We had a great joy to get a visitor from Boston in to our class. And not just a random visitor but a friendly, ethusiastic physics teacher Stacy who actually knew a Little Finnish!:)

First we studied how the circuits work and made some tests.Kids were thrilled!They weren’t afraid of trying  and they didn’t even realize that they were studying physics.

After studying we applied the things we’ve learned into real life by making cool gadgets as “the answering light” or “space”. The answering light is very useful in the classroom because by using it, students won’t have to raise their hands anymore. (According to the professional opinion of a 1st grader.) One just switches on the light that stands on her desk and the teacher sees it. In this particular gadget, the switch actually consists of two parts: a teddy-bear and a car. When the teddy is placed on the car , the light lights up! See the picture below.

As a teacher, I hope that the future learning and future school could be more like the two days’ experience we had: Full of joy without having the fear of failure even when facing new challenging things to study.

I’d like to see my class bubbling creativity and enthusiasm again!

Class 1.A and teacher Anna-Kristiina,

Ylikylä School, Rovaniemi

At Helsingin Suomalainen Yhteiskoulu (SYK) 26 pupils from the 5th grade have worked on a theme BRIDGE. In our class the theme is seen as a mental construction – we are building a bridge to Old People’s Home and to our partner school Janesville.

We started on working on our drama lessons by thinking somebody’s circle of life. What could have happened in person’s life when she/he was a child, a young person, an adult, an old person? Afterwards pupils made up 10 questions they would ask when we visited Old People’s Home.

Pupils worked on pairs and in groups

Pupils were very exited about the visit, because they didn’t know what to expect. Reactions were different depending on the answers they got. After the visit we went back to school and instead of Math lesson, pupils talked and talked about their experiences. Pupils were amazed, happy, schocked about the answers.of four. We hoped to get 13 interviews, but in the end only seven persons wanted to answer pupils’ questions.

Yesterday pupils started to write a profile of their senior person. When their profiles are ready, pupils will take it to their person and have a conversation about it.

– Raini Sipilä

We’ve been really busy with the animations. We are using the movie also for a film competition here in Espoo and got really busy in the end as the competition’s deadline is on Friday the 27th of February. But we made it! You’ll see it soon but as for now.. some pictures making of…

3K, Jalavapuisto school, Espoo, Finland

I am an American teacher spending four months in Finland on a Fulbright grant, and I recently had the opportunity to spend a week at the Koulumestari School. I observed several different classes, but I spent the most time with one sixth grade class. I have my own blog to keep track of my observations as I visit schools throughout Finland, and I was asked to write a guest post for the Innokas blog.

My first impression of the school was that the atmosphere was less stressful and more relaxed than a typical American school. This was evident when seeing students remove their shoes upon entering the building. Not only are the floors clean enough for sitting, but wearing socks or slippers while learning must make students feel more comfortable and as if they are at home.

A typical day for the 6th graders at Koulumestari starts at 8:15 with some greetings said by the class in unison, both in Finnish and English, followed by a run-down of the day’s schedule. Then they have two 45-minute classes, followed by a 30-minute break during which they go outside to run around and expend extra energy. Students then return for two more 45-minute lessons. Next is a 20-minute lunch and another 30-minute recess outside. The afternoon schedule varies, with classes usually ending at 2:00 (3:00 on Tuesday).

Continue reading →

We are a primary school in Espoo city in Finland in Europe. Our students are in the sixth grade. So they are about 12 -13 years old this year. We have 24 kids in our class. Some of them have learning difficulties. That’s why we have two teachers working all the time with them. One class teacher and one teacher of special education. The teachers are planning and evaluating together. We have also a part-time school assistant working in our class. Sometimes our students are studying all together and sometimes they are studying in smaller groups. We have started a China-project in our school with our sixth grade students. We are studying Asia’s geography and religions and the history of China in February (before our one weeks winter holiday starts:). We are doing a big poster of China all together. In arts the kids are painting dragons and fireworks and they are also drawing Chinese letters http://kiinanluokka.net/kirjoitusmerkit/ We have a very special animal – called the Saimaa ringed seal – in Finland. There are only 310 ones in the world. And they are living in the lake called Saimaa in the eastern part of Finland. http://www.sll.fi/mita-me-teemme/lajit/saimaannorppa/ringed-seal

They have also a very rare animal – called the Giant Panda – in China.

