Friday 11 May 2012

PARALLEL SESSIONS
FRIDAY 11 MAY at 10.30 – 11.30

A1 Let Me Learn: Knowing how you and your students learn best
Presenter: Steve Hall, Staffordshire University, England UK
Workshop. Target audience: General
Knowing yourself as a learner is just as important as knowing how your students learn best. This session will consider how the 'Let Me Learn' programme differs from other analyses of learning styles. It's focus on metacognition invites anyone exploring the Let Me Learn programme to assess their own learning patterns at 'use first', 'use as needed' and 'avoid' levels. Workshop attendees will be invited to participate in a self-assessment of their learning patterns profile and to see how learning patterns can be taken into consideration when designing course materials and delivery styles for students. The session will also consider how this impacts on personalising learning for pupils/students and how they can develop strategies for taking greater responsibility for their own learning.

A2 The Wise Professional: Role of the professional bodies in the 21st century's wisdom
Presenter: Roxana Mocanu, Institute of Training and Occupational Learning (ITOL), Romania
Workshop. Target audience: General
The special character of wisdom among attainments of the mind shows itself in the things which everyone will agree can be said about wisdom-things which cannot be said about art and sciece, or knowlegde and learning generally. Knowledge can be steadily increased and learning advanced, but can we say that the same progress can be achieved in wisdom? The individual may gow in wisdom even professionally, but what about the professional communities?

A3 ABLE YOUTH. Young researchers for a more sustainable energy use
Presenter: Dr. Anja Christanell, Austrian Institute for Sustainable Development, Austria
Lecture. Target audience: Secondary/Upper secondary
In the project ABLE YOUTH pupils of two Viennese schools localize energy saving potentials in households, advice their own families in saving energy and assess the outcome at the end of the project. This paper presents insights in how the young researchers became aware of their families’ consumption habits and how personal values are related to these habits. Furthermore it highlights what the teenagers learned about self-initiated changes and their real impact on daily practices and how they express their own ideas about energy, climate change and sustainability via graphic design.

A4 Smil(e) - A way to develop Scandinavian Methods for Innovative Learning (Europe)
Presenters: Håkan Cajander, Halmstads kommun, Sweden, and Pia Kløjgård Jensen, Competence Centre for Science, Denmark
Workshop. Target audience: General
The workshop will present the Scandinavian educational project "Smil(e)", www.smil-e.eu. "Smil(e)" is a cross border contribution to bring the national actions together with the following objectives:
* to increase the interest for having fun learning science, technology and mathematics;
* create innovative learning methods, material and environment for the ages of 1 -19 years with focus areas such as gender and ICT, create a better collaboration between school, trade and industry as well as research; and
* create a platform for communicating/gathering forum for the cross boarder area within learning science, technology and mathematics.

The project partners are municipalities from Sweden, Norway and Denmark as well a teacher training university colleges and national resource agencies.
Some good examples and outputs of our cooperation will be presented.

PARALLEL SESSIONS
FRIDAY 11 MAY at 11.45 – 12.45

B1 Cultivating creativity for lifelong learning
Presenter: Tania Farrugia, Malta Education Division, Malta
Workshop. Target audience: Pre-school and primary
One of the aims of lifelong learning is to help all individuals to become successful learners in a world that is dominated by fast paced change. In an ever changing scenario, lifelong learners need to have a desire to find out new things, to guess possible situations, to jump at opportunities and to reach their full potential. These are all qualities of a creative individual. This workshop will provide educators with very practical tips on how to cultivate and foster creativity in the classroom, to increase motivation and confidence, to make learning more enjoyable, to instil curiosity, to train pupils in thinking skills and as a result fulfil the quest for lifelong learning.

This interactive workshop will present participants with examples of good practice and will involve them in creative and hands on tasks.

B2 Learning styles in practice
Cancelled

B3 European Teacher Synthesize
Presenters: Drs. Henny Oude Maatman and Paul Stuit, Hogeschool Edith Stein/OCT, Hengelo, the Netherlands
Open session. Target audience: Pre-school/Primary; Secondary/Upper secondary
In the European Comenius project European Teachers Synthesize we offered in services courses to primary and secundary schools teachers to become an European Teacher. In the project ‘European Teacher Synthesize (ETSize)’ we adapted the learning materials from the Comenius project ‘Face-It’ to experienced teachers. We offered our model and ideas of the “European Teacher” for free to the schools. In this project 7 teacher training institutes from all over Europe work together to realize the idea of a European Teacher.

