STARS

Good afternoon!

We are Sandra and Laura, and his week we have been the stars, and we have presented a short speech telling the most relevant advantages and disadvantages of the leadership styles.

This week, we weren't the stars, but due to thd game week, that there were two stars, we broke the rotation, so we decided that we would present this week, eventhough we were the stars of the following week.

The experience has been good, because as we have learnt all the types, the six types: authoritarian, democratic, paternalistic, laissez-faire, transformational and transactional, so we could make a great presentation. We related each leadership with a closed example to our everyday life, so that everyone in the class could have a better understanding of the topic.

We were the last group who presented, so we were very nervous because it is not easy to go in front of the class, with more than 50 people looking at you, and to speak in a foreign language.

In the presentation we explained:
What an authoritarian leadership style was, which is a stric person who has all the power over their workers; and advantages, such as, the person is objective and the objectives are more clear because just one person gives the orders, and the disadvantage is the low level of communication between the followers and the leader.

The paternalistic leader is like a father for their workers; the advantages of this style are that the leader has trust and loyalty of their people and they are a family inside and outside of the work, and the disadvantage is that the leader can start to play favourites in decisions.

In the laissez-faire ( participant) the power is in the worker; the advantages are that the workers feel free to take decisions and there are more diversity in decisions, and the disadvantages are that the lack of the leader can make that the workers feel insecure and conflicts can be created for that reason.

The democratic leadership style is where the workers can decide and have their own opinion. The advantages are that workers are free to decise, there is transparency and social equality; and the disadvantage is that there is a lot of time required to take decisions.

The transformational leadership style is where the leader tries to get the workers performance. The advantage is that workers feel implicated in the work, and the disadvantage is that it is unreal and that it has to be done in a spititual context.

It has been the last presentation of the #SOyER1314 subject, but now we have to still work very hard on it for the exam.

See you! 

The Stars

STAR

Hello readers! here I am with interesting news.... =)

I'm Raquel and this week I was assigned the role of the Star. wonderful, isn't it? :P

Well, this week, Linda ordered us on Monday to do a mini- activity in which we had to design a School simply. This has been the activity, but there is in it a hidden information in order to understand the activity at all, that I'm going to say at the end of the post. :O

So, once we all know what are going to do, we have to do the activity in half- hour. So, hurry up!! 

We had started to give different ideas about what are the different and more important branchs/points that are going to talk in order to create the school. During the meeting of creating the school, I must do my role as better as possible. So, all the different ideas that people come up with had to be voted by everybody, as a democracy. All members laughed due to my behaviorsm, because I don't usually perform in this way. So, they know that something was happening. :O:O. At first, they don't mind the voting, I mean, they said that it was not neccessary because in most situations we thought in the same way and we put different examples from our school and own experience about it.

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OUR SCHOOL: PESTALOZZI.

We have thought that the kind of name like this or an artist or famous that had done important progress in the education branch could be interesting for a public school. 

It gathers up Preschool' level and Primary Education for girls and boys (mixed). There are 25 children per class and there are 2 lines, A and B, in total 50 students per course. Tablets and Ipads could be a good tool to introduce technologies in the school and in the children life as well not only using them to play but also to work and for academic things. 

It's a biligual school in which children start to learn a second language from Preschool level. ( English or French). Also, international exchanges programs are available for example with EEUU and United Kingdom as well to all members of the school in order to improve the level of them. 

According to the organization of the school, the leadership team composed by administrative staff, head teacher and school head, the 3 most important, and on the School Board composed as well by teachers, students that each trimester must to chose his representative ( an student of the class) and the parents with AMPA, and a main administratives of each department. 

Also, they are 12 main teachers assigned for Primary and 6 for preschool as well as other specialised teachers like one of them for music, other for English apart from a lector, 2 for Sport' subject and 1 for French Language. English Language or French Language  is required for all teachers. Apart from these, there have to be 2 PETE's for attending psichological and sociological problems and disabilities for those students that need it.  

The geografical situation and part of the school have been also decided by us. 

As we can see, the school has two wide playground, one of them for Preschoolers and the other one for students of Primary education, car park and enormous room in which student can play and do sport inside as well as 2 elevators and ramps adapted to people with physical disabilities. A luchroom, cateen, library in which there are a independent room with different electronic resources as well as music room. 

Inside on the corridors, different important and current or artistic things that students do will be presented on it in different pictures or something like that. 

