My IDEAL SCHOOL video

           Here you have the link of our Ideal School, Palas Atenea

Reflections Ideal School videos

Celeste Escalera Béjar

Education league Ideal School

Well done. First of all, congratulations for your video presentation I think it has been so creative the idea of presenting the topic with drawins and like if it was a real class topic, where teacher and students dialogue about it. Moreover, you have included your plan guide and your objectives with was important since you haven't forgotten the tips of the first project of the subject.  

Well done. Refering to the content you have explained very well talking about multiculturality, inclusion, resilience, nature in school, different buildings at the school to motive different learning environments, creativity, critical attitude, democratic leadership, antibullying projects like KiVa since students have to understand that all of us are unique and differences and we have to live in coexistence with the world. Another good point was "entretodos project", which consist on the integration of the families on the school development, project launched in the school Ramiro Solans. Also, it was remarkable aking the students what do they want/need for learning in class like different types of electronic devices to encourages ICT skill since sometimes school introduces gadgets but they are not adapted to the learners interests. 

Work on it. Finally, it would be great for the next time to subtitle the video since there were sometimes that following and understanding the video was difficult.

Good job 💪

Sofa session Ideal School

Well done. Your school "Apollo" was so well contextuliced with the real situation of Arroyomlinos, you saw us different porcentages like the number of students of the city. Refering to the video edit, it was great the idea of adding music on the background. Nevertheless, you should have made it more dynamic when you were presenting the ideas of your project, like adding some photos or remarkable words to attract more our attention.

Well done. Some of the greatest ideas of your school where the values the school abide by, like respect, tolerance and friendship. I was delighted with the welcome program but I think it must be more the students role to integrate a new mate than the psychologist role. As well, the idea of the corner program it was good to encourage differebt learning environments. In addition, you expreses the idea of continuous teacher assesment to develop the class functioning but I think that in this chart students and families must be included since both of them are involucrated in the school development. Refering to this, it was not so clear the integration of families at school since you only involucrate families with a poor background instead of talking about all the families.

Might be revised. Your school was a semi private one, but if we want the integration of all the children on schools and make all of them excellent to give the same opportunities to all the childs why do you choose this option...? In my opinion you should look out more consciously this election since we have to encourage and equal education for everybody.

Good job. Finally I was pleased with the idea of doing projects between all the clasrooms since it motivates the participation and understanding of students with different ages, as well as their creativity, interest or social and personal skills. 

Work on some points but it was Great work  😀

Ana and Marta Ideal School

Before starting talking about the project congratulations for your bigg effort of doing the project both of you in less time than the rest of us. 

Good job: I think your ideal school video was well designed the combination of images sound and video was good nevertheless I think you should have made it more dynamic introducing more videos, images or write important words to highlight the content.

Good job.The content of the video was well explained you talked about how to solve a current problem on the schools like it is buylling with apps such as "semáforo rojo" which facilitates the appereance and solution of buylling cases on schools, moreover you talked about multiple intelligences refering to Begoña Ibarrola and "La montaña del miedo" like examples of promoters of the change in educational intelligences.

Good job. Your ideal school is based on coevaluation plus assesment like the method of evaluation which I like since we learn by doing (working cooperatively related with it your motto was "we are union") and while our mates and teachers give feedbacks about our daily activities. As well you explain your school values (happines, integration, union, team work and refelecting about the footprint we want to leave in the society), democratic leadership, ICT or family participation on the school community.

Good job. You have made a real plan of your school I think you should not have spent so much time doing it since it was not one of the main task of the project, nevertheless you explain the function of each building and one of the remarkable ideas, for me, was the vegetable garden and it donations to the charity fomenting values of solidarity in your students But I have missed, like in other projects, the distribution of the class, the furnitures, acustic or illumination whcih are very important for the students learning and the school environment. 

Well done girl's 👍👍

Travelchers Ideal School

Congratulations travelchers for your project it was so complete, deeply explained and the model was so well used for the video. But for the next time try to be more concrete instead of repeating the same content in different parts of the recording.

Good Job, You expain concretely your content like the contextualization with the educatve situation in Santander, as well as projects like Assistace plan or Goodfather project to help, relationate and guide sudents of different ages. You explained your project about coexistence and inclusive eduation, Flipped Clasroom technique or Jigsaw to work cooperativelly, the involucration of all educative cmommunity, Green project that encourages  student's responsability with the environment, the distribution of your class by sections to promote students learning, the movement designe for change (students and teacher's mentality is represented by the motto I can do it insteda of can I do it? )or the development of social constructive theory on the classes, these ideas where justified by the author that develop the idea what is important to highlight.

It was difficult to understand the idea of having 60 students in a class with three teachers I do not know if this idea is studied but I will be interesting in knowing it advantages or disadvanatages. As well you said that there would not be subjects but then you talked about them so it was a bit confusing.

Good job. You did a great job with the idea of your video of representing a real school with it classes, teacher, parents and students. The model was very well decorated and related with what you talk on the video.

