Storytelling - a few tips to tell stories and capture students attention

Storytelling may sound an easy task for many teachers. However, for some reasons others try not to tell them in class for many different reasons. One thing which requires for any storyteller is definitely time to prepare the story – if you have read or heard the story before then it may become easier. On the other hand, if you have never heard of it, you need to take time to read it a few times until you are confident enough to tell it by heart. Take also some time to prepare yourself for what you want to say and how you want to say it. It means verifying details and gathering information that will be crucial for your story, such as dates or descriptions of one place, one character, anedoctes and most importantly, body language. 

Make sure your story includes some action, characters somehow close to the audience reality, emotion and one big event. By this big event, we tend to believe that a story must have only one big event – otherwise it will be too long and somehow may lose its purpose. One story which shows only the protagonist may sound boring – s/he needs to pursue some adventure, justice, love or triumph. One or these feelings makes the story more interesting. It is on the storyteller hands though to focus on the activity of storytelling and its drama, keeping the audience engaged and interested.

Your story must fit the audience – what we mean by that is in case you are telling for a group of kids aged 5-6 you will avoid using refined vocabulary – keep it short and simple, always looking them in the eye, modulating the tone of your voice when one character is about to say something, facial expressions can vary according to the scene being described as well as having short pauses to collect some feedback, to verify if your audience is really paying attention to the story being told.

If you tell your story too slowly, the audience will lose interest. But if you do the opposite, they might not follow all the steps. Make sure you find a balance to tell your story in a pace your audience will find it pleased to hear.

Do not be afraid of making mistakes or forgetting some detail while you are tellling – it takes time to get used to it and improvising is also a good solution for storytellers.

Make sure you have a solid beginning, middle and end – it will help you remember the most important parts in a story and control pacing.

Last, but not least advice could be: make your story visual – you can use some elements which can become your story more realistic – by that we mean, in case you are telling a story about a king, you can have a crown of a king or maybe if you tellling a story of a cloud if you can use cotton to symbolize it. Again, during this phase of preparation and selecting the elements of your story it is important to pick a few and simple elements, otherwise your audience may lose interest in your story and will give more attention to the elements presented.

Photos conceeded by Dany Danielle - storyteller who lives in João Pessoa

How to implement Project-Based Learning in my work?

Firstly, it is important to understand the main idea related to the Project based learning (PBL),  emphasises on the students engagement and also to make the environment of the school more reliable and meaningful to the students. It means that the students are the center of the learning process and the teacher is only there to guide them in the activities.

The Project based learning can be described as a tool to plan and build projects at school. It involves most of the time dynamic classroom approaches and the students are invited to learn in a deeper way. It is a teaching method in which the students learn, build knowledge and skills through competency based curriculum. To implement the Project based learning is necessary much preparation and planning to design an effective way to develop the student skills, and also is really important to have the start point, a driving question, a real world topic, in which the school community is involved, and get the students attention to the real problem situation. this driving question will guide teachers and students during the development of  the work and should be answered at the end of the project. So, the daily lessons, contents, activities should help students to answer this driving question and its result will be reflected  in a continuously learning, when the students should be motivated to build their knowledge in an autonomy way. When the design of the project is presented to the school community,   it is important to have in mind which contents will be addressed, how the teachers could explore different possibilities of approaches, how the selected activities would support the question and utilize the curriculum contents to increase the students competences. Integrate as many subjects as possible and develop always new topics and new issues that increase students motivation, curiosity and allow to students to go in other directions providing resources, guidance and  giving  them  feedback of good things that they are doing. The goals of the project should be clear, on its purpose,improve. It is necessary time for reflection, allowing self-evaluation of activities and discuss what need to change, what work well and also share new ideas for the project.

