Job Shadowing Järvenpää, January 2017

ERASMUS + PROJECT: 2015-1-ES01-KA101-014948

The IES Ramon Llull in Europe, Europe in the IES Ramon Llull

Job Shadowing Jarvenpää, January 2017

This afternoon I have landed in Helsinki to start my second Job Shadowing at Järvenpään lukio. The landscape is very different to the one I’ve found in my previous visits, the snow covers everything and the light reflects on it, the sun sets but the sensation of illumination is still there.

I have met Marjo Uotila, Englsih and Spanish teacher and coordinator of several international projects of her school to revise this week’s program.

As in every job shadowing that we are carrying out in our projects, the programs are open, there are some practices that we want to observe, but we have to be flexible. The important issue is getting together the different members of the leading teams and to monitor sessions of different subjects. In doing so, the theoretical sessions and the practical sessions combine perfectly.

It is common to all these projects, being with the rest of the teachers and the informal meetings are a very good source of information that we try to take advantage from. In the case of Finland, it is very interesting because they are in the middle of a change in their curriculum.

Tomorrow is the first day of the meetings and the monitoring of sessions. I will also meet the students interested in participating in the next long exchange program we carry out together with the IES Puçol.

Monday 23rd January

The day has started with two sessions of monitoring:

- English course 1st class, teacher Anu Blomberg, classroom 3030.

- Social Studies (Finnish law). teacher Timo Joutsivuo, classroom 3004.

Sessions here last 75 minutes and they have two sessions per week. The students can come in when the class has started. Some use their laptops but most of them use book/notebook in these classes.

I had also the opportunity to talk to the students in both classes to tell them about our Erasmus+ project and the student exchanges we organise in our school.

After that we had lunch at school with other teachers, so the informal meetings went on!

Then a session with the students of Spanish, teacher Marjo Uotila, classroom 3023. They had prepared some presentations in Spanish about Finland and its main characteristics. Afterwards we talked about Spain, Valencia, IES Ramon Llull and our projects.

The day ended with a hot cup of coffee and a nice chat in the teacher's room about their international projects.

Tuesday 24th January

The day started with two classes of Swedish with teacher Riitta Viittala. In my presentation of the Erasmus+ project and the school, I emphasized the importance of studying languages and I also introduced the issue of having two official languages.

I explained the situation of Spanish and Valencian in our educational system and then the students told me about the case of Finnish and Swedish. Not, surprisingly, there are some similarities in both countries and they wisely pointed out that the attitude towards languages is very important.

Riitta Viittala is also an editor of digital books and she is currently using them for her classes. So these two sessions of 75 minutes are very interesting and worth attending.

In this particular school, students have been offered the possibility to buy a laptop at a very convenient price; they pay more or less half the price and the city council pays for the rest. They also have the opportunity to pay the amount during the three years they are in the school.

In this period of the year comprehensive students are coming to the school to get to know it as they have to decide which secondary school will the apply for.

At the same time, counsellors form comprehensive schools and from Järvenpään lukio meet to make clear any doubts in the different programs. Principal Marja-Liisa invited me to introduce myself and the school projects.

I had an informal meeting with the principal and we talked about the students with special needs and about those with social behaviour problems. There are not that many in Järvenpään lukio, but they have realised that the society is changing rapidly and that there are more and more students that need some kind of help to socialize or to cope with the stress of the studies.

The day ended with the official dinner in which we went on discussing educational issues!

Wednesday 25th January

The program for today has been really complete: monitoring sessions of English and Spanish and a long meeting with Principal Marja-Liisa.

In the Englsih class of Marjo Uotila I have been able to see again some utilities of EDISON, the pedagogical platform that the municipality has created for primary and secondary schools. It is used to upload materials created by the teachers and also those offered by publishers.

Then in the Spanish class with Marjo I made another presentation of the school, of our peojects and, of course, of the city of Valencia. It has been a kind of promotion of both the Erasmus+ projects¡ of the school and the exchange of students that we carry out with Finland.

