María's LAST POST

INCLUSIVE SCHOOLS 

UNKNOWNS

Their topic talks about inclusive schools. It's a process that the society has to follow to develop and to ensure the learning and the participation of all students, teachers and parents in the school life, attending to the diversity and the people most vulnerable.

In their explanation they brought us some interesting data based in Porter, Booth, Ainscow and Echeita and they established goals in school like not leave out anyone, to promote the equality and to bring equal opportunities, a school based in the justice and the democracy so we have to promote dynamism and interaction between institutions too.

Keeping inclusive school we reach the utopy to develop individual strengths and gifts, developing friendship, giving the students opportunities to learn about it and too different topics, acepting the individual characteristics and developing a positive thinking about the diversity and the inclusion.

Talking about this we have to say that school have barriers such contradictory rules, the cultural ones with the discrimination of the rules between culture and children, and the didactic and methodologies because people are competitive in Cooperative Learning and the curriculum's structure, so many times, don't leave us make this type of things in the school: we have to use books, a concrete structure with topics and values follow a discipline...

They put two videos in class: in the first video we could see the relation between socioeconomic fact of society and Inclusive School and diversity. They told about multitasking too and the develop of values in class. To reach our goals is important to keep a good environment in class too because it's the best condition to learn.

In the second video they show us how to learn and teach: Inclusive Schools are related with the learning doing things: children should learn the theory practicing some things, in a practical way. They show us the importance of the roles too: it helps to the children to know what is their job in the class but keeping in mind it can be changed at the moment.

As a conclusion I think integration and diversity are fundamental to develop children because there are values that are more important than contents. We should respect everyone without seeing their nationality or their characteristics in the real life so we have to learn to do it in the school!

LEARNING COMMUNITIES  

MUSICAL CHAIRS

this topic deal with the relation between teachers and children in the class and how to coordinate it. This method pretends to see the school as a part of the society and not as something apart of its so the cooperation is the most important thing on this topic to reach the goal.

The learned is compound by three persons: students, teachers and volunteers that have cooperation, collaboration, coordination, communication...

Relationship between students and teachers, according to this team, is reciprocal: the teacher isn't the unique person who have knowledge so the partners can help other partners to learn and teach them some things. They can also to help other partners with difficulties too or people who don't know how to do something by self.

The role of the teacher is to be a guide, someone who help the students and provide them the motivation and the force to build the knowledge.

Other relationship is between teachers and volunteers: they have to be coordinates at the same time they have to teach together to make the children learning. This relationship is based in trusting so at last they will build a confidence relation.

Talking about relationships, we have the relationship between volunteers and students too: the volunteers share the knowledge trough their own experiences so students learn values apart from knowledge.

With this method the class changes and it will be more funny for children. Learning is a dynamic process, different from other types of things, and the most important thing: there are always interaction in class between all people so they develop their communication skills too.

This three relationship are the ingredients to cook the best learning in children but how the best recipe the ingredients have to collaborate and to life together to make children learn things that don't appear in the methodology or in the books like values and life together, things more important than the things the law ask us to teach too many times.

WAYS OF LIVING TOGETHER IN THE SCHOOL 

Modern students did their exposition in four stages:

At first they told about School mediation, talking about boullying cases; a big problem in schools nowadays that we have to solve immediately. Other topics are violence and exclusion. As a reference for children we have to mediate on this cases to help them to solve it because they are problems that never leave to grow up.

The second part was about a program to support peers that is based in the importance of the dialogue and the active listening. This program have a relationship with mediation too and how to solve problems: the key is to participle and to promote responsibilities between students in the school.

Then, archeology of feelings was a important part of their exposition: it is based in a book that explain archeology and education as a relation with different stages:

DISCOVERY,

INDAGATION,

EXCAVATION,

PROTECTION,

EXPOSURE.

At last they told about Kiva's school. In this school they work with different tools to avoid this problems.

As a conclusion, I think nowadays and in the future it will be increased, bullying, discrimination and this types of problems are a thing that we have to solve and this solution start in the education: if we educate the children with values they will be respectful in the future because they will know all we are equal than we all. The role of teachers is to educate but to solve the problems that are now real too so we have to know how to do it and how to teach children to control their emotions.

INCLUSIVE SCHOOLS 

Amigos del football 

Inclusive schools take up the principle of respect and knowing there are different people and it's not important their original country or their characteristics that have to learn in the school, all together.

This school have to have got main characteristics: to promote the equality and the equal rights for all people, solving differences... so the method of this schools are based in the diversity: all people study because all people is a part of the society ad we are equal.

This schools and their characteristics are developed by different authors but they talked about four of them: Tony Booth, Mel Ainscow, Echeita and Gordon Porter.

Talking about this schools we have to know there are inconvenient and difficulties to develop it like the contradictions in the laws, the didactic that we're obliged to follow, the method, to follow a book... so before to have this types of school we have to transform the society and the values and to make a co laboring society with great values like share and to work together.

