the-best-educational-system-in-the-world/

 

·       Park, Y. Glenn, J. Gorden, T. and Florescu, E. 2013. State of the Future. Kyobo

Written by SMKD

 

Accessing Learning

I as from the generation who was measured by mainly examinations for attainments of learning, I don’t like the methods of assessment. It is because it creates high sensitive and completive learning environment, usually in this environment, students see their peer students as not collaborators but as competitors. And they are labeled with their grades, although the exam method can measure only a snapshot of learners’ cognitive knowledge.

As learning theories advanced from cognitivist to constructivist and to experientialist theory, assessment methods has been developed from the traditional way to contemporary way. Now a days, for example essay, portfolios, projects methods are more recommended for accessing higher education students learning experiences. According to the constructivism based learning objectives, students should learn skills like Social & Communication skills, Collaboration skills,  Problem solving skills and Critical thinking skills, which are needed in the world of work. It means that learning should take place as a social contexts and students are encourage to learn and perform or demonstrate their skills and knowledge in collaborative team environments.  In that sense, portfolio is a good method to access students learning progress, weaknesses and strengths, and achievements from their reflective point of view.

When I considering my field of subject as ICT, I need to use some other methods for increasing efficiency and effectiveness of teachings. What kind of assessment methods will be used for my training? I need to think about the dependencies of who are the target students? what are the objectives? how to achieve the objectives? who will assess? and so on. If I have concrete learning outcomes for the target students, it would not so difficult to choose assessment methods. But how to ensure the fairness and validity of assessments, how to motivate students with the chosen assessment methods will be remained as challenges.

References: Jarvis, P. Holford, J. & Griffin, C. 2003.The theory & practice of Learning, Routledge. 157-170

Teaching Methods used in VET

I made teaching videos based on the Power Point materials used for the VOC1-4 session by my group Freire.

What is learning through discussion?

                                     

                                  What other methods can be used in vocational teaching?

Discussion vs. Dialogue

      VOC 1-4 topics for the group Freire:

      What is learning through discussion? What other methods can be used in vocational teaching?

    

      VOC 1-4 session has held at 13-16 on 1.10.2013. Unexpectedly, there were only two iVET room sessions arranged instead of three due to other team members absent. First iVET room had relatively small members (about 4 participants) than our iVET2 room (about 9 participants).

      I expected that we, 4 members of Freire team in iVET2 room, needed to discuss about re-arranging our tasks for this sudden situation, but it turned out that it was proceeded as it planned which made at the beginning of the session. As a result, I did not have a chance to teach but observed our team members’ performance. In my opinion, this kind of unexpected experience was the hardest part of the game that I had to learn how to adapt the situation as a part of my learning. As the following 7 Principles of VET Methods described, I felt like there were always hidden games in every situation of learning environment. I saw myself, I was not so flexible enough to understand and react for the situation. By my nature, I prefer to have well organized and relaxing learning situation with equal opportunities.


When I searched information of what is learning through discussion? I have found that dialogue seems more effective communication method in group or organization to collaborate with people. When dialogue is practised with empathetic listening skills, they said that, it is possible to create a flow of meaning in an entire group so that some new understanding will emerge. This in turn will create a "shared meaning" in the group that serves as the glue or cement that will hold the group together. Is dialogue holding a key to improve human relationship?
When I searched information of what is learning through discussion? I have found that dialogue seems more effective communication method in group or organization to collaborate with people. When dialogue is practised with empathetic listening skills, they said that, it is possible to create a flow of meaning in an entire group so that some new understanding will emerge. This in turn will create a "shared meaning" in the group that serves as the glue or cement that will hold the group together. Is dialogue holding a key to improve human relationship? 