Good job 💪


Fernweh Ideal School

Congratulations guys for your project I like it very much the name of your school, Sinergia since it means the conexion between members of a group, working cooperativly what it is one of our goals for our future education. To work on it, the next tyme try to subtitle some parts of teh video since it was difficult to follow
Good Job. Your learning was based on Proyect Based Learning and Problem Based Learning which are good methodolgie sto work with at class, it increase children critical thinking, learning experiences or dynamic learning, they are the ones who construct their knowledge continuslly and they have to confront to different challenges as they will have to do it in their live. Moreover, you work multiple intelligences including the emotional one which are very important to work since all of our children are different and unique and all their skills must be developed, because of that you work with a personalized education since students have different skills, types of learning and personalities.

Good job. You explained how to work coopraively in your class improving attention,involment, communication, creativity and so on, as well your education is bidirectional what means that students learn form teacher but as well on the contrary. You have a big educative community where the decision are taken by everybody, teacher, parents and studnets. You explain what qualities should have a good leader (persistence,patience, empathetic, flexible, mediator, innovative, participative, curious...) but you have not explain what type of leadership you will be focused on. Finally, I find very interesting your collaboration with bq to work the Information and Communication Technology by the logo do it yourself-do it with others.

Well done 👍💪

Contrasters Ideal School 

Congratulations for your Ideal School Contrasters, you have done your best to rise the project overcoming difficulties. Refering about the video designe I really appreciate the subtitules, it is a huge you to subtitule a video and it was very considering and excellent.

Good Job. You talk about your school squedule, working with different languages, the importance of the library on your school is very important what I really like it since I think reading is one of the most imprtant aspects for education and if children love reading we have done a big step for encorage their future learning. As well, you introduce a school where cooperation, inclusion, democracy are very important, you also talk about your school organization and you quote important authors like Piaget to justify your theory.

Nevertheless, you talked about the use of ICT but refering more to the disadvantages instead of the many benefits new technological devices haev at school and on students learning to motivate them presenting new methodologies or a more dynamic learning. Moreover, you didn't talk so much about some key aspects like methodologies or the participation of families at the school.

Good Job you talk about to apps like "self review framework" it is used to analyse the school development, you use as well an app called "bullying no more" to avoid and eraise it on the center and finally a the project "azahara" to aid children with learning dissabilities and promote their inclusion on the classes. Finally, it was great the introduction of some newspapers articles and graphics to put us in environment with what you where explaining about.

Good Job Contrasters 💪💪




Raquel Ezquerra Rodríguez


Education league 

Congratulations educative league, you have shown in the video that youhave worked hard on how would your ideal school be. tThe theoretical ideas are clear and well reasoned with what we have been learning this year, and the theory was well associated with what the practice would be like.

The idea of drawing for making the video was a good manner to explain the project as it is very visual and at the same time we can hear the explanation of each point. Moreover, the dialogues between the characters is an original way of creating a school as teachers interact with the students and can consider their opinion, and as the dialogue is something we should promote at schools.

On the dialogue, first you expose the student's ideas, the teacher makes the connection between of their ideas with the theory, and afterwards, the students create their own connections about how could their ideas of an ideal school be developed. That is fantastic! but, that it is an utopia. I mean, you do not talk about how are you going to take those ideas into a real school project. It is too much about what we should do and what it would be great to do and not much about what we are doing, what we are working on, what we are developing for our school. I think these is the point where you could improve your presentation. How are you going to make that real?

You have work on the ideas, on how you want your school to be, and the context behind them, which as been excellent. Congratulations, I enjoyed watching your video :) 

TRAVELCHERS

What an incredible mock-up! I really liked your presentation because you have very clear the structure of the school, not only physically, also the abstract part, all the content and context that is behind, the way education is carried out.

All the parts of the video have been very detailed and clear. I like the course of the video. First there is an introduction of the school and the essential points where there are included the values, social skills and education model, that are developed on it. Then you give way to the teachers and the families through a dialogue where you explain more specifically the methods, techniques, innovating projects...

On the other hand, there are points where you have extend too much such us ICTs, which you having been talking about in many parts of the video. It was a long video and this made it more repetitive and tiring. For the next time try to summarized and be more concrete.

I think Santander is a great city for a great school hahaha

Congratulations.

FERNEWH

The name of your school, Sinergia, represents very well the idea we want to transmit with this project, as it means cooperation of all the educative community for an effective learning and also the idea of a social coeducation.

I like the idea of basing learning on different proyects and not being so closed-minded with the curriculum, and the idea of an education with a construtivist methodology in which students have an active role. You also gave emphasis to the emotional learning as learning is more effective when we feel emotions with what we are learning while we learn, and also the emotions as an intelligence that is developed between students, teachers and parents. Sinergia is based on the emotional and individual eduaction adapting the curriculum to the students as for example with the ICTs and BQ.

On the other hand, there are other relevant points such as bullying and other internal problems that are common at schools that you did not talk about. I also missed how does the community gets involved in the education of the students.

SOFA SESSIONS

In contrast with the rest of the group, your project is based more on the context than on the content. You have gone in deep with numbers and concrete data about your school, trying to make the school from real context which was excellent.

What grabbed my attention is that your ideal school is a private school. It is an option, nevertheless you should have defended more with some arguments or reasons, as it is in contradition with the ideology of our degree that fights for the inclusion of every child and the equal opportunities.

