My learning diary Irene Confalone
This is my diary... here you are something about me:This is a place close to my house : Aci Trezza
My name is Irene Confalone. I teach in a primary school in S.G.La Punta , a town 10 km far from Catania. I live close to the sea and close to the mountain . I have been teaching for 25 years . I love children and I 'm the mother of one boy and one girl. I love my job. In 2002 I was the coordinator of a Comenius project . Last year we joined in a multilateral project with 9 different european countries. It was really successful .Last march we applied for a new project KA1- Erasmus + and I'll keep my fingers crossed. I have been the responsable of different european projects in my school and since 2012 I'm an etwinner.
My motto is "Staying in contact with inspiring people"
This is my school
My class
My learning diary: PBL Course -Teacher Academy
"Teach me and I forget .Teach me and I remember .Involve me and I learn" . Benjamin Franklin
I'm an etwinner since 2012 : a new adventure!
One of my eTwinning projects of this year
What is PBL ?
"The Introducing Project-Based Learning in your Classroom course introduces you to the concept of project-based learning (PBL) and helps you to implement this pedagogical approach in your classroom by providing concrete examples, ideas and tools that can inspire and support you and your students to embark on a PBL learning journey. We will be exploring three key challenges related to the implementation of PBL: how to get students to collaborate effectively, how to facilitate student-driven activities, and finally how to assess PBL in your classroom. The course offers an introduction to these topics and provides you with a framework to engage with fellow teachers and other education stakeholders by sharing resources, experiences, ideas, etc. The goal of the course is to develop into a professional learning community discussing PBL even after the course has finished"
Reflections on our current teaching practice.What would you like to change?
Why use it ?
I 've been involved in several international projects : Comenius and Erasmus+.This year my class joined in lots of etwinning projects and I think we got a lot from every school and every experience. I think the school can grow up throught etwinning projects. I want to make my etwinning projects more collaborative for the children and for the entire school. I would like to disseminate my "etwinning passion" in my school, because I love it , but I need more cooperation from other classes . An eTwinning project would help improve my teaching and motivate my students for learning. The exchange of ideas with a European colleague allowed me to broaden horizons and meet new realities. I think it would be a way to improve my English and learn basics of another language. For my students would be a way to experience a new culture and share knowled . The most important needs are to improve foreign languages competences and digital technologies .
WHY USE A PBL?
Here's my trading card tool ...and I present myself
Developing my learning design :
My reviews: happy to grow up with my mates ideas.
Review made By Sundari Hari date 10-06-2016 06:49 Comment Your idea of PBL approach to implement with your teaching skills is a great outcome of this course. Keep experimenting PBL with your course curriculum and enjoy your class every day.Hope students will enjoy. All the very best!!
Review made By Chantal QUERRIEN date 13-06-2016 08:46 Comment Dear Irene I had a look to your learning diary that I have found very interesting. i see that you are creative and more advanced, since your learning design has already been prepared. certainly that your are used to teach with this PBL approach with your primary class. lucky you! it also enabled me to discover another tool: Adobe Spark pages. I feel somle admiration for primary school teachers who are at the base of the whole educative process and getting pupils used to this way of learning is very useful for the remaining of their studies. All come from the base! Good luck with your project . i hope the children will be enthusiastic about it. Wish you a great success. Best regards Chantal, France
I like the idea of knitting a European flag, mostly because it's something students wouldn't do that in their private time, and yet it exists around us in real life... This seems to be cooperative learning, but one student produces one scarf. I don't really know how to help you make the driving question, but I like the activity, though. Good luck with this, Maja.
It is a very nice idea and you have described it in detail . The estimated time it seems a little bit : Will our heroes to learn how to knit and to make a scarf in so little time ? If I think of my students I'm sure that would not be able to complete the task in such a short time. You still have everything planned well and you've already done much of the next task.
Developing effective collaboration for PBL
COMING TOGETHER IS A BEGINNING, KEEPING TOGETHER IS PROGRESS, WORKING TOGETHER IS SUCCESS Henry Ford
The students learn trought their mistakes:... but "Never give up"
3. Developing student-driven activities for PBL
IT'S NOT THAT I'M SO SMART,
IT'S JUST THAT I STAY WITH PROBLEMS LONGER
Albert Einstein
Scaffolding:
In education, scaffolding refers to a variety of instructional techniques used to move students progressively toward stronger understanding and, ultimately, greater independence in the learning process. The term itself offers the relevant descriptive metaphor: teachers provide successive levels of temporary support that help students reach higher levels of comprehension and skill acquisition that they would not be able to achieve without assistance. Like physical scaffolding, the supportive strategies are incrementally removed when they are no longer needed, and the teacher gradually shifts more responsibility over the learning process to the student.
WHAT IS RESILIENCE?