As tapiocas:

Anderlane Lima

Daniela Soprani

Ketlen da Silva

Monique Viana

Vilma Raquel

VIDEOS SUGGESTIONS

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LMCZvGesRz8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RZViqnEc6Ko

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tE6WHn0-cSQ

References

https://www.edutopia.org/blog/pbl-how-to-write-driving-questions-andrew-miller

https://www.bie.org/about/what_pbl

How to implement Project-Based Learning in my work? (Carcarás Group)

         First of all, the teachers should get in mind that the most important thing is to be able to have a mindset, because project-based learning is kind of approach which the student is the focus of attention. In this approach they (students) start real-world problems and challenges, simultaneously developing cross-curriculum skills while working in small collaborative groups.  "Questions may be the most powerful technology we have ever created. Questions and questioning allow us to make sense of a confusing world. They are the tools that lead to insight and understanding (MCKENZIE, 2008)”. So the teacher has to figure out a way to engage them in an interactive and practical work, they need to learn by doing. 

As we can see to use the project-based learning strategy teachers need to do more than pose a project, they need to be sure that their proposal has the potential to get some components in order to provide the students capacity to develop or improve some skills and abilities, for example teamwork, self-confidence, leadership, autonomy, entrepreneurship, respect, trust etc. 

         Significant content shows us that the problem must engage students working with an important content. A relevant thing that the teacher must pay attention is the technological world in which the students are, so they need to use 21st century skills, these skills should be focused on technological tools it will help the students participate in need to allow them to problem-solve and involve in critical thinking, creativity and collaborative work in order to be successful. Quality projects motivate students to learn and investigate. It happens by through giving the students voice and choice, teachers need to allow students to make decisions about how to investigate the problem and how to work together. The teacher can help facilitate this. The last but not the least important thing are reflection and revision which students will receive feedback about their progress.

References:

https://www.edutopia.org/project-learning-introduction

https://www.edutopia.org/project-based-learning-guide-implementation

http://study.com/academy/lesson/project-based-learning-definition-and-ideas.html

 Group: Aline, Daniel, Izabelly e Odair

PS: Hermano was absent in this classwork.

How to support student's autonomy, engagement and creativity in learning? By Oxente, Guys!

              

There are some important concepts and approaches which can help us to raise students’ autonomy, engagement and creativity in learning. Unfortunately, in Brazil, our classroom management reality is a bit far from focusing on students’ competences. Instead, our teachers are worried to cover inflexible curriculum making learning unpleasant and meaninglessness because it is concentrated on teachers.

In order to changing this reality, we need to work step by step on HOW to apply different practices making a movement from teacher centered to student centered methods. For instance, developing autonomy is a very hard work, it takes time and patience from teachers. With the help of different active techniques and short assignments that students can collaborate in groups and be less supervised, we as teachers, would be creating a new study environment and giving students the chance to be really part of the learning process.   

Besides that, the level of students’ interest would also increase when they notice that their learning style and creative way of showing what they have been learning are useful, taking into consideration that most of the time we (teachers) don´t give students the chance to show and improve their skills for real life world.

So, to be an effective agent of change, we need to implement these ideas, day by day, with possible challenges to the students with the purpose of making them more confident on the approach and more responsive their own learning process.

How to use digital tools pedagogically meaningful ways in learning?’’

                       Available at http://profisabelaguiar.blogspot.fi/2013/11/professor-tecnologia-e-educacao.html

The globalization and consequently rapid dissemination of the ICT (Information and Communication Technologies) generate new ways of acting, of interacting and learning. We can see that people do not live in the same way as in the past because nowadays we have many tools that facilitates our life, our work and that affects many other aspects of our daily lives. On this context, we see the necessity to include this digital tools in the school environment, as a consequence to the fact that our students also do not learn in the same way as in the past, now they have a lot of resources to access dynamic information that can help them also in the process of teaching and learning.

The use of digital tools pedagogically meaningful ways in the process of teaching and learning can provide educational practices interconnected to various media, making the materials much more attractive to the students. In addition, access to electronic networks can provide interactivity between learners and teachers who can already communicate, exchange information, perform group tasks, and even enhance bonds of friendship. In this sense, using technology to help the work of the teachers and to engage students can generate improvements in the teaching and learning process, because we can not separate the educational process and the technological world.

According to this perspective, Moran (2013) says that the process of teaching and learning are in this century increasingly being challenged. There are countless sources, distinct conceptions, instant information. The consequence of this is visible in the educational process. Educating today is more complex, the subject in this contemporary society, with a fragmented identity, is also complex. It is interesting also to see that technologies reach more the students than the teachers. So, it is necessary to rethink the whole process, redesigning to teach, work together with the students, guiding activities and finding new ways to work meaningfully.