About the content of Apollo’s school  you have developed some great points such as the ICTs to engage and adapt to students’ needs, the bilingualism project, the relation with the families and the KiVa project. Other points were a little bit less developed such as critical thinking or collaboration and communication, which you only mention.

The way you made the video and the general idea was excellent, and you have connected the theory with the practice.

CONTRASTERS CREW

The context and the content are very clear and well explained, although there are somethings missing and some mistakes. Your project, as the name of the school shows (Utopia), has focus more in the theoretical aspects than in the practice.

You have focused the project on some specific areas such as ICTs and the school physical design. About the ICTs, it is important to remark that you have search for extra inofrmation such as apps to solve or prevent bullying (Bullying No More) and the Aula PT. About the school design, I agree that the structure in form of “u” with the library in the middle is a great option for a school to be connected and to have a better access to the library, that is the heart of the school.

On the other hand, I have missed information about the learning community. The leadership was well explained, but you do not say what kind of leadership is. I supposed you were talking about a democratic leadership. I would also liked to ear something about multiple intelligences.

This Project was a big challenge for you, but you faced and deal with the difficulties to do it.

Cristina Álvarez Domínguez

EDUCATION LEAGUE

Congratulations because you did a great job! First of all, the idea of the video was very creative and original with the drawings and like if the teacher were asking the students how their ideal school would be like. 

Talking about the content, your school organization was so practical for students. I liked that you mentioned some applications  that can be used in the classroom which are useful for teachers and for students.

The explanation of reisilence was very clear and for me good to understand a word that can be harder than others. The project "entre todos" was a great example, well done! 

In general, you talked about all the main and most important points such as bullying, ICT or the  learning community and they were very well explained and clear. If I had to say something to improve, it would be the sound because sometimes it was quite hard to hear what it was said. 


SOFA SESSIONS
I liked your idea for your school, Apollo. However, the point that it is private or semi-private was something that alerted me some how.

Besides that, you did a great job and effort going to a school a making your video there and mostly, using a real student as an example.

A great thing you mentioned was to adapt education to the needs of the students paying attention to their strengths and also how you develop and teach different values to your students.

You school was well adapted to the needs of children with the patch and also the murals to work and learn in a different way. What was not so clear was the participation of the family and the community and how you put the theory into practice.

What can be improved is that the video at some points make you lose attention as you are the whole time talking without many pictures or main words which would have made it more attractive.


OTHERSIDERS
I'm amazed with you girls for your hard work and how you got beyond the problems you faced!!

The best thing of your school in my opinion was the statement "learning by doing" and how you focused it on the evaluation method. You included all the main aspects we have been talking about in the different subjects and projects in your school and one important point, the multiple intelligences and some other skills with good examples.

The theory was very well explained with important details mentioned but sometimes it was quite monotonous because of the images and no text with important words or videos but I understand that you didn't have as much time as the rest of us to edit the video.

The app you mentioned, Bullying semáforo, was excellent to explain how you manage bullying situations and you try to avoid it in the school. The values you want for your school are excellent for children and how you transmit them to the students.

Every single aspect of the theory is explained perfectly, from my point of view, ICT, learning community, values, problems we can find, bullying which is related to the concept of violence, also wery well explained, etc.


To sum up, I have to say that the physical design of your school was great and what I most liked about it was the preschool buildings and the meaning behind them.

Excellent job girls!!


FERNWEH
The name of the school, Sinergia,  was well chosen and the explanation was very good and useful.

What I didn´t like was the the school was private even though it was only at the beginning. However you gave good reasons for it and how the transition from private to public would be.

The part of the cooperative learning was well explained in a very clear way and the reasons why it is important to be worked in the classroom. You also mentioned the importance of multiple intelligences without forgetting about the emotional one.

I really like how you relate connect the ideas and mainly that the teacher can learn from the students as well as the students learn from the teacher, it is a bidirectional education and learning and how they can construct their own knowledge. You talked about some of the main theoretical aspects and introduced new terms but explaining them like "BQ", but you forget to talk about bullying or conflicts solving wich I believe they have an important role in our society nowadays and I also felt that the role of the community was quite poor.



TRAVELCHERS
The video was very original, dynamic and attractive and was easy to follow paying attention the whole time very easily. It can be seen  that you did a huge effort with the video.

I really liked the structure of the school and the classrooms with multiple intelligences corners, ICT areas, and also the design of the school in general.

You explainthe theory very well but in some projects and programmes you use you only mention them without explaining how they work, how you use them in the classroom and why they are important, as well as the transersal curriculum, although it is a good point you work with it.What I would highlight is the methods to avoid bullying and how well you explain them, excellent!


Some negative points I have to mention are:
- The number of students in each classrom (60) because I think that even though there are three teachers, is may be a problem working in so a huge class.
- Lack of subjects. I think that at some ages children need to exactly know what they are working and have a structured schedule.
- The fact of putting the learning progress or results publicly because it can cause students who have problems or difficulties in the learning process be the centre of attention and other can be bad with them (bullying).

But it was great to put subtitles. However, it was perfectly understandable and we can see that all of you worked hard and know anything about the project.