At twelve I have met Principal Marja-Liisa and we have had lunch at the school. Afterwards we have compared the way we make timetables for students and teachers in both schools.

In Finland the managing board, in this case it is the principal, distribute the subjects according to most reasonable election of compulsory courses and trying to give as much choice as possible for the optional ones. Then each group of teachers of a subject negotiate which courses is teaching each one, so they create their own working timetable; if they do not get to an agreement they ask the principal to distribute the courses.

In my school, we make a study of the groups we think we will have the following year, and according to that we are assigned a number of hours per group and a number of teachers. At the same time we have to make the distribution of subjects so that students have the maximum range of subjects in a way that they can get the best selection to fulfil their interests. Then we give each didactic department the numbre of courses they will have, they choose which they want to teach and with that information the managing team make the timetables of the groups of students and of each of the teachers.

In both schools, it is a very hard work because we two want to have the best offer for the students.

The next two sessions have been with Tuija Haappala who is developing a new approach in her English classes. The tasks are set at the beginning of the unit and the due date is settled. The students have the freedom to upload the tasks as they complete them. They have a brief guided task at the beginning of each sessions and then they work on their own. The teacher uses EDISON and digital resources.

As with many new things and methodologies, it is hard in the beginning and little by little the students get used to the method and the teacher can implement all the resources he has prepared.

Thursday 26th January

This morning I have had some free time which I have spent walking around Järvenpää.

I went for a walk to lake Tuusulanjärvi. There was a class of small children ice-skating, a few people skiing on the frozen lake and some others walking their dogs. And ducks swimming in a quite freezing water!

Afterwards I had something to eat at Kulma konditoria before going to scholl. You need to have a snack to stay concentrated in the meetings!

At school I met two of the four Counsellors of the school. Katarina explained me that the two main tasks of a counsellor are: helping students make their plans and see that they syick to them and planning their "life" after graduation (vocational studies, university, ...). She also told me that students must have a "session" with his/her counsellor once a week during three of the four periods of the school year. In these sessions the counsellor discuss the student's decisions about the courses he is going to take so that he can achieve his final objective. It is compulsory for all students to take two sessions about "career day" (two days of speeches and information sessions from universities and schools).

With Sanna Konttinen, also a counsellor, I was told that in Järvenpään lukio there are five periods per school year and each one lasts 6 weeks, after each period there are two weeks for the exams. Students have to take 75 courses to graduate and they usually spend three years at the lukio. The average amount of courses per period is six. As students plan their timetable and the courses they are going to take, those students that partyicipate in the exchange with my school can "move" some courses so they do not skip classes while they are in Valencia, they simply take more courses before and after and they can follow the normal development of the year.

Each counsellor has about 300 students to be cared about. The sessions with the counsellor are compulsory and this is the biggest difference with the duties of the counsellor in our school. Students must go to see and talk with the counsellor about their academic decisions and sometimes they are not so happy and communicative. In our case, students must have a first personal meeting with the counsellor, but then it is not compulsory to go on with these meetings. Although it is very common that students ask for personal meetings.

There is also a nurse, a psychiatrist and a social worker in the school, and a doctor comes on a regular basis. This has nothing to do with the staff we have in secondary schools.

To finish the day I met Marjo Uotila to have a feedback about my presentations in the different Spanish and English classes. We also commented on the students exchange we are carrying out for four years now. I have met the candidates and they are really willing to be chosen to participate. as I told them in their classes, we are also looking forward receiving them at IES Ramon Llull.

Friday 27th January

My morning has started with an Englsih session with Marjo Uotila. They had a listening test and the procedure was similar to ours, the biggest difference was that students had wireless headphones, which I tried as I did the test myself, and that means they can hear better to the recording and the classrooms next door are not bothered by the sound.

After that I heard some music and I saw many of the students dressed as if they were going to the beach!! Even though it was all snow outside the school. It was the last Friday of the second period and they were celebrating. They had singing and a Kahoot quiz.

