This time teachers and school developers from Denmark and Finland gathered in Bedford for a week in October. The week was full of different school visits, great conversations about the English educational system and observation of the three T’s (time, talent and technology (and trust)).  

Our visit to England started with a reunion in a local restaurant. After a fun evening together it was time to start the activities. On the first day we had a chance to visit the University of Bedfordshire. It was very interesting to hear about the English school system. We spent the next days in different schools where participants got to know the school, observe lessons and even teach microlessons. The last day of the week provided again an opportunity for each delegation to present their thoughts and reflections to each other and discuss together.  

When discussing technology we found similar things that came up in both Finnish and Danish reflections. For us technology education in England seems like a separate entity from other education. This led to discussions about how to integrate technology in schools in order that it would be helpful and useful in pedagogical way.  

Reflections on talent included discussions on grouping of pupils and ranking. One big topic was also trust. We noticed that headmasters trust their teachers but the lack of trust is evident from the government’s side and that leads to ongoing testing and registrations.  

In a time perspective we talked about structured lessons and classrooms. Everything seemed to be very structured and that was one thing that was different from Finnish schools where we don’t have strict schedules and pupils may have just one or two tasks per lesson. Overall our visit to Bedford was great and we learned a lot about the English perspective to education and at the same time gained new insight into our own system. 

Asta Ansolahti and Kati Sormunen / The Innokas Network 
 

Our collaboration with students started with the games and the presentation about Finland. After these students made posters about the similarities and differences between China and Finland. The most popular similarities were four seasons, but the most popular difference was the lenght of summer time. About the school students were very eager to know that there is a free hot lunch in Finland, but in China they had to pay for their lunch. One of the biggest difference was the free-time that Finnish students have a lot and Chinese students only sometimes.

On the second time we met the students we played the Finnish game called “Juoru” (gossip in English). During that game students had to whisper to the next one what they did hear from the previous student. The main point of that game was to demonstrate how the sentence changed when it was told by many persons. The same thing happens with the gossips – they are not the same after many persons.

After playing students started to think about the basic knowledge of our playground equipment theme. In that case we used the method called “Learning cafe”. During that the groups of students moved from the table to another one and thought about the themes one by one. The themes were materials for the real equipment, materials for the model equipment, structures of the equipments, adjectives of the equipments of students’ dreams and places where to place designed equipments. During working students were allowed to use dictionaries and Internet to find translations and information. When every group had go through all themes, groups presented the ideas what was written down on the mind maps and we had a discussion about all themes.

Students designed their playground equipment by using the planning paper. They drew a picture of the equipment and wrote down the main details of it, f. ex. the height, width, the size of the model, materials for the real one and for the model and also they thought where to place their equipment in their own school yard.

When the plannings where finalized, students gave feedback to other groups. For the second time we used the method called learning cafe. After getting the feedback, students improved their plans.

After planning it was time to build the miniature of their own school. During our demo lesson students continued their work and build the playground equipments that they planned before.

The conference participants followed the stream of our lesson in the Hall of Achievement. During our lesson there was also a interpreter who translated our lesson into Chinese. After the demo lesson we teacher went to the stage, presented our project and answered all questions asked by the audience.

We also presented them a video that tells what we had done during the Spring in Finland and in Taiyuan.

-Jaana from Metsokangas Comprehensive School, Oulu-

Global Educational Community and The Authentic Learning Institute held an international conference in Beijing on the 8^th-9^th June.

Innokas-Network had an important role by taking Finnish teachers to work and co-operate with their Chinese colleagues during the conference week. Before that teacher-teams had collaborated by planning and implementing projects on learning environments in their own countries. A few days before the conference teacher-teams met in Beijing and modified their projects. Moreover, Finnish teachers educated and supported their Chinese colleagues on the innovation process. The aim was to model Finnish teaching practices to Chinese teachers in authentic learning sessions.  To do so, there where Chinese students from different areas from China. Finally, teacher-teams gave demo-lessons to conference participants. The demos were reflected by the audience teachers and all the participants from the Beijing Normal University and Beijing Capital University and elsewhere.

Panel discussions were important parts of the conference. Minna took part in the discussion about the equality in Finnish schools and Finland. Johanna’s panel discussion was about the authentic learning. Both discussions were held in Chinese, so Finnish panelistics had an interpreter to keep them aware of the main point of the discussion.

Minna had a keynote speech about the Finnish school system and new curriculum, Innokas network and teaching practices. The main points of her speech were the phenomena and project based learning, collaboration between students and teachers and students based learning.

Moreover, the Finnish participants took part in the radio interview about the equality in Finland, transversals skills, multidisciplinary learning units and Finnish school’s success in PISA assessment. They also discuss the learning outcome and the main point of the new curriculum and it’s affects in nowadays’ Finnish schools.

-GEC team 2017: Minna K., Minna K., Johanna, Raini and Jaana-