CONTRASTERS CREW
The name of the school, Utopia Learning, can be great if you mean "utopia" as the perfect school or if you mean it with the meaning of something excellent but almost imposible to reach, I have to say that anything we dream of can be reached with effort.

You did a great introduction of what education is and the problems we face in our educational system as well as the definition of cooperative school. Quoting Piaget was a very nice idea to explain your system. Another good point of you video was the subtitles, very useful.

You also did a good researching work and you found an interesting app, Bullying no more, and for that topic you also put a great chart and graph explaining real facts as well as inlcuding newspapers references. Refering to bullying I like the chart in wich it is shown some "reasons" for bullying even though it doesn't have any excuse. The idea of putting the theory into practice was a good aspect of your methodologies. I loved that you don't like a competitive environment in your school, NICE!

You mentioned a game for children with educational needs but you didn't say how it helps them and how the game is.

The school appearance and organization was so attractive and also well explained and it is noticeable that you worked hard on doing the design. However, in the playground I think that for young students the swings might be dangerous.

In general the content was very well explained although you repeated the same points sometimes and it wasn't really organized. What I missed was the learning community and its role in the school.

It was a great project, well done!!




                                               Umaima Kassemi Serroukh


Education league Ideal School

        The way was presented the topic and the video is excellent. It is innovative and creative. Giving the chance to the children, in this case students to think about what would be an Ideal School for them. It is similar to what we have done at the beginning of the our video. Children´opinion is key in order to best build an "ideal school". They also presented an ecologic orchard and bicycles´parking which I find a great way of educating children into a healthy life style.

         What about methodologies?
They spoke about social constructivism which matches with the way they have distributed the classroom. It is good way of presenting the two ways that they are working: cooperatively and cooperatively.

      The capacities they want to promote are a critical attitude and a divergent thinking, which I understand as the same. Teamwork, creativity, resilience are important, too.
The idea of creating a new subject called Spiritual Development is good point. A place where to reflect about other cultures is a good idea instead of having only one unique religion taught.

        In relation to leadership, all the groups took the democratic one. But they do not specify the kind of it. I would say that the most appropriated for the inclusive education and the way families are actively engaged would be the distributed one. Nevertheless, the characteristics of a good headmaster well.
       
        Kiva has been the program used for most of us. They also used other ones called team mediators and friendly students to enrich the emotional and social learning of the students which I find fantastic. "Entre todos" is the program that is shown in the video to promote an inclusive environment, including students and parents, too.

         ICTs is seen as a tool to enhance multiple intelligences and a tool to facilitate the equality of all students, which I think is a good point. However, we though about the way of introducing them to pupils. This is given them an appropriate digital literacy knowledge.



Sofa sessions Ideal School

        This group has done a huge effort in order to study context of their school. I want to congratulate them. It was very risky form their part, but I think that the point is to learn and they also give us the opportunity to know more about the issues that surrounds the creation of a school.

       Although it has been difficult to follow the video and what they say because of the lack of subtitles or/ and ideas or images, and because they have worked in the same line, I find it very innovative and the theory well explained.

          "Corner program" is a great tool to get all the school involved in the same bilingual learning process. In which the classroom is divided into different groups. Each year students change the team in which they are, that can be the Irish one, for instance. I find less interesting using a behaviourist model to correct and enhance children in this kind of learning. I prefer a continuous assessment of their progress instead of just adding points. However, general teacher assessment is a good point, focusing on the improvements and following up the student progresses.  In addition,  they introduced the concept of Kolb´s cycle which is similar to the Singapore Method and it fits well with the constructivist point of view that they have about the learning process.



Othersiders. Marta y Ana

          I could not image what a big effort they have done just two people. They have built a miniature of their ideal school and they had that idea to give to each course of nursery an specific name in relation with the famous tale "Three little pigs". However, I think they have donde an extra work that was not necessary for this project.

         In general they went in deep with the ideas and they spoke about lot of points. Maybe I would prefer a more dynamic and concrete video. Nevertheless, the theory was very well explained with good examples.  They focus on bullying and into the prevention of it using apps such as "BullySemáforo", through group dynamics and assistant plans. Generally speaking, the school is presented as a place where to promote difference and tolerance, self-esteem, too.  As we do they paid attention to the emotional part using an specific methodology through books such as "La montaña de Iván" by Begoña Ibarrola.

         On the other hand, I really like that they consider the children promoting of change and the  concept of communities of practice that are everywhere. In reference to the methodology they share the same concept as we do: working in a cooperative way. Ana and Marta also paid special attention to the positive aspects.

What about the evaluation and methodology?

        They took different procedures as we are doing in this subject: the self-assessment, coevaluation and evaluation of the teacher. Teachers will have to surprise their students which I think is a big effort and not that effective. Instead I prefer to use the term to wake up in pupils and emotion that will enhance them in order to follow the learning. And in this way avoid the routine. Finally, the values are presented as a way to grow positively. The main one is to give the pupils the tools to discover by themselves who they are, about their goals (although I think this aspect is difficult for children to understand), about "what footprint do I want to leave?" and the most important is happiness.



Fernweh Ideal School

       The video was very originally made although it has been difficult to me to follow since the drawings go faster than the theory. The idea of name school is great. The use of the name to explain the main objetive at the beginning is a good way to start. "Sinergia" is the name which I found connected with the idea of rhizome that we have worked in our group in relation with the connectivism conception of how we learn. As of all the groups they choose a cooperative way of learning. 