The best thing I think this school have is the possibility to include all people because nowadays in our society is necessary to understand that all we are different but we have to eliminate the prejudices because too much people think that one differences are more different that other differences, and it's not real: it doesn't matter if you have Asperger Syndrome or if you are blonde; it's the same at school and learning so we have to reach a school with this values.

ICT AND LEARNING DISABILITIES - CRÓNICAS VIAJERAS 

Their topic talk about disabilities and they talk about three of them:

At first they told about Children with Autism that have problems with the relationship and the language and socialization and to solve this problems they propose to use technology like tablets and Cameras. For children with Down Syndrome the purpose was to use games and whiteboards because it can solve their distractions and it can do it more participative in class. For motor disabilities they can use the music to work with it and to make them different rythms and dances.

In their video we can see how we can help children with problems with technologies because it's a good way to make them equal and to improve the relationship between students.

Gema's FINAL POST

Wanderlust team talked about SOCIAL AND EMOTIONAL LEARNING.

This topic was about the importanvce of feelings in the classroom. In their presentation they gave too many importance to Rafael Bisquerra’s idea which says that maths and language has the same importance as feelings so they will make children express themselves, prevent negative emotions, etc.
They also talked about methodology, how they would take Rafael’s idea to put it into practice. They would talk everyday with their pupils to know how they feel and how they feel with their partners.
They told us that this topic was related to multiple intelligence, topic that we have studied in educational psychology. Everyone will develop the emtional intelligence so they purposed to organize an “intelligence week” where children will feel different situations and they have to say how they will feel in each one.
Also, they explain that this have relationship with cooperative learning in which they underline the presence of bullying and that we have to stop with it. If children know how their partners feel and they work with them, we could avoid too many bullying cases.
Finally, they talked about empathy, about how to work with it in the school with activities like ‘walk in my shoes’ that consists on feel on the situation of the other person when there’s a conflicto.
Another point that it’s importan ton this topic is the importase of parents and teachers.
In my opinion this presentation was one of the most usefull for our future.

Moderns Students talked about WAYS OF LIVING TOGETHER IN THE SCHOOL.

Their topic was compound by four parts:

-          School mediation. In this part they talked about boullying cases that we can find nowadays, violence and exclussion and who will be the mediator and which problema will he/she solve.

-          Program to support peers. The key pf this program could be the importance of dialogue and active listening. This program is related to ediation, how to solve prooblems, etc. It is about voluntary participation and promote responsabilities.

-          Archeology of feelings. This was another important point which is about a book that makes a relationship between archeology and education. It is divided in five parts r steps that has to be followed: Discovery, indagation, excavation, protection and exposure.

-          Kiva’s school. This final part is about a finish school called Kiva which Works with bullying and tolos for avoid cases of this problem.

As a conclusion they said that mediation is the principal part of the students assistance program; kids have to control their emotions (in my opinion. For this, kids will need parents and teachers help, as Wanderlist team said); and, finally, children are always gonna feel safe because always there would be someone who protects them.

Cronicas Viajeras topic was about ICT AND LEARNING DISABILITIES.

They talked about children with disabilities and how technologies could help them to improve with their disabilty, to introduce and be more sociable, participate and cooperate with society, etc. The disabilities that they talked about were autism, down’s syndrome and people which have motor disability.

-          Autism. They talked us about tablets and camera to make more able their disability which make them problems of socialization and difficulties with language, control their thoughts and imagination.

-          Down’s syndrome. People which have this disability has problems with distraction and they don’t have too many initiative. The technologies that will help people with down’s syndrome are whteboards and some games like sing star, pictogram, etc.

-          Motor disability. This disability includes physical and motor difficulties so they feel unadapted. For this disability they recomed technologies like music using an MP3, or computers and laptops.

This topic for me was very interesting because in a future I want to be teacher for children which have disabilities.

Another team was Amigos del Football who talked about INCLUSIVE SCHOOLS.

Inclusive schools arethose which key is the respect and recognition of the different students that there could be and how they are organized to be on equality of opportunities.
We need to have an idea very clear: INTEGRATION IS NOT THE SAME AS INCLUSION.
Some characteristics that our partners explained us about inclusive schools are:

-          Diversity, hetereogenety and interpersonal relationships.

-          Equality of opportunities.

-          Create and educational community.

-          Parents and community participate and cooperate in the school.

Some authors that share those ideas of inclusive school are: Gordon Porter, Tony Booth or Gerardo Echeita.
On the inclusive schools we can find some barriers like: contradictory regulations, diversity and didactics.
The strategies for having a good inclusive school are: inclsuive cultures, inclusive policies and inclusive practices.
As a conclusion of this Project they told us that ‘change is possible if everybody Works and cooperates’.

Team Perk spoke about ICT AND IMPROVEMENT SCHOOLS.