There have to be a special room for speech therapist, pedagogist and psichologist. This is what we have done in class to present the work to the class. 

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Once we have design it, we have to present it to the rest of the class someone different from the stars. Paz and Laura has been the chosen! quickly because we haven't  enough time but it's Ok, they have done the presentation the best they could. =)

So, Linda ask us how can we work in the group deciding lots of things about the School. There have been some problems and stranges things because some people ( stars ) have behaved in a strange way. This mean

All the stars had a "role", one of them were democratic people, other performed as authorities people and the other ones have the role of "don't take care", they cannot add anything to the group because they don't mind anything their group are saying or doing. 

The aim of this activity is to see who can we get an idea or a conclusion with other people different like you, that think different from you and add other ideas really stranges for you. That's the point. Today, we have done like a "simulation" because these situations are going to be part of our occupation. We have performed as in a real situation in our proffesional work. These situation is going to happen when we were in a school. We are going to listen to different ideas and millions points of views about a simple things, but these things can be lots of consequences in the life negative or positive. So, we have to listen to and add ideas to reach a good conclusion and don't be egocentric or that the only you want is to do what you say and that's all. That's not good and useful. So, be patience and polite with everyone. :)

Thank you so much
T8T

JOURNALIST

Good evening dear readers!

We are Paz and Isa, the journalist of last week. Today our post is going to be shorter, but as interesting as always.

It is shorter because we didn’t have to do any task. We had to complete the big one we were preparing during the lasts few weeks before going on holiday. This was: THE GAME! 

Do you remember the cards we were making the weeks before and all the mind maps about the spanish educational system? well… these were for playing at class with all our mates to a “ladders and snakes” game.

We were very, very nervous, but we completely trust in our stars (Ana Ruiz and Ana Sanchez) and they didn’t let us down. They answered correctly all the questions and finally… WE WON THE GAME!

It was incredible! We were very happy and very proud of all of the members of our group, because all of them had done a very good job. But we were specially proud of our stars.

It has been a very nice experience for all of us (even when we were very nervous during the game).

As I have told you, this post has been the shortest one we have maked but, at the same time, is the one that remember us one of the best moments of this course.

See you soon!

Paz and Isa.

STARS

Hi everyone! We are Ana Ruiz and Ana Sánchez, the stars of this week.

T8T's selfie

As you know, this week we have done a quiz. It was based on the game Ladders and Snakes like this =)

The objective of that game was to learnt and understand some basics about how our educational system is organized. For it, before playing, we had to read and learnt basic legislation about our educational system and put special attention in the differences between LOMCE and LOE.

Our experience as this-week-Stars has been satisfying taking into account the result: we are so happy for having won the game!

In one hand, we were worried because we knew that being starts this week was so much responsibility for us because the prize of the game was important and the whole group depended on us. But on the other hand we were confident because we knew that our partners trusted on us.

The day of the game we were so, so nervous, especially before starting the game because we didn’t know exactly the rules and maybe the game could change and obviously for the pressure. But, finally, all was great, as we expected. As the game advanced, we were more and more confident firslty because we were answering all the questions and also, thankfully, we had very good luck. 

But apart from that, we are happy because we have learnt all this information and we didn’t have to stayed hours and hours studying it by heart. We have done it step by step, in a way that you don´t easily realise how much you have worked on it: first doing the conceptual maps, then review them and unifying them, building the questions and reviewing them too and finally puting all in practice doing the game.

We have worked so much during this activity that despite of the component of luck, that was there, we have the peace of mind of being concious that we know quite well the main issues of the law and that we are able to give reasoned arguments to the questions. 

And congratulations to Step by step as well and all the groups that have won something during the game... especially to those who even have won the most important prize: the knowledge and the competencies behind all that.

THE ANALYSTS

Good afternoon! We are the analysts of the previous week, Sanda and Laura. 

Last week it wasn't a current week, it was a special week, the most intensive of the whole year, due to we did the LOE-LOMCE game. All the students were very excited because the previous week all groups had been working hard choosing the questions and comparing both laws, preparing the questions... 

The game was a difficult task for all stars, because even though the star always has the responsability of showing the whole group work, this week it has been very complicated to show it, because behind the activity it was a desired reinforcement for the School and Organization subject. 

We would like to congratulate all the stars of that week, because they have done a great job and they all did it very good in the game. We are very proud that with this high level we have in class, our stars have been the ones who got the prize. 

