Group items tagged

Hi Elanur Hoca, thank you for sharing this news with us. I agree to many things written in this news. 1. I agree that students are unhappy in school. Anybody who have teaching experience must have seen that when the last bell rings and the classes end, the students begin running to escape from school. The body never lies. 2. I agree that "non-academic factors" such as resilience, grit and empathy can have a profound impact on young people" and their ability to succeed. 3. I also agree that person's wellbeing, and overall life outcomes and success in life is affected by much more than academic grades. They are affected by their character attributes, and their social and emotional skills.

A learner-centred school in Turkey? I really wonder how these students will perform at university entrance exam. Pass or fail? I am really curious about the results.

I cjecked the socie-economic status of the families. Families seem to be high in terms of socie-economic status. This made me think that the students will not worry about university enterance exams, since they will have some opportunity to enter some private ones.

Yess, this is the school I mentioned earlier and I couldn't remember their name. I also follow them on Twitter. Such an innovative approach! I think we need more alternative models. Also think about the pedagogical approach in these schools and their relations to Situated Learning. Check out: "http://www.baskabirokulmumkun.net/bbom/biz-kimiz/"

I think this is certainly a more situated-learning based school as there is no exam threat :) However, we should completely change the system, if we want to apply this schooling all over Turkey. With our system, we can't even fulfill "learning" because of the hundreds of exams. We just try to pass the exams with grade anxiety. Also, what about the socio-economically disadvantaged schools? They don't have such a luxury, I think.

participants for building democracy, non profit organization, interdisciplinary teachers, students are decision makers, it reminded me the society centered curriculum and the ideas in conflictand the Dewey's popular saying "school is a miniature society" :)

I deeply believe the power of motivation to learn and classroom technology can be used to enhance students' motivation in learning of the specific content. Still, it is open to debate effective use of technology in classrooms, especially in our country. To deal with this inefficiency of classroom technology, we need to focus on teachers' technology literacy and try to develop this literacy.

Hi Özlem Hoca, BBC news you shared with us is very advisable to our friends. (1) I agree that computers may have the possibility to be distractors for learning and they may be abused by some students. Students may prefer to use computers for activities other than for school activities. When I was an intern teacher, I wanted to show how a literature search is performed to my 20, 9th grade "Project" (noncredit course) students in 2006, I ended up running from one student to another because as I leave him/her with his/her search, s/he began to sign in facebook and their emails. (2) I also agree that plagiarism may occur in homeworks due to internet resources. (3) Another interesting opinion in this news is that "We're training the students to use technology which hasn't yet been invented." We are training the students to the future that is not defined, not yet clear.

I think integrating technology in classrooms is inevitable as computers have been being used in lots of areas in the world and it is a little bit optimistic to assume that education will escape from this "invasion". Today's students live with technology and indeed, technology can enhance the representation of a topic, communication among learners, eliminate time and space limitations in reaching information, etc. The article says that "frequent" use of computers in schools is more likely to be associated with lower results. Instead of frequent use, one should know how one can healthily get benefit from computers, when to use it, how to use it, when not to use it, etc. Those questions are still major questions in modern educational science research. Findings from such research can enhance the positive impact of technology in classrooms.

Having read this week's reading assignment, a part of which focuses on this particular result, I felt the need to comment on your share Özlem hocam. It is mentioned in Chapter 1: Introduction that "in the 1980s, cognitive scientists like Roger Schank and Seymour Papert made claims that computers would transform the schools and learning. This was a rather radical claim and it helped form a strong consensus among parents, bussiness community, politicians that getting computers into schools was a must. During 1990s, installing computers and the Internet in schools was a major trend. By 2003, 95% of all the schools in the US had their computers and were connected to the Internet. However, the impact of this huge investment was highly disappointing. Studies had shown computer use was not correlated with improved student performance. When the reserachers began to study to find the reason, they found out that the computer use in schools was not based on learning sciences; instead, they were being used as an extension of instructional classroom. By this I mean, bringing technology to the classrooms was not enough without changing the structure of instruction. Educational software has been based on instructionist theories, with the computer performing roles that are traditionally performed by the teacher. Teachers and students were not aware of how to use those computers efficiently. Students read the texts on the computers instead of reading them on books.Learning scientists continue to emphasize the powerful role that computers can play in transforming all learning. But they reject instructionalism and behaviorism. Instead, they present a new vision of computers in schools. They suggest that computer should take on a more facilitating role, helping learners have the kind of experiences that lead to deep learning."