First of all they talked about the difficulties that there could be and the advantages of ICT in the schools because nowadays we can find too many teachers, for example, that don’t know how to use new technologies so they don’t apply them in children learning. In the relationship between teachers and ICT they talked about: digital natives (which sometimes know more that their teachers about technologies), digital divide and future teachers.
Then, they talked about social learning in schools remarking: the use of social networks, internets and their tolos and solutions.
They talked about some tools like: applications, ipads and robotic which nowadays are being introduced in schools and learning.

Another group was the Unknowns who also talked about INCLUSIVE SCHOOLS. They defined them as a process that society has to develop ensuring the learning and participation of all the students, teachers, parents,… the hole community, according to diversity. Also, for explain that concept they take the ideas from the same authors as ‘Amigos del Footbal’ because they have the same topic to work in.

The general ideas about inclusive schools are:
-          Education is for every children. They have the same opportunities.
-          Education is focused on multiculturality.
-          Inclusion. This system is addapted to everybody.
-          The main concept of this type of school y ‘learn together’
Those are just some ideas that I can remember but they explain some more.
According to this ideas, they explained us the objectives. Those are, for example, promoting dynamism and interaction between institution and promote the equality of opportunities. Also, they explained some benefits of inclusive schools that could be:
-          Develop friendships.
-          Create an school based on respect and belonging.
-          Involve the parents in the school.
-          Appreciate diversity.
-          Etc.
Finally they explain some barriers as ‘Amigos de football’ (policy, didactics, etc.)

The last group I’m going to talk about is Musical Chairs, they couldn’t explain their topic in class but they told us some things about it. Their topic was COMMUNITY LEARNING.

It is about the coordination between teachers and pupils in the classroom. With this method they try to make about the school something that is not appart from society and that needs cooperation because it’s something very important.
In their Project they talk about voluntaries that are those one’s which doesn’t have a title of being teachers but that go to the school and prepare some meetings, help the teachers at class, etc.
To have a good coordination is necessary to have collaboration, compression and cooperation between all the members of the school. This process has three parts:
- Dream. This consists on thinking about the possibilities of improving the school: methodology, etc
- The second one is about is to choose those purposals those which are more necessary or important. Those that are esaier to come true.
- The last one is put them into practice and solve the different difficulties that we can find.

In conclusión, all this topics including mine (the explanation is on an individual post) are very importatn to take in account because in a future we should know about all of them. As I said before, for example, the most important for me are inclusive schools and ICT and learnin disabilities because, in a future I want to work and teach children with learning disabilities.

AMIGOS DEL FOOTBALL:

This group talked about a topic that is very important in our society, INCLUSIVE SCHOOL.

Inclusive school is an educational model that is responsible for the learning needs of all children, youth and adults with special emphasis on those who are vulnerable to marginalization and social exclusion.

Each student is different and has unique characteristics, abilities and different learning needs. Therefore it is necessary to integrate these students into the current mainstream education and not exclude them offering a different kind of education.

This group also discussed about the general features on these schools and some of them are:

1.The inclusive school is based on the vision of the student to be able to achieve its goals and purposes.

2.In the inclusive school is established a positive and collaborative relationship between families and schools. Also the respect, the reflective attitudes and the empathy are encouraged.

3.The aim of the inclusive school is train students to develop critical and cooperative spirit.

4.The inclusive school assesses student progress as whole, taking into account their capabilities individually.

It is very important to note the term of educational integration to implement it.

Educational integration or inclusion is a process by which regular schools are looking for and generating the support that requires students with learning disabilities, special educational needs or disabilities.

Gordon Porter, the father of inclusive education, defends the concept of inclusive education, the one that encourages children with physical or mental disabilities or special needs in mainstream schools must be trained along with the other children.

Tony Booth defines inclusive education as the process has to develop today's society to ensure learning and participation of all students, teachers and parents in school life, with attention to diversity and vulnerability. Inclusive education is based more on rights than on needs.

Mel Ainscow proposes a "revolution" in teaching methods. He believes that the current system is not designed to meet the needs of all students.

Echeita talks about the social, cultural, economic barriers, attitudinal, materials that impede access to the education system or remaining in it. These barriers encourage discrimination and therefore it is necessary to analyze the educational system and remove these barriers by proposing a process of school improvement and innovation.

Finally, we saw some videos of some schools where inclusive education is encouraged.

Amara Berri School considers the student as a global one. It encourages the development of their personalities and their social relations. Also is encouraged the constructive criticism.

O Pelouro School is a school for all, where you can live the diversity. There are spaces for students with different needs. It is encouraged the innovation and the educational transformation.

MODERN STUDENTS:

This group explained the WAYS OF LIVING TOGETHER AT SCHOOL.

They divided the topic into four parts:

1. School mediation, which explains the reason why problems occur at school. For example, bullying, violence, exclusion, etc. There are two strategies to solve these types of problems: by preventive intermediary and by values ​​such as willingness, confidentiallity and personnel intervention. The role of mediator can be played by students, teachers and volunteers. 