           It was very interesting the way the connect the reality with the fiction. They placed the school in Madrid and they look for financial help through real companies as BQ. But they also will rent the school to individuals and companies in order to collect money. In reference to the methodology they choose constructivism and social constructivism to enhance students autonomy which  is a good point in order to produce and effective learning which I understood as a meaningful one. About leadership, it was explained very well the main characteristics but I missed the type to promote. 




Travelchers Ideal School

         Travelchers paid a special attention to the emotional aspect. Some of their goals are to achieve empathy, self-control and self-confident, agility and adaptability as deeply relevant social capacities. The most I enjoyed form this group is the methodology part. The "Aprendizaje en escenarios prácticos (ABEP)" is a the best way to produce on children a meaningful learning since they are connected with the reality, although is a built one. But the best way to learn is practicing. And the idea of times instead of subjects.

          Although the video sometimes get monotonous I appreciate the huge effort that they have done in the last week in order to finish the project. They worked really hard so they could show it the next week. I am in favor of a flipped classroom methodology although it means a huge effort to the teachers so I would give them time in their schedule in order to work on it. 

         Travelchers as we have done,  consider the library the drives for cultural and social of education and the heart of the school. I found complex to work with 60 children in the same classroom although there are three teachers. I think children will get easily distract. Finally, the way the distribute the classroom  in a U form during the dialogues is essential so every child can see his classmate and can be created a confident relationship between students. 


Contrasters Ideal School 

           Contrasters look for a democratic, inclusive and cooperative way of learning in which ICTs have an important role. Nevertheless, they focus in the negative aspects instead of the positive ones. Instead of promoting an educational environment where ICTs are presented as dangerous tool and teachers can create a unjustified fear, I prefer to focus on the positive ones and to educate children to acquire a digital identity as well as critical attitude.

            Self-review framework is a good tool to evaluate the performance of the school and it can also help the headmaster to reinforce his role which I found well explained in the main characteristics but not well designed. They also took special attention to bullying and they presented different applications which are very useful. To help children with disabilities they used a project called "Azahara". The methodology is an interdisciplinary one and similar to Travelchers they have different studios where to promote an specific kind of learning.

           They also spoke about school schedule and specifically about introducing an extra second language and I am not sure if this is possible. What I really appreciate is the concept of the library which is the same as in Travelchers and in LosGochos. I missed the family participation and more details about the kind of methodology since they only mentioned it in a superficial way. To conclude, I would like to congratulate Nacho for his big effort completing his work and keeping his self-motivation.

DEMOCRATIC SCHOOLS AND LEADERSHIP. Project 2

Democratic schools and leadership.pptx from Los Gochos

DEMOCRATIC SCHOOLS

A democratic school is a school that is participatory, egalitarian, non-sexist, non-classist and lay, encourages the open flow of ideas, has faith in the ability of the individual and the people to solve problems, promotes reflection and critical analysis to evaluate ideas, there is a concern for the welfare of others.

To be democratic has to:

• Guarantee the school success of all students, but without giving up a good quality.

• The knowledge in the school must revolve around the student and not around the teacher as it is currently done. The students must have the need to continue learning throughout his or her life. The students have to be protagonists of their learning processes.

• The public school (although also the private one) by the help of the teachers, parents and students has to leave the state of general uselessness that is currently now.

Nowadays the democratic centers are public in their great majority, a private school has complicated to be democratic because part of the base to collect money to accede to them, with which they discriminate to a part of the population.

The few centers of secondary that follow democratic ideas have begun solving their problems of coexistence through norms realized with the intervention of the students. It has been seen that much more progress is being made by working together than by doing each teacher in his classroom or ignoring the students' voice.

Main characteristics of democratic centers

• Work with projects, curriculum globalization: They try that there is no work by subject. Project work is very common because it can include a large amount of content.
• Use of libraries: In democratic colleges the library is used as a tool in the search of information and is fully integrated into the curriculum. In addition, the first half hour of the day is usually dedicated to the students reading the books that interest them most.
• Opening to the environment: The surroundings are not just museums, exhibitions or plays. So are people, activities, the countryside or the city in which the centers are located. An environment of a large city may be advantageous for certain activities, but may not be for others. In these schools, especially primary schools, there is a great effort to connect knowledge with reality and to know nature.
• Classroom organization: The primary classes of these schools are full of life and activity, they are not based on seats surrounded by four walls in which the projects are hanged up. There should also be a library in the classroom where students can find the information they need. And the teacher’s desk should be at a place that doesn’t disturb the free movement of the people in the class.
• Teaching based on dialogue: The students are the ones who propose the topics on which to investigate. During the school day three times a week there is a dedicated assembly line, a place where all students have the opportunity to express themselves, and bring something about an issue that has caught their attention. In addition, there is a time for the delegates of the courses to speak in the teachers' room about the global problems of the school
• Use of the new technologies: Democratic colleges use new technologies as a means to make teaching more attractive to students. On the internet you can find activities for all subjects and of all levels.
• A democratic coexistence: In these schools the voice of the parents counts more than that of the teachers themselves, the parents form a cooperative - which becomes an element of creation of social fabric - acquisition of curricular materials and other types of materials. In addition to these schools there are students who are called mediators, who become reference people for all those who suffer integration problems or who feel harassed, getting a conversation between the affected parties solve the problems that exist.