Both of these animals are endangered. We are going to study protection on these two different kind of animals. Our big big plan is to organize a charity Event to save the Saimaa ringed seal during this spring season. We are also starting the cooperation with our partner school in USA. Our target is to encourage our students to use English language. We encourage them to talk and write with a foreign language with American kids. Our students have been studying English at school three and a half years. Follow our blog https://kmsaimaannorppa.wordpress.com/

Greetings from Koulumestari school class 6NK

We are going to make animations about the panda. First we used the ipads to see what a panda looks like. Then we made small pandas from silk clay. They came out very nicely! The animation will tell different facts about the pandas. We looked for these facts from the internet. Our teacher had searched for links and put them on qr-codes which we opened with the qr-code reader. Then we wrote about the pandas to our new panda notebooks. We got to decorate them ourselves.

3K, Jalavapuisto school, Espoo, Finland

Global Educational Community (GEC) teachers from Finland met in January 2015. The goal of the meeting was to get to know each other, plan becoming projects with schools around the world and get familiar with revised Finnish curriculum and especially international and global aims in it.To be active in GEC really fulfills many aims of Finnish new curriculum- in both the home internationality and the global internationality. It is really a pleasure to network with other people and countries around the world to share and take responsibility for the common world together.

Finnish teachers started to plan becoming projects about either Pandas or Flying objects during this meeting.Finnish teachers were also given partnership schools and teachers from USA, Australia and moreover, we are waiting for ones in China. Getting familiar with partner schools and their culture at schools and in countries will begin in contacting each other by emails and Skype-meetings. Some teachers might meet each other in GEC conference in Finland in March. The second possibility to meet face to face and present some best practices in co-projects is in the conference held in Beijing in July this year.

I wish you positive experiences in global networking by a photo of smiling Finnish teachers making a statue by drama about GEC, how many pandas you can find there?

Minna Kukkonen, Innokas-coordinator from Finland

I got an opportunity to participate in the summit organized by the Sutton Trust and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation in November 2014. The goal of the summit was to learn from one another how to create and sustain high quality teaching feedback and professional learning systems. The event was interesting and I learned a lot even though most of the examples are hard to implement into Finnish education system. Many educators were interested in our team-teaching model. We discussed what kinds of structures and resources are needed. Hopefully we were able to convince as many as possible.

The best part of the summit was meeting the educators from all over the world. The most memorable discussion I had with Australian principal Ray Trotter. His Wooranna Parks Primary School resembled a lot our Koulumestari School from Finland. They teach in teams, some pupils tutor others and they use a lot of ICT and robotics in their lessons. Mr Trotter introduced me Dr. David Thornburg’s ‘holodeck’ classroom, an environment that supports project-based learning. At Wooranna Parks Primary School they use videos like Enigma Portal in their projects. I have used similar kinds of videos in my lessons and with teacher-training courses as motivators. I think that this method develops problem-solving skills in many ways.

Innokas-coordinator Kati

In 2014 we started the research collaboration with the FabLab@School. The research’s focus is to identify students’ skills to cope in everyday situations that require technology. FabLab@schools have started the research in the United States (1000 pupils) and now Finnish and Danish students are participating also.

The FabLab@School is a worldwide growing network of educational digital fabrications labs, especially designed for schools and children. It has been created by Prof. Paulo Blikstein at Stanford for middle and high school students (https://tltl.stanford.edu/project/fablabschool). The work that the FabLab@School does resembles a lot what Innokas Network is doing in Finland with elementary and middle school students.

Kati and Tiina from Innokas Network

In September 2014 we participated in the Chinese moon festival in Finland. It was organized by the City of Espoo with its key partners. During the evening we got to know more about the collaboration between Espoo and Shanghai. We also had an opportunity to share our experiences from Bridges Conference in Chongqing, China.

Tiina, Minna and Kati from Innokas Network