2. Program to support peers, some objectives are: obtain foster collaboration, knowledge and finding solutions. Also, improve coexistence and reduce cases of abuse at school. We can talk about some keys of the program, like shared responsibility and the importance of the dialogue and active listening. The results of these program are: improved coexistence, decreased intensity of conflicts and increased safety and satisfaction.

3. Archeology of feelings at school, using technology as a metaphor of feelings at school. It has five stages: discovery, excavation, indagation, protection and exposure.

Finally, my colleagues talked about the Kiva school is in Finland. This school works to prevent bullying and works with online matriales to avoid harassment.

WANDERLUST:

This group talked about SOCIAL AND EMOTIONAL LEARNING and explained the importance of this item at the school as a subject.

Rafel Bisquerra said that emotional learning has been born recently as a social need that is not served in academic subjects we all know. It is based on neuroscience, multiple intelligence and psychoneuroimmunology. 

Through the emotional and social learning we can improve the academic performance, decrease the violence and increase social skills. 

Then they talked about the methodology. We must talk every day with students about how they feel and how their peers feel. We must also encourage the development of multiple intelligences. All children have to develop emotional intelligence, for it set out to do the "week of emotional intelligence" where they would in different situations and they have to say how they feel about each of them.

We must develop the cooperative learning to create friendhips in class and develop the positive reinforcement and make them feel comfortable with their peers in class and work together.

Finally, we must encouragethe develop of the empathy in class, for example, by actividaes as "walk in my shoes" This activity is to put yourself in the situation of the other person when there is a conflict and see how it feels. At this point the relationship between teachers and families is very important because together they can get better answers to the problems.

MUSICAL CHAIRS:

This group talked about COMMUNITY LEARNING which is about the coordination in the classroom between teachers, students and volunteers. The school should not be isolated from society and the collaboration of different people are needed to achieve the objective, which is not insulate the world.

For example, volunteers are helpful, but they do not should have previous qualifications to teach. They can help teachers giving lectures and perform different activities at schools. Coordination is achieved by promoting collaboration, cooperation and understanding among the members involved in this project.

This process has three phases:

Dream: at this stage we think of all the possibilities of improvement for our center, which can be physical or methodological.

Priorities: is selected from all those proposals necessary and the most feasible, to be carried out.

Working Committees: is to implement it and try to solve the various difficulties that we can find through the process.

Finally, school is not enough collaboration between teachers and students. In the educational process they have to engage parents and volunteers to facilitate the process and get a better education.

DUMBLEDORE TEACHER´S ARMY:

We talked about LEADERSHIP AND SCHOOL EFFECTIVENESS. 

Leadership is the responsability of school administrators and principals who want to create positive changes in educational policy and process. As we can see in the conceptual map, e can find the school leader as a businessman, as an organizer and as an institutional expert. This means: 

- As businessman: the leader has to take care that the environmnt don't affect to the pupils and teachers and also he has to take care about the develop of the children and the school as an institution. 

- As an organizer: has to bring qualify teachers, creative concepts and institutional methods that will define the quality of the education following a reform plan. They also motivate children, teachers, parents and the hole community to participate in the school and in education. 

- As an institutional expert: they have to stablish information based on expert communities that make all people responsible of pupil learning and school develop. 

Then we have the concept of effectiveness. A school is effective if the leader gets a higher comprehensive development of all the students tan would be expected of them giving their previous performance and taking in account social, economic and cultural situations.

Some of the skills which a leader should develop are: to be clear, accountable, self-awareness, decisive, astute, influence, trust and innovate.

CRÓNICAS VIAJERAS:

This group talked about ICT AND LEARNING DISABILITIES. Students of nowadays have different needs and we can discover them and help the students to solve their difficulties using technology. The motivation and the creativity is encouraged, so that students will find it easier to learn.

-First, children with Autism have the following difficulties: socialization, language, thoughts and imagination. Technologies can help them to overcome these difucltades, for example, the use of tablets to play and learn at the same time (pictogram, just dance, sing star, etc.). The results are very good, as the integration support and the support to have initiative develops.

-Second, children with Down Syndrome have the following difficulties: distractions, minor initiative and for differentiation between old and new stimuli. Through technology we can help them to overcome these difficulties, for example, using whiteboard and cameras. As a result, we can say that technology helps their concentration and memory.

-Finally, children with Motor Disability have different engine above difficulties, for example, physical and difficulties engine and unadapted facilities. Using MP3, listening to music and using computers, they can overcome these difficulties. Among the results, we can say that this hepls technology adaptation, communication and comfort.

TEAM PERK:

This grup talked about ICT AND IMPROVEMENT SCHOOLS and about some advantages of the technology. There are teachers who are against of the use of new technologies in classrooms and teachers who are in favor. Today, children since they are little they use technology and theyb develop skills that can be very useful later when they became adults. The introduction of technology in the classroom has many benefits, but also some drawbacks.

Some of the benefits are: children can learn in a fun way, for example, playing, is encouraged the interaction, the motivation, the interest, the interactivity, the cooperation, the autonomy of students, etc. 