I attended a Geography course with teacher Ville Leppäniemi. They were rehearsing the test using their laptops.

This year students are taking the tests of three subjects (philosophy, geography and German) using their laptops. The administration gives each studnet a pendrive with the software to link to the platform were the tests are, it also disables the computer to get free access to the internet. Not everything worked perfectly, but ninety-nine per cent.

You can find the tests of the spring session and more in this site http://yle.fi/aihe/abitreenit

Then I had lunch at the school and Riitta Viittala (Swedish teacher and expert on digital books and matriculation exams) took me to EDUCA (http://educa.messukeskus.com/). It is Finland's largest and most important annual training event for professionals in the education field.

We met Ms Viittala publishers of digital books (www.e-oppi.fi) and, among others, the union of Finnish principals SUREFIRE (Suomen Rehtorit r.y., www.surefire.fi).

There you can find publishers, expert speakers from all over the world, new materials to work in class, furniture for the classrooms and offices in the school, stationery, music and cultural events, etc. It was an incredible experience which I did not expect. It has been a kind of "present" from Järvenpään lukio, they arranged everything so I could be there and meet very interesting people.

Saturday 28th January

Last day of work. Today we are having a kind of happy feedback meeting. First we are having a great brunch and we are going to talk about my general impressions on the Job Shadowing experience and then we are going to Poorvo.

I think it has been a very complete program since I have been able to observe many different subjects and methodologies. I have also attended a rehearsal of the electronic exams Finland is carrying out nowadays. They have presented me software I can use in my classes and some which I may use if I get the permission to do so.

In my meetings with Principal Marja-Liisa and counsellors Katarina and Sanna, I have got to know new aspects of Finnish educational system. Obviously, there many procedures I cannot develop in my school because the educational laws and curriculum are different, but there are some aspects which I could use with some modification. It is for sure that I will present all these issues to my teachers so we can discuss possible changes in our school and in the way we teach and organise our daily routine.

When you first heard about the changes in the Finnish curriculum, they said they were leaving aside core subjects and they were not going to study any more maths, or philosophy, or history, but the truth is that it is way of getting this knowledge which is changing.

Students have to work even more in groups or in their own, they have to look for the information and discuss about it. Teachers have to make them think about real life and express their own point of view, students have to consider diversity as a reality and the respect to the others' opinion as a must in their life.

It is not necessary to know all the words and mathematical formula by heart, you need a basic knowledge to communicate to understand things and then you can go on improving and you can always lookup the extra information you may need.

I would really like to go on with this issue in future Job Shadowings because I think it is an approach to the present situation quite similar to what I believe. I strongly approve this method of teaching and learning, you do not need to be perfect in any way, neither to know all the words, concepts or structures to be able to communicate, to understand theories or appreciate a piece of art. Long Life Learning is a reality and a basic truth for me. We are always learning so there is no point in trying to know absolutely everything.

And now, let's move to Porvoo. It is the second oldest city in Finland, after Turku, and located only fifty kilometres east of Helsinki. The area where Porvoo today lies is first inhabited with the arrival of Swedish settlers. Porvoo's centre opens up to a national urban park, in which the beautiful views and natural attractions are available for everyone by foot. The national urban park in Porvoo was established in 2010 and it extends approximately 10 km south from Old Porvoo, via the river estuary to the archipelago, as well as 8 km east.

Although we were heading to Pirvoo to have a relaxing day, we are teachers and we talked all our way to Porvoo about teacher training and Marjo and Riitta's Job Shadowing in February-March!!

It was a very interesting conversation and we even revised the program and added some new meetings and activities!

This is living proof of how interesting are face-to-face venues because you can extend your working hours and blend them with leisure activities that improve your knowledge about culture and education in the foreign country.

I am looking forward to receiving them at my school and going on with our collaboration!!!

 

Angels Romeu

Erasmus + Coordinator