Anyway, I was quite disappointed about the session, because I did not have a chance to execute the plan although I had put so much of my time and effort for the teaching preparation. What made me worse was when I heard so much complains from some of our team members about the Power Point material, which I was proud of because with my effort it had developed into a new level comparing with the preliminary version.  After all, I was sick for many days after the VOC1-4 session. Many doubts were occurred in my mind due to experiencing of the negative sides of team play and discussion method. I have to go back to the point of beginning of this iVET learning, ask questions how much we are far away from the holistic way of teaching and learning, what cased these problems and how to make it better. For me, it is the hardest part of the game of learning, needed to be figured out continuously.

Here is a well explained video about dialogue:

Effective Communication - From Discussion to Dialogue for Win-Win Results

http://youtu.be/e9a6-MZc_ok

iVET 2013-2014 Program at OUAS

iVET

I am participating in the iVET 2013-2014 program at Oulu University of Applied Sciences (OUAS). According to SCHOOL OF VOCATIONAL TEACHER EDUCATION STUDY GUIDE published by the OUAS, the iVET program is described as below.

iVET (Innovative Vocational Education and Training) is an English program for gaining the teacher’s qualification. The students’ prior experience, skill level and study path requirements are determined in a starting level assessment. The multiform studies consist mostly of network based learning. The number of contact days is 10; the rest of the studies consist of mobile and eLearning. The core areas of the English iVET program are professional pedagogics and virtual workshops emphasizing social media, entrepreneurship and internationality.

STUDY MODULES

The individual study path offers the student a means to decide on the duration and contents of his/her pedagogical studies. The pedagogical studies comprise of 60 ECTS Credits (European Credit Transfer and Accumulation System) consist of several courses:

• Vocational Pedagogical Studies (22 ECTS Credits) 
• VOC I STUDIES (15 ECTS CREDITS), (including PSP)
• VOC II STUDIES (7 ECTS CREDITS) 
• Basics of Educational Science (10 ECTS Credits) 
• Teaching Practise (13 ECTS Credits) 
• Optional Studies (15 ECTS Credits)

An Episode of Adobe Connect's Technical Problems

It was 16th of October 2013, an online teaching session about the topic of Evaluation and Assessment of Learning was performed by the team Deway.

Since I have no such an experience to evaluate the student, I was rather to listen to the lecture and other students’ experiences on the topic.  However during the session, some technical problems happened to our student teacher Anna. After she clicked the pointer feature on the AC screen, she was able to control the Power Pont slides, but her microphone was disconnected from the AC program. So we as students who were connected through the AC could not hear anything from her.

In the session, Jay and I, we were chair-persons from the group Freire, had to do something for the problems. It was a little bit kind of panic mode for all because we could not help anything but waiting for her voice coming back. As a workaround solution Jay proposed to call Anna, when Anna was connected then Jay put his mobile phone near to his microphone. So in such a way we heard Anna’s voice back to the AC and the teaching was continued.

It was a brilliant idea indeed that Jay saved the course and Anna. However, I could not concentrate on the lecture because my engineering mind was playing with what could be a reason for the technical issues and what could be a solution for that. And I sent some technical suggestions to Anna through the private chat box, but it was not reached her.

Anyhow, I was surprised to see how the different approach for the technical problems worked well. Nowadays, as we have more experience with the AC environments, we have faced less problems.

To watch the video of Adobe Connect Meeting Overview, please click the below video screen.

Why Team Work?

Group Dynamics was taught by Chris from the group Piaget in the VOC 1-6 session. As a native English speaker, he was leading very naturally his teaching session to the warm atmosphere of discussion floor. How to engage with participants at the begging of the session was a crucial key of cultivating participants’ mind to be opened for discussions.

It seemed like the first warm-up exercise was irrelevant to the theme of the teaching, but it worked well with the purpose of creating an openness. It was an easy and simple question with the world map on a Padlet board, “If you were a country, which country would you be?” I could think of this teaching session as my most pleasant learning experience from the students’ performed teaching sessions in the VOC1 module.