Some of the disadvantages are: students can be easily distracted, the information available on Internet is not always reliable, the ICT´s are expensive and not everyone can purchase, technology can cause addiction, decreased visual acuity, etc.

Finally, the school must integrate new technologies into classrooms with the aim of improving the educational process of the the children. We must concentrate on educational innovation and the benefits it has for future generations.

UNKNOWNS:

This group talked about INCLUSIVE SCHOOL, which is the process that has to develop the society to ensure the learning and participation of all students, teachers and parents in shool life, giving attention to diversity and vulnerability. They also talked about some authors, like Gordon Porter, Mel Ainscow, Tony Booth and Gerardo Echeita. I explained their thoughts in the other work which treats about inclusive school also. Some objectives of the inclusive school are: not leave anyone out, promote equal opportunities, promote justice, etc.

Some of the benefits of the inclusive schools are: develop personal strengths, involve parents in education, develop friendships, give opportunities to learn about it and accept differences detween pupils, etc.

There are some barriers that prevent the development of inclusive schools:

-Policies: abd contradictory laws rules.

-Cultural: permanent attitude of discriminatory rules categorize and Establish Between the children.

-Teaching: With the resume is structured and with a lot disciplines of books and do not resolve -Promote the learning to actual situations.

Finally, we watched two videos. Father Pique school Promote diversity, multitasking, values ​​and innovation. 

Sadako school Promote the use of ICT's to learn, the role distribution and learn doing and not memorizing the contents which appear on the books.

Post about the last project.

Gonzalo Gallego Clemente. 1ºMEPB.

“LAST PROJECT CONCLUSIONS.”

ITC AND IMPROVEMENT SCHOOLS. Team Perk.

This group talked about how ITC resources and how this resources could help to improve teachers’ methodologies, administration issues, class environment, communication between schools… This tool if it’s properly use by teachers and pupils can  open a variety set of possibilities. Digitil systems promote interaction which is equal to social learning between the children interaction with technologies and among their classmates and teachers. Technology causes a big problem for teachers, it is in continuous development. So teachers need to be prepare to be in continuous training to manage this resources and explore the advantages of this tools. For last,  there are many interesting apps that foment equally learning and enjoyment and which is traduced into motivation between students. And there are many electronic objects that could be used in a class as robots to motivate children with own-experience activities.

SOCIAL AND EMOTIONAL LEARNING. Wanderlust team.

This group explained why is so important to teach children to interpret their emotions and social reactions in order to get a higher understanding of how is society in general. To develop this knowledge the teachers should continually ask children how they feel and how they are. They should prepare activities in which children would be in different situations and tell us about how they feel in each one of them attending to the differences emotions and stimulus that are implicit in each activity. All this activities are oriented to prevent possible negative attitudes inside a classroom as bullying that is the main problem between children nowadays. For last they teach us how to develop empathy in class through an activity  “Walk on my shoes” that consist on putting on each other’s shoes facing different conflicts and exanimating the different emotions and solutions that are born with this conflict and the different solutions and feeling of the different members of the class towards the same conflict.

WAYS OF LIVING TOGETHER IN THE SCHOOL. Modern students.

They started their expositions talking about why some issues as bullying, exclusion… Are produced nowadays inside schools. They talk about what is the role of the teacher in this cases mediating between students and how the students could transform their roles into mediators aswell. Then they talk about a book “ the arqueology of  feelings” in which are described  five steps to link feelings with learning that are: excavate, discover, investigate, protect and expose. Finally they put a video in which are more clear  the ideas about mediation and how to mediate since different positions and contexts.

INCLUSIVE SCHOOLS. Amigos del football.

In this exposition the topic was “inclusive schools” and they give us a variety set of characteristics about how an inclusive school should be.  Then they give us the differences between integration in which kids with difficulties prepare themselves to enter to schools, and inclusion in which kids don’t need preparation to enter to schools because they already inside the school. The main difficulties that stop this inclusion are economic and social aspects that at this moment are not solved but it depends on society to change this difficulties into advantages. For last they give us two real example in which inclusion education is applied “O’Peluro” and “Amara Perri” that are two school in Spain that use this method.

ICT AND LEARNING DISCAPACITIES. Crónicas viajeras.

They explained us what are the main incapacities that we can find in a classroom. This incapacities are:  autism, down’s syndrome and motors disabilities. In their map they reflect what are the main difficulties that this kids have as: socialization, distractions, unadapted facilities… The solution that they give to answer this difficulties  is technology. Technology can help this kids giving them integration support, helping concentration and comfort, through tools as MP3s, cameras, tablet…

COMMUNITY LEARNING. Musical chairs.

Resuming in one phrase their work is the coordination between teachers, pupils and parents. This method is meant to promote the feeling of a community inside a school or the school being a community in which all their members help each other to improve their community.  To get a good coordination between the individuals it is necessary the existance of cooperation, collaboration, comprehension… And there is process to get a good coordination and it has three phases:

·         In the first phase we think about the all possibilities that could improve our center (Classroom, methodologies…)

·         In the second phase we select the more factible possibilities to improve our centre.