LEADERSHIP

The objective of educational leadership is to find a directional model that contributes in the development of a quality school for everybody.

According to Kurt Lewin there are three different leadership styles than can be followed at an educative centre:

Authoritarian leadership: the leader holds all the power and is the one who makes the decisions. It is a unidirectional leadership exercise in which followers obey what the leader says.

Democratic leadership: it is based on the collaboration and participation of all the members of the group.

“Laissez faire” leadership: the leader is not responsible of the group and let it to its own initiative.

Furthermore, Likert finds five behaviours in a leader’s effective conduct:

♣ Promotes positive relationships and increases the sense of personal growth of the members.

♣ Keeps a loyalty sense of the hole group.

♣ Gets high standards of performance and transmits enthusiasm to reach groupal  objectives.  

♣ Has technical knowledges.

♣ Coordinates and planifies.

A leader can’t always carry out all these behaviours because the ideal behaviour of a leader depends on the context it is developed, the relationship between the leader and the members (the leader’s capacity to motivate his mates and to influence them).

When we realize the leadership exercise we need to keep in mind that its development is influenced by two variables:

Leadership style: directive, oriented to productiveness, supportive and participatory.

Maturity of the members of the group, the ability and disposal of the people to accept the responsibility to lead his own behaviour in the correct task which will influence the capacity (knowledge and abilities) and will (motivation and interest) of the group.

If the team doesn’t have capacities neither will the leader must “lead”, establish the objectives, give instructions, etc. The leader is who provides what, when, where and how. 

♣ If the team doesn’t have capacity but has will, the leader must persuade. The leader has to explain the objectives and tries to convince the members to accept them and get involved in the task. The leader is the guide.

♣ If the team is competent but doesn’t have will, the leader promotes participation. The leader gives responsibility to his followers, helps them to make decisions and their collaboration and commitment. The role of the leader is to make participation possible and to stimulate it.

♣ If the group has capacity and will, the leader has to delegate. The leader observes and accompanies. The rest of the members make decisions and do the tasks. The leader gives the subordinate the responsibility and the instrumentation of the decision making.

Over the years, different proposals for educational leadership have emerged: instructional-transformational leadership-facilitator-persuasive-sustainable-distributive

In the 1980s, a form of educational leadership emerged that broke with authoritarian leadership, instructional leadership, thanks to which the schools that practiced and practice it, have achieved a greater overall development of all its students

It contributes the missions settlement and scholar goals.

♣It helps generate a positive learning climate.

♣ Helps and supports the professional development of teachers.

♣ Develops, coordinates and supervises the center's curriculum.

♣ Encourages teamwork of teachers.

♣ It favors the participation of the school community.

 ♣ Has high expectations for teachers and communicates them.

 ♣ Contributes to generate a culture of evaluation for improvement between teachers and the center.

Transformational leadership is characterized by the ability of the principal to promote the functioning of the school; The development of explicit, shared, moderately challenging and feasible goals; And the creation of a zone of proximal development for the manager and his staff. It is characterized by being a dynamic process, depending on the situation and change generator

Facilitating leadership: it favors the collective capacity of a school to adapt, solve problems and improve its results. The strategies used are: to foresee resource limitations, build teams, provide feedback, coordinate and manage conflicts, create communication networks, practice Policies of collaboration, so anyone can start a task and involve anyone to participate; The process works through negotiation and communication.

Persuasive leadership. It is based on:

Optimism: the leader holds high expectations for others;

 ♣ Respect for the individuality of each human being manifested in behaviors such as civility, education, courtesy and affection;

 ♣ Trust, since humans are interdependent, trust becomes the highest form of human motivation; and,

♣ intentionality: persuasive leaders act from an intentionally suggestive stance.

These premises must be developed in four dimensions: self-motivation, personal (demanding, recognizing) as professional (risky, investigating), and invitation to others, also personal (spirit of community, personal relationships) and professional Learning and supervising learning).

Sustainable leadership. It is based on seven principles: 1) Sustainable leadership generates and maintains sustainable learning; 2) Ensures success over time; 3) Supports the leadership of others; 4) It directs attention to social justice; 5) Develops, rather than uses, human and material resources; 6) Develops the diversity and capacity of the environment; And 7) Has an active commitment to the environment

Distributed leadership, which has more impact and greater acceptance is characterized by a boost to the multiple leadership of faculty, students and the entire educational community, which allows learning from peers and projects of all of them. It involves breaking away from the isolation and individualism of teaching and student practices by supporting the community to move forward with such cooperation. Distributed leadership does not consist in delegating or assigning tasks or responsibilities to others from a central point of view, but rather of taking advantage of the capacities and skills of all, passing functionally from one member to another according to the actions required in each case.

But for any of these proposals to be carried out it is necessary a change in the culture and organization of the whole educational system.

CHARACTERISTICS FOR THE DIRECTION OF SCHOOL CHANGE

Management should be a shared task for the whole school community.