ICT (Information and Communication Technologies) are one of the resources most used by postmodern society, which is increasingly communicated through technological devices. Related to school, there is a need to integrate new proposals for the use of technological resources to pedagogical practices, making the school an environment to research, teaching and collaboration.

In this context, new pedagogical approaches have been developed to promote a more active learning, including the integration of the methods used in traditional classes with online activities, this approach is called blended learning (GARRISON and KANUKA, 2004).

Working with new technology, for instance, are quite difficult because there are lots of poverty in Brazilians schools, but nothing is impossible if you want to do it. In this context, one of plausible action is creating groups of interested students once they will bring to this challenge tools and knowledges not available in teachers know-how, considering that many of the teachers currently active in our state of Paraíba belong to the generation that do not have intimacy with technology, but their students certainly have it. In addition, this type of work encourages teamwork and collaboration among those involved, which in our view is a good exercise in citizenship.

References:

MORAN, J.M. Como utilizar as tecnologias na escola. São Paulo. 2013. Disponível em: <http://www.eca.usp.br/prof/moran/site/textos/educacao_inovadora/utilizar.pdf> Acesso em 21 nov. 2016.

GARRISON, D. R.; KANUKA, H. Blended learning: uncovering its transformative potential in high education. Internet in Higher Education, n. 7, 2004.

By: Nego Group

   

SCHOOL VISITS - Oxente Guys

Last, but not least, we want to share with you our impressions during some school visits we have been to in Finland.
There is a link attached below that summarizes our ideas in a PPT format.
Enjoy the reading.

Oxente, Guys!
Gabriela Machado
Luis Melo
Marcelo Sales
Moysés Barbosa
Teresa Cristina

How to engage students?

As tapiocas

Anderlane Lima

Daniela Soprani

Ketlen Oliveira

Monique Viana

Vilma Raquel

                                           

Lack of interest, poor performance and indiscipline has become increasingly common in classrooms, it is not surprise that traditional teaching methods do not work, students can no longer engage with them. So, how to evoke in students the desire of learning? How to involve them in their own learning process?

We, as teachers, know our students, then, it will be a lit bit for us to find clever ways to engage our students, and we need to think about possibilities to face this challenge in creative and efficient way.

To exist an effective and lasting learning it is necessary that there are definite purpose and reflective self-activity of students. Thus, the real learning takes place when the student is interested and shown engaged in learning, that is, when it is motivated. It is the inner motivation of the student drives and vitalizes the act of studying and learning. Hence the importance of motivation in the teaching and learning.  

Encourages a sense of well-being and comfort in the classroom, greater engagement in activities and learning, there must be a quality relationship between students and teachers, who along with mutual respect becomes a key element in the development of self-motivation.

Human beings learn, as experience experiences and develop thinking. Thought it is the way of intelligence to express themselves, so it is in thought, who lives learning. Every change of thinking, the learner produces its own knowledge. In other way any student has a particular way of receiving informations, and each new experience he rearranges the mental structures to adapt again to the world. The develop of thought is the mixture, the interposition of the particular mental structures of individuals and the environment, so much richer and more diverse are the experiences, the greater the development of thought and better the quality of knowledge, learning.

• Organizational autonomy: when the teacher allows students to make decisions for themselves, within the terms and classroom rules;
• Autonomy practice: when the teacher gives students options and different ways to present their ideas (through different media, for example.);
• Cognitive autonomy: when the teacher allows the student to self evaluation in certain  situations from a pattern of self reference;
• Work with technology's: The students are in general interested in technology and when the teacher knows and works with it, it’s easier to get the students engaged in the learning process;
• Make learning groups, and help the students to support each other in a collaborative work.
• Encourage your students to find their learning goals;
• Getting out of classroom. Trying to use different environments;
• Always encourage your students to believe in themselves;
• Having fun classes.

Anyway, the teacher should always choose, in our view,  a variety of educational process or methods to promote the engagement of the students.

