Here I present a brief description and reflection of each group activity in the order they presented them:
Separate Special Education needs provision in Early Childhood and School Education.
This topic was prepared by Pablo, Raúl, Ruth and Daniel Jarque.
Separate Special Education needs provision in Early Childhood and School Education.
This topic was prepared by Pablo, Raúl, Ruth and Daniel Jarque.
They presented as a contest activity in which 9 questions were given and we had to run in order to get a piece of paper of a table with some information. This information could be either true or false and the answer to a question or not.
One of the best points of this activity is that they achieved our full implication. The whole class was motivated to play and involved in the activity at 8.30h in the morning. Amazing. I would improve the level of depth they were looking for. From my point of view, this is a great activity to start the topic with or, once you've worked on it to sum up and to assess what has been learned, but I don't think it is the best choice for a core activity because once playing the players tried to guess without many knowledge foundations if what they got could match or not with an answer and the trials responded most of the times to grammatical questions more than knowledge ones (this answer doesn't match grammatically with this question...) and once we were correcting the activity no reinforcement was done on understanding. So I don't think we got the point of the topic at all. To end with I would highlight the good time management they did (it was a relaxed class without the stress of ours) and the feeling that we enjoyed it.
Special Education Needs provision within Mainstream Education
This topic was prepared by Ana Rodríguez, Dani Muñoz, Belén and Andrea González.
The activity they developed was an adaptation of a dynamic called strength in which everyone but one person stick together and this person has to separate one from the rest of the group. Each one was given a paper, so if a person was separated from the rest of the group s/he was given a question and the rest of the group has to see if they had the answer to this question.
A good point of this activity was that everyone got involved in it. I would improve the fact that there were no adaptations for "disabled people" and I could not participate at any point of the activity because I had a broken foot. It seemed to me quite paradoxical that the topic was special education needs provision and that one person was completely excluded of the activity. On the other hand this activity makes me retake an methodological internal debate about motivation and learning... Is everything valid in the name of motivating the students? Even when learning could be compromised? What was the aim of the activity? Is the activity addressed to learn or to the joy of playing itself? These and other questions were on my mind while I was observing them. Another thing I would improve of the methodology of the activity itself is that it was a qualifying game... So once you had no paper you had to sit down and look for the rest of the activity. I don't like at all qualifying activities. From my point of view they are too competitive and quite exclusive. The people who needs more playing, because they don't have the skills required developed, are the first to sit down in qualifying games. Do the observers learn? Do the ones who are playing learn? Do the team in charge of the activity learn? From my point of view there was no time to assimilate the info in the questions-answers part because the focus of the activity was on the physical part. I think the ones who learn were the team in charge of the activity while preparing the question-answer part but not during the game. How to achieve equilibrium between enjoying and learning? A last point to improve was that, from my point of view, questions were not accurate enough so even if someone was really concentrated in learning contents it would have been difficult. I think it would have been great as a warming up activity of 5-10 minutes (3-4 questions answers without anyone disqualified) but I don't think it is a proper core activity to develop the topic.
Once the activity was finished they read the main ideas in a 'traditional class way'. This was the moment were the theoretical content was exposed. As we were asked to work with collaborative activities I don't find this methodology appropriate. I couldn't find the connection between the activity and the explanation. Why did they do the strength activity? If they believed the content should be exposed in a traditional way after all in order to learn it? Another thing to bear is mind is the assessment: How did they asses that the class had learnt the contents they wanted us to learn?
A very positive thing of their activity, though, was that I liked very much the environment they create with the activity. Almost everyone was laughing and enjoying.
This topic was prepared by Blanca, Elena and Raquel.
The activity they presented was a mixture between a role playing and a debate activity.
First of all we made groups randomly by choosing a color paper. Then they give as a topic (Hospitalized children, rural schools, school with a great proportion of immigrant children with language difficulties and a mental disabled school. We had to imagine that we were an institution (school, association...) with the characteristic of the topic given. Then some resources were presented and each group had to prepare reasons why they deserve that resource more than the rest of groups. Then we had to give a point to any group (including ours) to see who got the resource. I liked the fact that we work from our previous knowledge, it would be great as a starting activity for this topic. The only thing I would improve is that they didn't thought of any way to assess the activity (knowledge, skills such as communicative ones...). Maybe there is no feeling of learning because there is no exposure to the naked contents but we learnt a lot by sharing reasons in small groups and by listening the reasons and ideas of others. I really liked it. I think that we could learn from experience and empathy. It was a motivating activity that allowed us to share our points of view. From a methodological perspective, it is a good idea to establish small cooperative groups because then everyone participates.
I think it has been a very well designed activity. They have thought in different group settings - individual work while each one writes his/her post-it, small group work within the cooperative groups to discuss every post-it and big group for the conclusions - they've also though about how to assess. They were assessing through direct observation and also through the written material of the post-its. I would improve the way the information was exposed at first. It was a master class. I would also improve the way the instructions on how to work on other's murals were given. The last thing I would improve is the time management: I found we had not enough time for the debate (I was enjoying it a lot). I really liked the way they encouraged different people from each group to speak reinforcing participation of those who are shyer.
They developed an 'expert activity' (this methodology has been explained in the last post). Then they made a contest to see what we have learned.
Although at the beginning there was a little bit of disorganization, this is the activity in which I've learnt the most. It was a cooperative activity as we were asked to and it was dynamic and treat the contents with depth. To assess what we learnt with the expert activity they proposed a team contest. It resulted very dynamic with questions and with rebound. They give us a positive reinforcement when we answered well a question (sweets) and that increased the implication of the whole class (what are we able to do for a sweet?)
They had a good timing control, they made us think (even we used high thinking tools as mind maps to help us to explain the others our expert topic), share and cooperate. Well done!
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