Cultural change of the school based on concepts such as involvement and commitment, learning from everyone, teamwork, good humor, risk, respect. Where they all learn, they develop professionally and personally, to become a true learning organization.

The director of change must focus on the development of the people who make up the school, have high expectations and communicate with them.

The principal must be a school manager, must possess skills and abilities to achieve a new school model, inclusive, based on a realistic plan of action.

In short, we can say that in order to achieve a direction for change, it is necessary to rethink the leadership model from its foundations, starting with reformulating the concept of leadership (to define the power point): who and how it is assumed Equally). Thus, it is necessary to have:

♣ A shared and distributed leadership

♣ A direction focused on the development of people both individually and collectively

♣ A visionary direction

♣Take risks;

♣ Be directly involved in pedagogical decisions

♣Be well formed in processes of change.

Possibly the direction for the change, as we are formulating it, is only a vision, a utopia. But to change you have to have a utopia to fight for. And if, in order to change the school, the principal has to make the maximum commitment, then the management model must be changed and the principals who have to take that step are the principals. Because schools of higher quality and more equitable will be achieved only if managers commit themselves to the task of transforming the culture of the school, a transformation that inevitably happens through a profound reformulation of the management model as it is today. If we want another society, we need other schools, and also another model of direction.

FIRST PROJECT PRESENTATION "Cooperative Learning"

Why to work cooperatively?

• We learn better from each other.
• Teams are more effective when you are in a complex project.
• You will reinforce your interpersonal skills.
• You will also develop your interdependence and your self esteem.
• You will be able to apply all you have learnt in your daily life and personal relationships.

COOPERATIVE LEARNING

COOPERATIVE LEARNING

Introduction

The learning system has always been a competitive environment, as we can see in the picture. Each student, individually, had to memorize the concepts explained by the teacher and on the textbooks as best as they could to achieve a mark that defines how much the student has approach to the model student, the standard. It seems as if students were a manufacture and the school was a fabric. So, those students that are not like the standard are thrown away from schools. This learning process differentiates people as academic and non-academic.

However, there is another methodology, that is cooperative learning, that instead of looking for the standardization of the students, adapts the curriculum to each student to develop their abilities. Students are active rather than passive, the opposite of traditional learning methodologies. On this methodology, students do not learn individually. It is an inclusive education where they work together and improve as a whole. So, none of the students remine isolated or drop out.

There are some factors that conditionate students learning and are needed to make the change between competitive and cooperative learning. These are: the role of the teacher, the class distribution, the engagement between the students and the rules sets by the teacher and the students.

·         Video

As we have done at the beginning this teacher encourages learning and positive relationships, which we think as a group is vital to work cooperatively.

What is cooperative learning?

Cooperative learning is a learning methodology, in which team work groups are the base of the students learning development. It motivates students to become self-directed in their learning. All the students work in group to reach a common goal. They work together encouraging their interdependence (trust), interactivity (communication), accountability (responsibility) or collaborative skills (leader-ship). During the process, all the team members are learning about the topic, since the group members make sure everyone understand the topic.

We, “Los Gochos” team, have defined cooperative learning as group works where students cooperate to achieve certain objectives under some specific conditions.

Classroom Organization

The class must be organized in an environment where all the students can see each other, they can move with freedom around the class to motivate their interaction and communication with their classmates. They can be organized in base structure (like in spike-espiga-) or in expert structure

Group Organization

Base groups: they are permanent and the teacher is the one who organizes it in a heterogeneous way of: Gender, abilities, motivation, hobbies and ethnicity also the suitable number of members is around 3-4 but no more of 6. Finally, this group structure should rest over the course. Ex org e inst groups

Sporadic groups: they can be organized in an heterogeneous or a homogeneous way, they can be composed from 2 to 8 students and they normally last only one session Ex. development psychology groups

Expert groups: base groups are redistributed in different groups to get better in a specific competence. Then the members come back to their base groups and they share the knowledge acquire. Ex communication groups of the topic teachers are afraid of ICT

Internal group organization

Team notebooks: in it students elaborate some files where are reflected the members of the group, their role which should be exchanged or the team objectives in order to reflect on their performance so the group get better in it functioning.

Session diaries: in it the responsible of writing the diary with the rest of the members reflect about what they have done and how acquiring a critique attitude about their personal performance and the group one.

Teacher’s role

Teacher have to explain their students the learning objectives they want them to achieve with the task, as well as organize the class groups in an heterogeneous way. Communicate to the learners they have a common goal and to achieve it they have to work cooperatively, in this process teachers must follow that their students and the group works are going to succeed in their task. To do it effectively teachers have to guide their learners, help them if they are struggle, ensure everyone participates in the group development and motivate continually students in their learning process.

Cooperative learning techniques

Team Assisted Individualization: each member’s work are adjusted to their characteristics and necessities. Students help each other in order to reach the team objectives.

Peer tutoring: this technique consists on a duality of the members of the group in which one of them (the tutor) helps the other one to understand a topic but not giving him the solution, only guiding him to find the answer.

Jigsaw: this technique is based on the expert group organization because each member of the team is responsible to prepare a topic and specialise in it with the rest of the mates who share the same topic. After that, they go back to their base teams to work in a common project understood by all of them.