Thanks to our wonderful stars, all the members of the T8T group has been reinforced with a 9.5 in one of the questions of the final exam.

The best things of this week has been that all the members of the group has been linked. We have been supporting a lot our stars in the game, and we have suffered even more than them. It has been the activity which has motivated us the most in the course, even though we were very nervous.

The worst thing has been the role of the stars. We all think that in a future the game should be planned different, so that not just 2 members of each group have to play, because the responsability is very hard. It would be better if the whole group is able to participate and to compare the answers between them. 

The best moment of the activity was when we win the game, because after the nerves we suffered, we won the game, and the whole group was very implicated in the game the two previous weeks. It wasn't an easy task because the rest of the groups had a high level too.

The worst moments were during the game, when we were near to a snake or when our parners were near us or near a ladder, because they could reach us, and we wanted to win. Also, when it was our team turn, we were all the time worried about their answer, if it was correct or not. 

With this activity we have learnt that as future teachers, when we have to teach a hard unit, it is easier to motivate the students with a creative activity or with reinforcements. With this we get better results from the students, and we are able to see how a such a borring topic become exciting and funny for the students.

As a group, we would have to conserve the feeling of unification, and try to continue with a positive attitude, due to we just have 2 more weeks together as a group. 

This LOE-LOMCE content is related to other subjects such as "Acción tutorial", where we are designing some children activities, other ways of learning for the students... and we think that all the activities that we are carring out with Linda in this subject have gave us a lot of ideas for the other subjects tasks.
Moreover, as future teachers, it is very important to know well the laws of the educational system

Besides, it is a currently topic, which is being discussed in the media every day, and that directly affect us as current students but also as future teachers.

As a conclusion, we have to say that we have enjoyed being the analysts this week. The work of this week has been very positive, there isn't any negative aspect to say. We would have liked that all the weeks had been like this one.

See you soon.

T8T analysts.

FACILITATORS

Hello readers!

We are Paz and Isa from the group T8T and this week we are the facilitators!

This week we are repeating role, so in certain way, we have known what to do, which is interesting and great, isn’t it? 

Although we have repeated role, we haven’t repeated activity. Like you know each week we work in very different activities and we do many different things.

This week we have been working doing some questions about the spanish educational laws and about the conceptual maps, which we worked at last week. We did that with an objective: use it in the game that we are going to do the last week of the course.

As we have said before, these questions were about LOE and LOMCE, and the differences between them, I mean the changes and similarities that are among both laws. This is because LOMCE only modify some topics of LOE.

At first, as we had to do four questions about each topic, which were six; we decided to distribute them between the six roles that we are in the group. But then, we realized that in this way we were not going to learn about all topics. So we did a raffle, in order to decide which role will start with each topic. We took a number and then, we started to work.

After working in our topic, we changed them and we worked in a different one.

When we had all the questions, we met at the university on Tuesday in order to improve and revise them, if any had mistakes, or we could make them better.

It was very useful because we could modify some of them.

And, finally, on Thursday we printed and worked with them.

The way of working was like last week. Each group worked alone with one topic, our topic was number three (Organization of Primary School), choosing the eight questions that we considered the best for the game, but this time the evaluators weren’t the same at the last week. This time the evaluators were different group. My group T8T worked with a half of the group called Hide&Sick.

We think that we worked very well and we understand each other.

Our mission was to choose the best eight questions of topic 3, valuing the difficulty, the mistakes, the expression and the understanding. The mission of the evaluators was to supervise that we did well our work.

Fortunately, we think we did it the best we could.

Our star, Alba, have upload to the blog the 36 questions which we have worked. The eight that we selected have been sent to Linda by email, because they are secret.

One of the best things of this week is that, as facilitators, we haven’t have any problem to solve. It’s true that all the people in the group don’t think in the same way, but we have get an agreement and we have worked as a real group. That’s a very good aspect we have to mention about our group.

We hope you have enjoy it and have understand our way of organizing this week.

Regards,

Paz and Isa, the facilitators.

TRANSLATOR

Hello readers!

I'm Raquel and this week I was assigned the translator role. This is my second time as translator. So, I hope to do it better than the first one! =)

Both laws, which are the main and important topics that are going to be carried out in the mysterious game when we come back holidays, have differences as well as similarities respect to the Spanish System education and to education in general, measures that affect to our country and therefore to us. 