Resilience is a quality that helps us through daily stressors and major life crises. While some of our resilience is associated with inborn personality traits, there’s much you can do to develop your resilience level, and the resources below can help. Your answers indicate that you have many traits and thinking habits that are associated with greater levels of resilience, which is a very good thing. You are likely more able to handle life's crises – both major and minor – and turn difficulties to your advantage, or at least weather them optimally. The resources below can help you to build even more resilience in your life, and help those in your life do the same.
Students Resilience: Reverse Brainstorming: My opinion
I think students become more confident ,day by day, if the teacher says : "Come on ! Go on ! You are a good student ! You can do it!" " Nothing is so difficult" . This is my experience with a deaf student. Evenmore this is the best sentence we would like to listen to. Isn't it?
Design thinking is an approach to learning that includes considering real-world problems, research, analysis, conceiving original ideas, lots of experimentation, and sometimes building things by hand. But few schools have the time or wherewithal to integrate these processes into the school day.
Kindergartners are tackling simple design challenges too, learning about materials, and getting a taste of design thinking as part of all their lessons. By third grade the students are actually designing products that have a service component; they research the problem, come up with solutions and design presentations and brochures on their best idea.
They have to be willing to deal with uncertainty themselves; you have to give up control.”
The projects teach students how to make a stable
ELEMENTS OF DESIGN THINKING
A big part of what Saxe loves about her job is thinking about how to foster each student’s individual creativity, helping them think critically about how and where they get their best ideas. One active student discovered his best ideas came after he’d tired out his body playing sports. Another student found that shutting herself in a closet where she wasn’t affected by anyone else was the most productive.
Entrepreneurship training is seen as a vital part of kids’ schooling. Whether it’s through after-school programs, summer camps, competitions, or in-class activities, advocates believe that learning the ins and outs of business-building can help develop some important real-world skills
Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship (NFTE): A longstanding education organization that helps empower at-risk youth through teaching entrepreneurship in class, after school, and during the summer in 11 regions across the country and with partnerships across the world. Although NFTE has been around since 1987, naturally programming has shifted to accommodate what business smarts mean in 2011 by, for instance, developing curricula called “Exploring Careers for the 21st Century” and teaching skills like how to effectively use Twitter for marketing and branding purposes.
Resilience refers to the capacity to return to good mental health after challenging a difficult situation. It is the ability to cope with problems and setbacks, to adapt and bounce back when things don't go as planned. Resilience does not erase life's difficulties. Instead, it gives people the strength to tackle problems head on, overcome adversity and move on with their lives. The best way to prepare our youth for an uncertain future is to provide each student with a resiliency antibody. According to many experts, resilience is actually quite common and people are very capable of learning the skills that it takes to become more resilient.
4. Bring discussions about human resilience into the classroom.
Opportunities abound to connect resilience with personal success, achievement, and positive social change. Expand discussions about political leaders, scientists, literary figures, innovators, and inventors beyond what they accomplished to the personal strengths they possessed and the hardships they endured and overcame to reach their goals. Help students learn to see themselves and their own strengths through these success stories.
5. Build supportive relationships with students.
Good student-teacher relationships are those where students feel seen, felt, and understood by teachers. This happens when teachers are attuned to students, when they notice children's needs for academic and emotional support. These kinds of relationships strengthen resilience. When adults reflect back on teachers who changed their lives, they remember and cherish the teachers who encouraged and supported them through difficult times.
Do you have a teacher who played this role in your own life? What do you remember about him or her?
Marilyn Price-Mitchell PhD's Profile
4. Assessing PBL
THE ROOT OF THE WORD "ASSESSMENT" IS FROM THE LATIN "ASSIDERE" WHICH MEANS "TO SIT BESIDE"
My opinion about assessment
I think that the most challenging opportunity is to involve all students and coordinate their work in P .I like to involve even lazy and weak students ,so they do not feel "different students".Sometimes many conflicts occure. Challenging is also to have a positive and happy attitude towards parents, students and other colleagues.
I teach English as a second language, in Primary School. In my school we collaborate among colleagues to share the main principles of assessment and final evaluation. Regarding our own subject we are free to assess students. For the summative assessment we always collaborate in teachers team. I like the students assess themselves as well, in this way they can understand their mistakes .
Assessment
In general students are afraid of being assessed. It’s important to make them
realize that formative assessment is not to punish them but to help them improve
their learning. I usually ask students to fill in a table with:
- what they already knew;
- what they have learnt,
- what they have questions about.
A simple technique that kids enjoy very much is for the teams to exchange their products and collaboratively reviewing and evaluating them by creating a wordcloud using the Wordle tool.
Formative assessment is very important to learn, especially if in line with what was planned (planning the activity) and if aspects that went not so well are registered (adjusting and repairing).
I sometimes tell my students when their performance is not very good: you have the resources and you had the time to do the activity. What went wrong? Think and tell us, please!
I offer a real positive feedback and I try to offer a moment of reflection upon errors for students in order to be an efficient assessment.