Our Guidance Plan: Bullying

   A month ago, our teacher asked us to built a guidance plan which would include diversity and tutorial plans too. He actually mean that we should take an existing guidance plan and adapt it to one invented school that we shall create.
   So this is it, our school was called 'Skull School'.
   We decided to focus our work on bullying, which although is a topical theme, is a very bold problem on schools. So, in our presentation, we introduce this topic with a video of a child called Jonah Mowry that had suffered bullying for years and relates his story on a video posted in Youtube. Then, we also watched in class a chapter od "La banda del patio", a spanish cartoons where it was presented bullying in a very 'funny' way, if it was possible. We also did an act of bullying at class with me dressed like the bulled child, Dani as the principal and Ruth and Raúl as bullers. Here there is a picture of me dressed in that way:

   And here you can see a quick view of our presentation, our prezi:

Guidance Plan on Prezi

   You can see the whole prezi on the page, here.

   After the presentation we realize that it was full of mistakes like slides full of boring text instead of images or light titles, disorder, not enough cohesion between the concepts... So, our classmate Ruth wanted to do by herself a new and definitive prezi where is better showed the information. Here it is.
 
   You can also download our complete guidance plan with all the information written in a very extensive way here.

Teacher-Parents conference

   This time we watched a video in class. On this video it was showed in an theatrical way how a parent-teacher conference usually is. Here is the video we watched:

   After this video we watched other two extremely examples: one very cheerful and warm and the other the opposite. Here we have two videos very similar to what we watched that day, instead they are done by university students for a work (possibly):

   Bad parent-teacher conference

   Good parent teacher conference

   There were a couple of things in the first video that my classmate, Ruth Martín, and I noticed were the most important:

• Welcoming the parent 
• Smiling almost all the time 
• Showing the parent some material done by the student 
• Explaining the marks and the performance and relationships of the student 
• The teacher lets the parent talk 
• Thanking the parent for his/her support to the homework of the student 
• Explaining the difficulties of the students 
• Giving suggestions to improve them 
• Setting a phone call to talk about the progression of the student 
• Say goodbye in a polite and a happy way 
• The way they sit 
• The teacher is following to points to not forget anything 

   Nevertheless, there were a lot of things missed. So, again, Ruth and I make a list of 'good things to do in a teacher-parent conference'. Here there is:

1. Close door for confidentiality
2. Folders for every student
3. Maintain file of communications with the parents
4. Send home sheet for parents if they have any questions
5. Know objectives
6. Prepare students for conference
7. State purpose of the conference
8. Open with positive attribute about student
9. Describe progress in major subject areas
10. Use jargon free language
11. Set mutual goals (and understand the role in the goal)
12. Establish timeline for goals
13. Summarize
14. Thank the parent for coming
15. Evaluate conference: Evaluation sheet + self assessment
16. Follow up with student
17. Follow up with parent
    
    
    It is obvious that these things can never appear expontaneously on our first day of work, it requires practice and hard work. Also all this measures shouldn't be a strict law to follow, we have to be flexible and adapt ourselves and our conferences to every parente. Each child especial and has a propel way to dealing with.

Meeting with Pilar Alonso

   Well, I didn't have the opportunity of being in that (as my classmates said) amazing class because I had an exam in the conservatory (it went well), so I searched for a resume of it.
   So, here you have the link to one entry of my classmate Ruth Martín's portfolio where is summarized this class.

Collaborative V.S. Individual learning

   This day in class we do a big debate about this topic: collaborative learning against Individual learning. We divided the class in two groups: one pro and other one against. I had the luck to be in the pro one (I say 'luck' because I am really agree with collaborative learning).

   Some of the arguments in favor were:

• Children like to speak with each other.
• It helps to abolish shyness.
• Students more intelligent can help others.
• It opens children minds because they collect new ideas from other minds.

   Some of the arguments against were:

• Children more advantaged go faster than the others and we don't have the security that they are going to help the less advantaged children.
• Shy students will not become outgoing students necessarily.
• There are students that have no interest in anything, so they will not be predisposed to order help to their classmates.

   Although we agreed in many ideas we didn't come to a common argument. So, in my opinion, I think collaborative learning is an incredibly good tool if we manage it well, if we make sure we are doing all right and we are covering all the information to be taught. Collaborative learning is very useful and enjoyable, but only if we pose it in the right way.