Group-investigation: students choose a topic depending on their likes and abilities. Later they form groups of 3 to 5 members and with the help of the teacher, they design the objectives in order to prepare a project which has to be evaluated by the teacher and the students.

IDEAS FROM THE READING: COOPERATIVE LEARNING

According to the Johnson & Johnson model, cooperative learning is instruction that involves students working in teams to accomplish a common goal, that maximizes the learning and satisfaction, that result from working on a high-performance team, under conditions that include the following elements:

1. Positive interdependence. Team members are obliged to rely on one another to achieve the goal. If any team members fail to do their part, everyone suffers consequences.

2. Individual accountability. All students in a group are held accountable for doing their share of the work and for mastery of all of the material to be learned.

3. Face-to-face promotive interaction. Although some of the group work may be parcelled out and done individually, some must be done interactively, with group members providing one another with feedback, challenging reasoning and conclusions, and perhaps most importantly, teaching and encouraging one another.

4. Appropriate use of collaborative skills. Students are encouraged and helped to develop and practice trust-building, leadership, decision-making, communication, and conflict management skills

5. Group processing. Team members set group goals, periodically assess what they are doing well as a team, and identify changes they will make to function more effectively in the future.

However, instructors who attempt it frequently encounter resistance and sometimes open hostility from the students.

Examples from cooperative learning:

Problem solving: in these tasks it would be recommendable that children solve the problems individually at home and after that, they join and compare their answers and help each others because if they solve them at the same time some children would be faster than others.

It is a good idea to make a test after each project with the objective that every children work actively and all of them understand the task in order to understand the topic better. That way every student know every part of their project and not only their own part.

Students will evaluate their own classmates giving them a feedback of the project and from those recommendations the evaluated group would give a paper to the teacher including their mates’ comments. Using rubrics is useful but these need to be shown to the students firstly so they know what it is expected from them.

In peer-led team learning (PLTL), lectures are supplemented by weekly 2-hour workshops in which students work in six- to eight-person groups to solve structured problems under the guidance of trained peer leaders.

Students worked in teams of three or four on activities that involved guided discovery, critical thinking questions that help provide the guidance, solving context-rich and sometimes open-ended and incompletely defined

problems, and metacognitive reflecting. Most activities focused on a single concept or issue and could be completed in a 55-minute session. Following each workshop, students completed an individual quiz on the workshop content, thus promoting individual accountability

Individual student performance was superior when cooperative methods were used as compared

with competitive or individualistic methods. The performance outcomes measured include

knowledge acquisition, retention, accuracy, creativity in problem solving, and higher-level

reasoning. Other studies show that cooperative learning is superior for promoting metacognitive through, persistence in working toward a goal, transfer of learning from one setting to another,

time on task, and intrinsic motivation. better social skills and higher self-esteem (3), as well as more positive attitudes about their educational experience, the subject area, and the college.

Students usually have rejection behaviours towards cooperative learning and for that reason teachers shouldn't use all the techniques at a time but focus on only one to make the pupils feel comfortable and introduce new ones slowly.  

Groups are formed by the teacher in an heterogeneous way:

• 3-4 members in each group
• Living in different places
• From different countries

Groups are made by a previous questionnaire.

It is important that each member has its role but all members need to understand the other's work and that is the role of one of them.

The members of the group should evaluate themselves and the rest with the objective to improve.

For a correct development groups should stay the same for about a month. Provide for periodic self-assessment of team functioning. Every 2–4 weeks, teams have to respond to questions

such as: How well are we meeting our goals and expectations? What are we doing well? What needs improvement? What (if anything) will we do differently next time? Ayudarles en la resolución de conflictos

At the beginning of the course, explain to students what you’re doing, why you’re doing it, and what’s in it for them. Let them know what they’ll be doing in teams, what procedures you’ll follow, and what your expectations are. Then tell them why you’re doing it, perhaps noting that it will help prepare them for the type of environment most of them will experience as professionals, and sharing some of the research results (particularly those relating to higher grades). The section in this chapter on research support for cooperative learning provides useful material of this nature.

What are the main functions of the teacher in this  kind of learning?

1. To specify the learning and teaching objectives from cooperative learning by choosing the correct technique and the strategies. This implies that the teacher dedicates one or more sessions to what we could call “initiation activities” presenting the topic to the students and giving them information.
2. To choosing the right size of the teams in an heterogeneous way.
3. To dispose the classroom in a way that the members of each group are together looking at each other and also see the teacher and the blackboard.
4. To provide the class with the materials needed and suggestions to do their work.
5. To explain the students what they have to do and the structure they have to follow.
6. To explain the objectives that the teacher wants the pupils to achieve and to connect concepts and information. To define the main concepts, explain the procedure students must follow and give them examples to understand the topic better but also give questions to the class to check what students know.
7. To structure positive goals interdependence: tell the students that they need to reach a goal as a team by working cooperatively with their responsibilities.
8. To observe interactions between students. The purpose of this observation is to know the problems of cooperative learning and to check that students are open to different ideas. Every member must give solutions and express their personal opinions but any member should have the role of a leader. The teacher can interpose himself giving comments and suggestions.

 PRESENTATION