The scandinavian pioneering role in school reforms has a long tradition. It is not only the comprehensive-school-system which makes Finnland a top-performer. Many countries are trying to emulate Finland and more equal opportunities in education can be a good progress. But why is Finnland a top-performer? In my opinion it could be PISA which is responsible for the comparison of school systems. PISA is criticized by many researchers, so first we have to scrutinize whether Finland can be a prototype.

According to the latest scores of PISA, it seems like we all start to search how China and South Corea is doing in their education systems. As for the question why Finland is a top-performer, there are several aspects to explain it. I think, initially, teacher education comes first and equality and equity in education follow this. Therefore they show up as top thanks to PISA. Their school tradition, history of both economics and education, population and mentality of learning could be obstacles to make it as a prototype and compare with some countries.

My aim was not to call Finland as a top-performer into question. I want to criticize PISA and their purposes. For example the test-structure are determining the results, so if sth. would be changed, another country will be the top-performer. I found an interesting critique: http://www.univie.ac.at/pisaaccordingtopisa/pisazufolgepisa.pdf But maybe I failed the original topic, because that article doesn't discuss PISA.

We had the same conversation here with my colleagues from Belgium and Netherlands the outcomes that PISA is measuring. It is after all measuring certain outcomes that OECD wants to measure. We also have to be careful in taking Finland as a model and such comparative approach just like mentioned in a series of reports that Christian shared.

PISA is a big goal for policy makers. They want to success even they don't believe, because it makes country popular as seen above:) We have to focus on real indicators like development... And here is an infographic about Finland's educational system: http://slowrobot.com/i/43651#

In my oppinion, we couldnot seek the other countries' educational systems, at the begining of possible educational reform process. Before this, students profile and the reasons behind the problems have to be analysed; such as economic and social problems, teacher's competencies, subject matter, schools' physical equipments, etc. As I mentioned, before analysing other countries systems, we have to analyse our educational systems indetail and clearly. From that point, solutions can be seeked and useful after determination fo the problems..

Now I understand your point, Christian. Thanks for sharing that pdf, I think that is related with the article since it discusses the whole structure of PISA which is showed as a scale. And for sure,that might happen that another country would be top according to another kind of testing but still there is a hard fact about Finland and their school culture. I have seen that infographic before but I feel the need to correct some issues there according to my stay in Finland. For instance, it says that there are no seperate classrooms for accelerated learning or special education but there are many of them. As for homeworks, this saying of having rarely homework is not actually reflecting the reality. They do have homeworks but the definiton of it might cause misunderstandings;)

Thank you Sinem for correcting the infographic's assumptions. I would like to hear more about your experiences in Finland.

This change in the system is very major, I agree with you. Once again we as educators are facing implementations without needing any pilot testing or making use of any kind of sound research. I also read that there will be open-ended questions but I am not sure. But if this is the case, we have one other reason to worry about maybe; the quality of these new questions.

I am afraid that there is no other country in which incessant testing is applied more Turkey. Every year, something is changed by the Ministry of Education, no need to mention about the examination system. They change the system without even measuring or analyzing the results or outcomes. Deep modifications need to be implemented to improve the infrastructure of the education system. However, in our "unique" political environment How???

I like very much this kind of schools, Erdem. Thank you for sharing this video with us. Unfortunately, the current generation's parents are so nurturing/protectionist on their children. As a result, children cannot take risks, or they are afraid of trying something. I think that children can learn better by touching/seeing/observing the concepts. I see lots of private kindergardens around, which are wire-clothed like a "prison" and children are trying to learn something. In such schools showed in video, students also can more easily learn the meaning of abstract things such as "freedom, love of nature, and independence".

This school seems so intresting and enyable and I think that children can learn much more thing they learn in ordinary kindergardens. But, I agree with the Yasin's comment on parents. Parents are so protectionist and they can not allow children especially in this age group shown in the video to participate in such an activity . They prefer prison like kindergarden to this forest schools. Therfore, I think that teachers first should teach parents that being too protectionist is giving greater harm to child.

I also present a brief paper on this method. You can download it clicking on the link below: http://www.williamsburgmontessori.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/The_Montessori_Method.pdf