References:

http://blog.educacao.mg.gov.br/?p=12900

http://www.mestregr.com.br/blog/4-formas-inteligentes-de-envolver-os-alunos/

http://www.planetaeducacao.com.br/portal/artigo.asp?artigo=2798 (picture1)

http://info.geekie.com.br/volta-as-aulas-3-maneiras-de-usar-a-tecnologia-para-motivar-os-alunos-apos-as-ferias/ (picture 2)

                                         

 School Visiting Report

 Lyseon Lukio - Upper secondary school

    In a gray day in Hameenlinna we woke up early in a Monday morning, it was cold and there were few people in the streets, few talking, a silent day. A typical scenery in Autumn. We went walking to school, our expectations were to receive some lecture, talking to the teachers, visit some classes rooms, to get knowing the whole environment. It was what happened, in some scale. There, we were greeted by the principal and the counselling guidance teacher, by the way, the guidance teacher has a very important role in Finnish schools. He/she  is responsible for guiding the students in their competences and skills.  

    There were few students when we got there, few students in the halls, so we went to the conference room to listen the principal talking about the school’s history and its organization. It was good to listen that the school was the educational place to many important people in Finland, including Sibelius, a classical composer. The teachers have made effort to give importance and preserve the building’s history and memory. There were some posters on the walls with many schools projects, some of them are related to Sibelius.

    Despite the fact the school was an old building the way of teaching was more guided to the phenomenon based learning. The school in that moment was running projects in psychology field, we have discovered that visiting the classrooms, all of them were with the same theme. It is important to mention when we went out to the teachers room. The school was packed with living students moving around, alright, the old build school was pulsing with the young upper secondary students. They seemed to be curious about our visiting due their glacing, it was very warming and made us feel comfortable as teachers. Somehow it contracts to the outside bounding schools walls,  where the Finnish people are more introverted .

    As we got to the teachers rooms, there were some teachers, some of they were about 30’s or 40’s. Something came to our ears was that every teacher there speaks English! Good surprise, we were able to communicate without any problem. The teachers were open to talk and show some parts of their working routine.

    After some coffee and talking we were divided in groups to visit the classrooms. As we said, teachers were dealing with projects, and the students were presenting the results of their researches. They were working in groups of five, it is common to create teamwork in the educational institutions in Finland, in fact, it was our first task in the first day at HAMK. We were incentivized to mix with the students, talk to them, feel their feelings in being a student in that school, It was a good experience. It is worth to mention that the students and teachers were receptive.

    At the and, we went to the conference room, so we listened more about the school project in entrepreneurship and counselling guidance. Some students presented us with their experience in business area as they conduct their high school studies. It is interesting noticing that students do not study just subjects from the board curriculum, but in Lyseon Lukio case they have studied business and entrepreneurship. For a good surprise they managed winning a contest in business field. They were in three, each with their skills enriched by school, each in the process of building their desires as a future career. There were a magician, who probably, but not necessarily is going to work in the entertainment business, other a singer with strong voice and strong will and another a promised business woman. The idea of counselling guidance, possibility to mold the knowledge in the field where the students are interested in, good structure and environment, qualified teachers among a series of other things are meant to be a path of a reasonable education to be reach for us as teachers.

Demola

    Demola is an international organization that facilitates co-creation projects between university students and companies, either locally or internationally. For Demola groundbreaking innovation is created only when people with passion and talent are interconnected across nations, cultures, and fields of expertise. It means that innovation with true impact cannot be created in isolated and disconnected units. That is why we need a stronger ecosystem instead of bigger silos.

It was an interesting experience to know that company. Partnerships that are effective with them are very important for the multiplication of good ideas of students in the area of entrepreneurship. At Demola they are able to shorten borders giving the necessary support to young entrepreneurs to develop their projects and leadership.

    During the presentation of the Head of Demola Tampere, Ville Korpiluoto we had the opportunity to meet some of the work done by them, as well as what is needed to make the team. To know the forms of applications you can visit the company's website and choose the desired location.

Proakatemia

    Proakatemia is a good option for those ones who want to experience a different kind of education. There isn't teachers there, the students learn from the others students, in case the oldest ones, through the sharing of their own experiences, successes and failures as well. They have the opportunity to learn by living and practicing according to their kind of enterprises, they have the chance to travel abroad in order to improve and or purchase their skills and knowledge.