Due to my previous work experience at Nokia, I was very familiar with the team role theory by Belbin. I have experienced various roles like specialist, completer, team leader, team worker, resource investigator. Team as a social learning environment, by playing the roles in a team we are getting more matured to know more about ourselves, and more development can be done through interactions with team members.

According to Dr. Bruce Tuckman’s 5 stages of team development model, a team starts from Forming, Storming, Norming, Performing to Adjourn stage. In this iVET program, I have experienced 3 different team settings for VOC1, VOC2 and EduSci.  

After experiencing team roles in the group Freire in VOC1, I think that it was quite a challenging time to go through all the 5 stages to perform team work, not really step by step but mixed with many stages at the same time. After then, with the new teams in VOC2 and EduSci module, it was much easier and faster, so we have gone straight from the forming to the norming or performing stage by-passing the storming stage. 

 To watch the Tuckmans's team development model video, please click here.

The values of Sustainable Development integrated in my Lesson Plan

As a task of the VOC1 Close session, I have created a Lesson Plan which was integrated the values of Sustainable Development. Computer Science as my core competence, I chose the UNIX System Administration subject for an imaginary class of the lesson plan. 

For creating the lesson plan, I studied quite much of sustainable issues from the sources of internet and books, and also recalling my knowledge about UNIX System, which I have not used quite long time. Backup and Restore Policy written by Abdirizak Ali Osman helped me to regain my core competences.

Please take a look my Lesson Plan:

The vales of Sustainable Development to be integrated

 Sustainable Development

“When you wake up tomorrow, the world will be a bit less hospitable. The earth will be a warmer place, the air will be more polluted, the supply of safe drinking water will have diminished, less food will be available per person, and biodiversity will be reduced. Social health, and economic disparities will be evident not only in comparisons of national wealth, but even within the richest nations the gaps between the richest and the poorest will contribute to social instability. The planet will be more crowded and still most of the wealth will be in the hands of a few.”

(Rowland, P. as cited in Johnston, L. 2013. Higher Education for Sustainability)

Image retrieved from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circles_of_Sustainability

Form the diagram of Circles of Sustainability, we understand the critical areas of sustainability are in the ecology domain. Emission & Waste, Materials & Energy, Water & Air, Habitat & Food are the most critical sub-domains of the whole sustainability issues.

This is the reason why we need to integrate the sustainability themes into VET( Vocational Education and Training) and expect to have a radical changes for much of higher education for saving the world for the future generations.

Understanding of the need of paradigm shift in our societies, I have to teach myself and future students how to transform from twentieth century resource intensive and extractive mode of production and wealth creation.

What can we do as an individual member of a society? It can be a low level of approach to achieve sustainability improvement, but something we can do in our daily life for example reducing waste, recycling resources, saving energy, decreasing consumption of materials and water, reducing the carbon footprint and etc.

Here is the link of my Lesson Plan integrated the values of Sustainable Development: My Lesson Plan

VOC1 Peer Evaluation on my blog

It was already 14th of December 2013 when I delivered my peer evaluation to our tutors. That was the last task from the VOC1 module. So I thought that I can go forward to do EduSci and VOC2 learning activities.

But the surprising news from the yesterday’s VOC2 session, I have to do more works for adding and modifying my blog. For me, the new guideline seems quite familiar as I used the similar way for my reflecting blog writings.

What I have seen the measurements with entries and tags criteria was a new thing for me, which I haven’t so much utilized into my blog writings. If I want to have get more number of  entry and tag (Label), I have to change the way that I used for my blog structure, which is more based on Page than Post. With the page option, I cannot attach any tags or labels for the blog page entries.

I hope as an adult student, we are not doing this blog writing to show up how many entries we have, but we are writing the blog to share our reflective mind while we are on the journey of learning to search for some possibilities and creativities.

Anyway, it seems that if I know what the quality of writing is, it may not difficult to increase the number of entries. So let’s do some re-constructing my blog with more variety stories using the post format.