AS translator I am and after reading the whole group the 6 topics to do the questions for the game, I have to choose the five more important definitions that we have learn this week. I think that the main words are:


INEQUALITIES: It is understood Inequalities as disparity or dissimilarity that some students experience in their education field where they are lots of differences respect to the rest of the students.These differences between students are caused by social, geography;location, gender ethnicity, poverty and disabilities, which are the most common reasons. Most disadvantaged or rural areas suffer from these inequalities. For example, in Yemen, children keep out of the school because of they don't have the necessary tools and resources to go. Even poverty increases mostly this. So, we see that due to geographical reasons, these children cannot be educated as they deserve, so they are in disadvantage.As Unesco says, "Around 45% of 7- to 16-year olds from poor households in both rural and urban areas have never been to school. 

Unesco affirms that "The World Inequality Database on Education (WIDE) draws attention to unacceptable levels of education inequality across countries and between groups within countries, with the aim informing policy design and public debate" (UNESCO, 2008; pag; 0,1,14)

http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0022/002204/220440E.pdf
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Educational_inequality

ORGANIZATION: It's a important term because not only for knowing what is the definition, but also to understand the subject School Organization. This term means to have everything in an order. School organization therefore is how school and all the members and contributors are structured in a specific context, in this case, the school.There are lots of types of organizations like associations, cooperatives that fight to get a common goal. In the case of the school, all the context of the school is organized by the current law and the Spanish Education System that make decisions cooperatively to change things and measures that can be improved to increase the quality of the country and their inhabitants.Then, there other cooperatives that also participate in these changes that are local in the specific place where school is situated such as School Board(Consejo Escolar), Leadership team (cuerpo directivo), teacher assembly and even other less important but at the same time very important because all the changes affect directly them, the students and consequently parents through the representative or parents associations. 

https://webgate.ec.europa.eu/fpfis/mwikis/eurydice/index.php/Spain:Glossary#School_development_plan_.28Proyecto_educativo.29

SCHOOL DEVELOPMENT PLAN called in Spanish Language Proyecto educativo

It consists in a working document created by non-university education institutions. It appears in it the values, objectives and priorities, its assessment of how current trends
and future factors could impact on the school. Also, it includes the specific curriculum established by the Education Authority.Social and cultural background of each different school has to be considered in it because this could be encourage the inequality According to the background, this plan have to give answer to the wide diversity of students student diversity and also how has to performance a teacher as a tutor as well.
It has two main aims: avoid discrimination solving the inequalities and attend to the diversity to be socially included in the relationships (inclusion social)

 This plan improve of course the school organization 

http://www.deni.gov.uk/sdp_guidance-2.pdf (Pág 1, 2)



CURRICULUM: It's the set of basic competences, objetives, contents and the criteria for methodologies to teach and to do a evaluation that student have to get in a educational level.All the scholar context have to be under curriculum rules not only the contens but also the methodologies that can be carried out by teachers or even the basic competences for example in primary education there are 8 main important that we learn in Planificación de la Acción Educativa in the first fourth-month period. This curriculum is a process because the curriculum created by the State is one in the organizational view and this is changes according to the specific area by autonomous communities and this one is also rechange by school and teachers from a pedagogical point of view according to the diversity, ethnicity, culture and needs of the place and of the students.


http://epistemologia.over-blog.es/pages/DEFINICION_DE_CURRICULO_Y_CONTENIDOS-1432924.html

EVALUATION: it's another important term because it's an action that takes part in our life. I think that in this subject we have done lots of evaluations about our collegues and our works done each week. Most of members of the group don't know what is exactly evaluation, I mean how can we develop a evaluation properly. I think that this week, we have performanced as a team of teachers because we had to meet to decide what are the best questions and answer according to lots of things as if they are good, with quality, understandable etc. Then, we had to decide only a few of them and evaluate them in the webpage that Linda ordered us. So, I think that in this moment, we performance as teachers that evaluate other learners. Evaluation therefore is an continue process of recommendations that teachers has to do in order to student can make sure that they have learned in a good way something in concrete. Evaluating doesn't mean to put an exam and see how a student has answered to the questions. It's the contrary, there are lots of different ways to evaluate if a student have learned something or not and these may be more effective than a simple final exam. You can evaluate through works, practices, games, doing different activities and trips the whole class to visit places that can be related to content and after that doing a set of questions related to the trip, his feelings etc. I think that it's a good way to evaluate children from their experience and improve the quality of the learning. 


And that is all for this week. I hope you undertand all the definitions and enjoy reading them!=)=)

Thank you very muchh!!
T8T