    We realized a space completely different from others educational centers here or in Brazil. The time spent at school is different too, the students are more autonomous, they can make their own schedules, so themselves can decide how many days and hours they will stay at school, and for our surprise, or not, they like to stay there as Alexandre, and student there, who presented the Proakatemia’s organization he told us that really like to stay there, and feels in the right direction. It's what all teachers hope to listen from a student.                        

Fonte: http://esseepankki.proakatemia.fi/

Hämeenlinna Yhteiskoulu - HYK

    The school was recently renovated, everything was working in according. The environment was crowded with kids from primary school, it is a school from 1st to 5th grades. As the principal said, every corner of the school should be useful for learning, thus even stairs could be transformed in a meeting point with an interactive board. It is not necessary to say he was correct in seeing the whole school as big classroom.

    After some words the teachers was divided in groups to cover a bigger area, we could see different practices performed in that day. In one of the classroom the student of 4th grade that was studying mathematics, by the way, the whole floor is used as classroom, so it caught our attention the fact they were spread through the room, some of them were studying in a group, there was one student studying by himself, others were listening to a lecture, another group studying science and there was a group of eight students with special needs studying the same topic as the rest, but there was a special mathematics teacher educator taking care of them. The whole classroom is meant to improve the students needs, space for meeting, collaborative or independent working, electronic resources, comfortable fornitures and no walls among the students.

    The Brazilian public schools reality is very different from this school in Finland. Most of Brazilians school don’t have this support, especially in technology. There are many students in the same classroom and most of the teachers do not have a study to lead with students with special needs, but we can try to adopt some educational strategies from Finnish schools to Brazilian schools. Of course this is a hard challenge but together we can make the difference. 

CARCARÁS GROUP MEMBERS:
Aline Ramos
Daniel Silva
Hermano Nunes
Izabelly Dutra
Odair José

VISITING SCHOOLS IN FINLAND

In our initial training at university we’ve studied many theories that aim to guide the pedagogical work of the teacher in the classroom, but not always these theories are lived and practiced in our post-university context. Finland is not in this failure picture and shows everyday practices in what their schools gether theory and practice in perfect harmony to contribute for the success in education of their students.
Visits to schools in Finland started in High School Hämeenlinna Lyseo, which follows the philosophy of Finnish education focused in interaction, creation, cooperation among students and emphasis on entrepreneurial vision of their learners. Those are some of the things we’ve experienced in the institution we mentioned before.

Considering the speech of the students, we could notice how comfortable and well they feel in the school environment. Those feelings are essential to the effectiveness of the learning and teaching process. In that good environment, moreover students have the support of the school staff, specially of teachers and counselor guide, the pupils can be encouraged to be proactive and self-confident to establish and reach their goals. Then, these qualities allow the effective development of their competences.

 

High School Hämeenlinna Lyseo

In this opportunity, we could also watch some classes and see, in practice, how is the question of phenomenon based learning and collaborative/group work. We perceived that the students, in fact, study the phenomenon focused on the class and work together to understand better and to expose the comprehension in a presentation to the class. It is interesting because the students choose many different resources to make their work.

Other interesting point is the use of technological resources, students are always interacting with their mobiles, computers and using a lot of different programs and apps.

During the observations in the schools, not only in Lyseo but also in Hyk Hameenlinna Yhteiskoulu Primary School, it was possible realize that the education is really effective in a collaborative work among teachers, principals and students. The learning process become attractive. One point very interesting  seen on the schools, was the way how the classrooms are organized, the pleasant environment makes that the process of  teaching- learning  be comfortable both for teachers and for students.

Hyk Hameenlinna Yhteiskoulu Primary School

In this context, the role of the teacher is related with mediation and the focus of the process of learning is not on the teacher, but on the students. The teacher is always helping and observing the students and their different competences through of their work.

Another opportunity to stimulate the interesting and motivation of the students is to encourage the interaction between local entrepreneurship and students, promoting the local development, moreover is an opportunity to practical learning experience, preparing the students to be aware and proactive in their reality, enhancing cultural practices. The students can innovate and rebuild handicraft activities, assigning value to these social, cultural and economic activities. Considering these possibilities, centers as “Sybellius center” has a great relevance, being a space that promote a relationship between the students and local entrepreneurship.