·         In the third phase we have to put it in practice.

Conclusion.

In a school there many aspects that need to be consider. In one hand we have social aspects as the involucration of parents in their children education and the different relationship that need to stablish with the different teachers and viceversa and how this relationships could help the learning process of the kid. In other hand we have economic aspects in which are include the budget and the resources that a school should give to students in order to facilitate their learning as ICT methodologies but sometimes this resources can’t  be given because of the budget but there are some issues as school adaptation for children incapacities that should be in the first place in the money inversion. And for last learning aspects in which we could include teachers’ metholody, pupils’ attitude, pupils interaction… And we need to have clear the main problems that we could fight along our teachers’ carreers as bullying and the solutions that we need to give to solve this problem and the mediation with kids that are going to be the creators of this problems.

Leadership and school effectiveness

Leadership and School Effectiveness by: Gema Gutiérrez, Gonzalo Gallego and Adalisa Licu.

Leadership is the responsability of school administrators and principals who want to create positive changes in educational policy and process. As we can see in the conceptual map, e can find the school leader as a businessman, as an organizer and as an institutional expert. This means:

- As businessman: the leader has to take care that the environmnt don't affect to the pupils and teachers and also he has to take care about the develop of the children and the school as an institution.

- As an organizer: has to bring qualify teachers, creative concepts and institutional methods that will define the quality of the education following a reform plan. They also motivate children, teachers, parents and the hole community to participate in the school and in education.

- As an institutional expert: they have to stablish information based on expert communities that make all peolple responsable of pupil learning and school develop.

Then we have the concept of effectiveness. A school is effective if the leader gets a higher comprehensive development of all the students  tan would be expected of them giving their previos performance and taking in account social, economic and cultural situations.

                                                                                                           

Here we leave our conceptual map with all the ideas that this topic includes:

Those are the videos that we shown at class about leadership and school effectiveness:

As a conclusión we would say that there are too many factors tat influence school effectiveness but the principal one is the leadership. The AIM is that everybody cooperates to get a development and a qualify education.

Bibliography and references:

- Generative Leadership: Shaping New Futures for Today's Schools.  Corwin Press           

- Crowther, F. (2008). Developing Teacher Leaders: How Teacher Leadership Enhances School Success.  Corwin Press; Second Edition

- Wagner, T. (2005). Change Leadership: A Practical Guide to Transforming Our Schools.  Jossey-Bass

Leadership and school effectiveness

The topic i'm talking about is school effectiveness and leadership.
For School effectiveness is important to know it's very different from Education effectiveness, that is related with the system, the laws, the formal changes.. and from the school improvement (the dynamic to application of the research results) too because the union of School improvement and the school effectiveness is the best way to improve the education: the results of school effectiveness research provide lickely content for school improvement. For school improvement is important effective teaching and efective learning, that is compound by other important topics: Supportive classroom climate, cognitive activation and structure and classroom management.
hin
Effective teaching have got too many variables like the oportunity to learn, the orientation, cooperative learning... that are explained on it.

At last we can say that school effectiveness is the level of a goal allunment of a school. It's importanto to remind the context because is the principal support and there are different and alternative criteria to make it possible,

On the other side we have Leadership: According to the UNESCO the best leadership is to transform feels, actitudes and opinions, practices... to improve the culture in the school so we can say thet it's the key to improve the school.

All people are include on this area: Teachers, Society, Parents, the Principal and obviously children. It's a union on all things and person because it's improve by the best motivation.

For finish, there are different types of leadership in the school depending on the person who supports the high weigh and the objetives. Thys types are Instructional, transformational, moral, participative and managerial.

This is my presentation for explain it in class. In this part are my videos too.

PLANETA ASPERGER TRAILER/LAGOMETRAJE DOCUMENTAL: Adalisa's reflection

The heterogeneity of Primary School students is increasing. Today, the education system supports the integration of pupils with special educational needs when it is possible. As we have discussed above, we need to promote educational inclusion of students in regular classrooms and not educate them in special schools. Among these students, we can speak of children with different disorders, one of them is Asperger Syndrome.

Asperger syndrome (AS) is a severe developmental disorder, considered a neuro-biological disorder in which there are deviations or abnormalities in some aspects of development.




According to different studies, this disorder is quite common and three to seven children per thousand suffer this disorder. Researchers have claimed that is more prevalent in boys than in girls. Some features of this disorder are:

-Difficulties to interact with the society

-The behaviors of these children are repetitive

-Motor difficulties

-Difficulties to understand the feelings of the others

-Difficulties in communicative language

-Low cognitive and behavioral flexibility

-Difficulties in nonverbal communication

-Difficulties to understand the intentions of the others

Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MaMhzUE8SsY
In the video we can see different people who suffer from this disorder and they tell us how they live with this:

-Alejandro Is a child who is thirteen years old. He tells us that her teacher told him that he was stupid. A classmate called Moisés, made him bulling, he lowered his pants, etc.