Attention to diversity: activities in groups and expositions

   The next thing we did in class was to talk about attention to diversity, a very important topic to us. As teachers, we have to know about all the students in our class; their economic and social situation, how they behave with his parents and friends...
   This time we had to design a dynamic and funny activity to present one theme which information about was provided by the teacher. This time we didn't have to do a presentation, we had to find an original and interesting way of presenting that information. There were three topics to choose:

1. Special Education Needs provision within Mainstream Education (Students with specific need of ed. support).
2. Separate Special Education Needs provision in Early Childhood and School Education (Students with specific need of ed. support).
3. Support Measures for learners in Early Childhood and School Education (Students in disadvantaged situation).

   Our group decided to work on the 2nd topic: Separate Special Education Needs provision in Early Childhood and School Education.

   So, in order to organize ourselves and our minds we make what we called an 'activity card' where it was exposed what we would do to present our theme. 

    Here you can download the complete word file and see what is about.

   Weeks later, we made a funny activity-debate where we have to defend what this aid or another was more necessary for a hospital than a school for disabled students for example, and so on.

Group of experts

   On 5th of May and during the following sessions we adopt a dynamic in class proposed by the teacher called Group of experts. Classes on this way were develop in groups. In this dynamic the teacher provide information about a topic or a couple of topics (as the Webquest) and you, as a student have to read, understand and expose it. We had four topics that were:

1. Spain: Guidance and Counselling in Early Childhood
2. Spain: Guidance and Counselling in Higher Education
3. Spain: Guidance and Counselling in a Lifelong Learning Approach
4. Spain: Support Measures for Learners in Asult Education and Training.

   So, first, we divided the class in groups of four people so everyone in each group had a topic. Then, we have a couple of minutes to read the topic we choose, individually. After reading and understanding it, people who had read the same topic (all that have read the first, all that have read the second...) put in common their ideas. We undo the initial groups and create new ones (one per topic). Once we put in common our ideas and acquire a little bit more of knowledge we went back to our original groups and exposed to the rest of integrants what we have learn about our topic. Every person in the group had to take notes about what was telling the person who was speaking about his topic. For finishing each group told to the rest of the class what have they learned and search ideas with the others.

   My topic was the first one, and here yo have the schema of ideas I did that day to explain my classmates in what consist my theme (click on it to make it bigger):

School guidance and counseling presentation: our first Prezi

   As we were the Group 1, we start presenting. We decide to use this incredible tool: the Prezi.
   We divided our presentation about School Guidance and Counselling in the following sections:

• What is it?
• Functions and areas
• Who receives it?
• Who gives it?
• When is provided?
• Where is provided?

Here you have a dynamic view of our work:

School guidance and counselling on Prezi

For a full screen and more exhaustive view click here.

Webquest

   As our teacher is a ICT teacher on a high school he wanted us to learn by some alternative ways, not only the usual or the traditional ones. He always put all the contents and information on our virtual forum 'Moodle'. In this class he spoke about what a Prezi is (a kind of online powerpoint but with more functions and advantages like the online instant work of the members of a group) and we realize what a wonderful tool is (and not stoping to using it), about other forms of learning using computers or didactic videos like this funny one (in spanish):

... and finally, this: a webquest.

   The base of a Webquest is that you have to run a research with some contents and references that are provided by the teacher. First, for knowing what was exactly a Webquest he gave us this link. Then, once we know what was this new form of working, he show us how the activity must be developed by gaving us this other link. 

   The main parts a Webquest should have are:

Introduction: it should be interesting, didactic and appealing in other to catch students attention.

Task: here we explain what we are going to do, why and why this theme and not other. Why are we interested on that? The objectives must be specified here and also the main question.

Resources: from where we have obtained the information (usually on internet as it is an internet tool).

Process: how are we going to do that? Steps and roll of the students in the topic.

Evaluation: it sais how students are going to obtain assessment (it is necessary for them to have a feedback).

Conclusion: what have we learn at the end? Answer the focus question and revision of the work.

   The major advantages I see in a Webquest is that the information you have to manage is provided by the teacher, you don't have to look for nothing else and you are not allow to do this and make mistakes on that research, searching for wrong information which you have no idea.