The connexion between students and entrepreneurial activities enables the application of knowledge and development of creativity, being a meaningful experience that it will be similar to the context of companies in which the future profissionais can work. Environments as Demola and Proakatemia promote a partnership work, giving tools to the students, even during the graduation, develop the qualities that they will need in their professional life.

Demola Tampere and Proakatemia

The experience of developing a project with partnership, and, then, to bring it into practice, aching goals, and producing results, reduces the distance between theory and practice. Moreover, the gains could also act as a positive feedback for the students, thus, evaluating all the project steps, it is possible to identify the strengths and needs of each team participant, enabling them to start a process of “self-development”, already improving their professional career.   

Considering the approached context, the school and university time needs to be connected with the student context as we could observe in those visits. The partnership between students themselves; and, schools, universities and entrepreneurship  centers, through projects give opportunities to the  students be proactive and develop their competences in a stimulating environment.  

By: Nego Group

According to the theme discussed in partnership with the Finnish teachers in our conference on special needs, teacher’s preparation should provide means to recognize the student’s needs and difficulties. Through the observation, family participation, direct contact with the student and centered approaches to the needs of each student are strategies to be designed.

Our reality in Brasil is affected with many cases of negligence to treat the ones with special needs, that is the case where the teacher, the subject teacher we mean, take ahead the situation and trying his best. Some features are in the teachers’ field to deal to some student with special needs. Firstly, we must to be awake of the existence of them and difficulties they have, it is not hard to some students being left aside just because their impairment to the class routines. Grouping all student as one same body it not the way.

One thing that was strange at first, but in a good mean, was  the fact the Finnish school system conside all students eligible to make part of the main stream education. It is maybe the master pillar of system in treating the theme of special needs, no one should the put apart, at least the ones without severe disabilities, who requires strong structures in facilities. Alright, we should copy.

Being evolved in the our educational environment represents many challenges to the teachers, if you think in problems to teach “normal” students, image to deal with the special ones. As proposed in our discussion and with common agreement, our system does not give proper attention to the students with special needs, thus is up to the teachers load the job in giving assistance as much as possible.

In very many cases, as our experience could say, the ones who is probably suffering most by the tact of being in some way different from the rest, sometimes, just to be euphemic, are the segregated from teamwork, from informal talking with colleagues and many social behaverings. Consequently, the teacher could put dead end and minimized the social impairment incentivizing teamwork and being flexible to a wider channels of expressing their thoughts like: drawing, painting, writing, orally, playing, any model of expression that could elicitate feedback. It could rise the motivational level, commitment and self-confidence as intended goals. Thus the “normal” ones and ones with special needs could be involved in dynamics cooperative working, fall walls between students. Further, came simple steps that could make difference, improve our empathy and lead our doing to be more humanistic.

In the process of teaching we can not see the human being as individuals with no singularities, no differents interests  and no variation in the way of learning, keeping it in mind comes the individualisation of process of teaching and learning, specially dealing with the special ones. Just to variety the tasks, try new things, testing, sees whats works better, sees what standardization come to be individualization. Of course, being the teacher is not just lecturing, here we should take advantages to methods and approaches which deals with students-centered standard, try to reach the bottom of “the cone of learning”  (Magrino, 2010), give special support and personal study-plan.   

We consider the above thoughts as near, touchable, hopely our doing arise others tools and procedures concerning to this so long black spot.    

During our studies we could summarize and  learning different forms of approach to be able to support students with special needs. We can mention:

• Shorten homework assignments
• Allow extra time for testing
• Allow students to do some work orally, painting, playing, drawing, etc.
• Oral setting of assignments and tests
• Speak clearly and use short sentences
• Encouragement
• Being supportive, make they feel important
• Give more attention
• Show his/hers achievements as form of motivation  
• Flexibility in approaching the to content
• Improve his/hers already skills
• Try to variety the taks
• Promote group work 

fonts:

http://thewriteway.com/2010/05/we-learn-90-percent-of-what-we-say-and-do/  

CARCARÁS GROUP MEMBERS:
Aline Ramos
Daniel Silva
Hermano Nunes
Izabelly Dutra
Odair José