-Darko is twenty year old and he was diagnosed with this disorder when he was fourteen. He finds it difficult to relate with other people. Also he says that in the future, he is going to be a teacher and he wants to marry and have a family.

-Cesar Is a child who has Asperger's Syndrome and he wants to be a paleontologist and build a world of dinosaurs. He thinks that if he were another child, his life would be better.

-Cristina esplains that a person with Asperger's Syndrome is a person who wants to fit in the society, but this person does not know what is doing wrong. She has difficulty living in a world that she does not understand. People who suffer this disorder act in different ways, they are enclosed into themselves and they are afraid of being hurt.

The situation of these children in the classroom is very difficult. They do not feel understood, they are not adapted to the learning process and they do not understand the intentions of their classmates. A teacher must do everything possible to help these children.

To begin, we need some resources and a school curriculum adapted to these problems to prevent exclusion and promote educational inclusion. Thus, if these children are educated with other children who have special needs, they will be motivated and they will learn to relate with them.

Some of the qualities that should have a teacher to treat these children are: be flexible, be patient, be firm, be empathetic and try to take the place of the child, have a sense of humor, etc. To promote this educational inclusion, also we should adapt the classes to the necessities of this children. For example, change the educational environment, the open and noisy classrooms are not recommended. The class must be orderly, calm and avoid changes in school.

Finally, the teacher has to facilitate the integration of children with Asperger Syndrome in the classroom and in the educational system. We must avoid the marginalization of these children and promote inclusive education.

CONCLUSION:

PLANETA ASPERGER TRAILER/LAGOMETRAJE DOCUMENTAL: Gema's reflecion

This video talks about three people who have asperger syndrome. Asperger is a neurobiological disorder that affects to the areas of personal development. People who has this disorder tends too desire social acceptation but they can’t participate in the society because they start avoide it.

 In this video we can see three cases:
- Alejandro is a boy who is 13 years old. He explains how he shows with that syndrom. He says that he doesn’t understand irony, he has problema to be sociable, etc.
Also he says that in the school he has sufferd bullying and also that a teacher just talk to his parents bad things from him and call him idiot or something like that.
This is somenthing that we have to change because if people who has this disorder has problems to be sociable and we don’t help them, they’re not going to get better.
I know that asperger doesn’t have a cure but society could be a tool to make them feel like everybody.
Why do we have teachers in the school that treat their pupils like Alejandro? This has to be controlated because teachers leave mark in our lifes.
In schools should be teachers which are prepared for treat with children that have discapacities.
- Then we have Darko who is 20 years old and is studying at the university. He says that he has problems to feel comfortable in the society and being sociable because he says that he doesn’t know how to speak to people.
- Also is Cesar a young boy who has this syndrom. He says that he immerse himself like in another world with thing that he likes like dinosaurs because he says that he doesn’t like himself, that he has to be like other children that are better than him.
This problem becames from society. As I said before we shouldn’t let people which have this syndrom feel like that. We have to make them know that they are part of this world an not of an appart one.
- Finally is Cristina, a girl who also has this syndrom ant tells how does she feels. She says that she has difficulties because she says that she lives in a world that she doesn’t understand. Because of that she says that she put away in her own world with his imagination.
Cristina says something that makes me feel bad, she says: ‘In my own world nobody can hurt me’.
People tend to make this people which has a disorder like they are different and hurt them in a phisical and in a psychological way.
This, that it’s caled bullying, has to change. Since children are young we have to teach them with values telling them that we are all people and we are equal and if somebody has difficulties of any type we have to help them and make them feel sociable and treat them as all.

ASPERGER

The day you showed the video in class I was ill and I didn't see it but I have done my task with my knowledge about this Syndrome and asking a friend with too much experience to compense the day i didn't go to class:

Asperger's syndrome is a part of a broader category called Autism Spectrum Disorder (ADS). In general they have got common characteristics: They have social problems like difficulty communicating and interacting with other or expressing their feelings, repetitive behaviors as well as limited interests or activities, problems to learn at school, or working... this problem is recognized in the firsts years of life because ADS have got too many evidences, like: 

It's a common definition but we have to know that not all people have the same behaviorism and the same symptoms because there are too many different syndromes involved on this category. Once we have seen there are a problem with a children he/she have to go to an specialist to diagnose his/her problem and to make sense us as a teachers.

If we want to talk about Asperger's syndrome we have to know two things about this persons:

1. They are as intelligent as other people. They only have more difficultly the relationships.

2. They tend to have an obsessive focus on one topic of perform the same behaviors again and again but we can't see them as a big problem: it's not bad.

This syndrome shows his face early in life; in the first years so we can remind different things to detect him: If one children seems awkward in social situations and doesn't know what to say or how to respond when someone talks to him; if he miss social cues that are obvious to the folks, like body language or the expressions on people's faces; if he show few emotions like, for example, not to laugh with a joke; if we doesn't like the changes and don't accept them or he may speak in a flat, robotic kind of way, he can have Asperger's syndrome.

This syndrome is diagnosed by the psychologist, the pediatric neurologist, the developmental pediatrician or the psychiatrist. It's too common that the children will be treated by all of them.

In spite of this syndrome is diagnosed in the first years of life it's too common to find now adult people with Asperger and without a diagnostic because the investigations about this topic are recent and when now adult people was a baby there wasn't a problem so they weren't diagnosed. In spite of there isn't a medical diagnosed, there are too many things like activities and test that we can do, like this:

http://romeoasperger.blogspot.com.es/2009/05/test-de-sindrome-de-asperger.html

Doing this test you can see if you have a problem with relationships and if you have Asperger. It's interesting to do it because there are many reactions that make us to think that we can be an undiagnostised person but if we put attention at the results we can see that it is a false illusion: we can be bad at relationships but without a problem, for example.

To include this children in the educational system we can do a lot of things related principally with the interest centre of the boy to ensure their exit in the life. We should adapt the curriculum and the classes remind their likes and the things they are interested in because this is the unique form to catch their attention for work in class.

When we're preparing their activities we have to know that their intelligences are normal and in the most of cases it's underdeveloped and superior so they can do all things like their parents if we found the way to motivate and guide them.

They could very despair abilities: we can found a children very good at mental operations in maths but bad at geometry, for example, or one children who writes very well but he don't understand the phrasal analysis. Their less point are the language and the social relationships. If we look at this children we can see they talk very well but they don't understand things like "Me tomó el pelo" or " Eres un paquete", so they don't understand the jokes and the typical language expressions; they understand it at literally way and, obviously, they don't found the mean to this phrase.

Other thing we should remind is they are "visual thinking". It means they learn in a better and easier way with images, comics... things with meaning but without language so to help them we can adapt the curriculum on this way; we can do activities to teach with images and comics.

As teachers and tutors we should bring them extra-help for classes and for homework; it's very important they know we're with them for help them. We can do a lot of things to do it:

• For the exams we should remark the questions with different colors to make the organization more easier. 

• We should bring extra-time in the exams because they need it. 

• For homework and diary classes we can bring them help to their organization: post-it, notes... one good way to do it is trough a partner: one partner can help them in the organization. 

• THE DIARY: It's very very important to have a diary with all dates, meetings, exams, homework.. all this types of things should be clear for them, and it's too difficult.

• In class, we can put them in the table with a responsible, organized and sociable partner. This is important for too many things: for relationship with all partners and the organization. We can say it's the union between the students, the environment and the class. 

• Other characteristic of this children is the poor self-steem so we should do anything to remediate it. In the most of cases this self-steem is made because they need too much helping in class and the other partners think they are spoilt. We should strengthen their positive image: one way is, for example, to make them the responsible of things that they do very well. If a boy or a girl is very good at pass list, for example, because he/she in very good at looking people, we can make them pass list every day, as a responsible of this activity. We can show to the others their artistic and sportive skills for example. 

• If they go to the help-class is good for them and for the class environment because other partners can know their way to work. It's a good form to destroy prejudices. 

• We have to anticipate at routine-changes. It should be a caotic thing for them and we have to know how to help on this aspect, for example, if the next tuesday we're goig to have an excursion we should introducing the topic, the place and the activities a days before. The goal is to make always concious this children the things they are going to do then, 

• To explain the activities and the games with images because it's easier for them to know the rules, for example, trough visual things. 

• We can leave them go out to the park or the class that we have change, for example, a few minutes before the rest of the class because for this children the noise and the people-mass is very extressing so we should evite this situations. 

• In the activities that they ahve to put in groups is a good idea to make a little group with them because for them is easier to work on this way and they can do more things and to be careful and enjoy it. One example of this actions in the dining room. 

• To make excurssions and extra-activities is a good form to motivate them and to teach them too. 

• This is the most important thing: to show the problem to the other partners: if the family wants and the direction of the school is agree is a good idea to explain with their partners what is Asperger and how we can help this partner because is a good idea to elimine prejudices and to realize the class in general: if they know how they are, they see at this as a normal thing and no as a bad thing. 

I have to say thank you to Almudena for help me to do this work. She's my uncle's friend and she's mother of two boys with Asperger's Syndrom. She created an association with other mothers and proffesionals in Villalba, Madrid, the Arcoiris Association to help the families, to orient the schools, and to bring information for the society. They persevere on to leave them making little but important things like to go to the supermarket, to pay if we're shopping with us, to ask someone something... it's the best help to them because it develop their comunication skills, the things that are more difficult for them. I know this association and their way to work with children and adults and I thing that their work is a increible work. You can see more things about them on this page:


http://www.asociacionproautismoarcoiris.org/



Since years ago I know Almudena and her boys and i have to say that they are a fantastic family, and in too many cases more normal than our families, because... Who decides what is it appropiate? (Alice in wonderland) We only have to see them with luckly eyes to see the best of them.