We used innovating methodologies in the courses:
* work with digital learning communities between course members (in moodle)
* improve the European Dimension in schools
* promote and stimulate international collaboration between schools
* use “My Own Dictionary”, a product of the VISEUS project
Products of the project “ETSize” will be ready in December 2011: a European teacher course, a brochure, and four e-books.

The teachers who applied for the in-service courses joined an international course and got good conditions to start collaboration in their own school. They will become multipliers of the European Teacher ideas in their own environment. The e-books will make the good practises visible for future courses.
We organize the courses mentioned above in 2011 in four different places in Europe: Riga, Barcelona, Brussels and Graz. In December 2011 we will publish the course places for 2012. More information: www.european-teachers.eu

B4 Research on and standards for teaching assistants - an open discussion
Presenter: Prof. em. Nancy K. French, University of Colorado, Colorado, USA
Open session. Target group: General.
Teaching assistants (also known by other titles) are used in many countries to reduce class size, assist with students who have special needs, and assist with language acquisition for immigrant students. This session is organized to facilitate the exchange of information about the roles and responsibilities, employment and educational standards, training, supervision, as well as difficulties encountered . The presenter will facilitate discussion around key questions, provide a research summary and the standards adopted by the International Council for Exceptional Children. Participants are invited to bring relevant documents or materials to share.

B5 Basis for learning
Moderated session: Paper presentations. Moderator Dr. Beata Dyrda. Target audience: General
Selfdirected learning for lifelong learning
Presenter: Drs. Yttje Cnossen, Stenden university, School of Education, Leeuwarden, the Netherlands
Constantly changing contexts require skills sustaining a flexible and reflective learning attitude. To meet the standards of lifelong learning students in higher vocational education more specific in teacher training college, need to develop self-managing, self-monitoring and self-modifying skills. Educational programmes can support and enhance their efforts.

What are the expectations of enterprises in terms of Sustainable Development for the training of Life Science students?
Presenter: Corinne Stewart, AgroSupDijon, Dijon, France
Today, Higher Education Institutions can and must play their role in encouraging and promoting good practices for sustainable development. Not only must they work to develop transfer between Professors, Researchers and Students by teaching the concept of S.D. in an integrated and transversal way, by adjusting curricula as necessary and simultaneously inventing new ways to address the various disciplines but they must also develop transfer between HEI’s, Enterprises and Civil Society. The I.S.L.E Erasmus networks project (Innovation in the teaching of SD in Life Sciences in Europe) is at the heart of this issue.

PARALLEL SESSIONS
FRIDAY 11 MAY at 15.00 – 16.30

C1 Sense to perceive: A guide to detect personal talents in pre-school children
Presenter: Dr. Susanne Müller-Using, University of Osnabrück, Osnabrück, Germany
Workshop. 90 minutes. Target audience: Pre-school/Primary school
Creating Knowledge and Wisdom in and by Education has much to do with the kind of space we are able to open up for children and their own personal development within formal learning processes. But also with the ability of teachers to perceive and reflect the personal needs and topics of children systematically.
Our guide helps teachers to be more selfaware and to make systematically professional use of their own daily perceiving and reflecting of children. To perceive children holistically means to be open to their personalities, to provide own inner space to recognize their personal preferences in a self aware and open minded way. Also it opens up different opportunities to deal with the strength and weeknesses of them and on longer term to deal with what their real areas of interest and talents are.

This workshop provides an introduction into our instrument "guide to percieve preschool children systematically" and it offers exercises to strengthen the own selfawareness and sense in order to perceive personal talents of preschool children more conscious and systematically.

C2 Creating European Courses part 1: Human Dynamics -‘differences as a challenge…..’
Presenters: Niels Wolf, Pesant Consultancy; Herman Hoedemaker and drs. Anton de Vries, Lumius, Leeuwarden, the Netherlands
Workshop. 90 minutes. Target audience: General
Why is a conversation with one person always runs smoothly and with the other difficult? How is it possible that a child by one teacher exposes and the other teacher is invisible?
Human Dynamics is the term given to new understandings of human functioning developed by Dr. Sandra Seagal and her associates at Human Dynamics International in the course of continuing research since 1979. This investigation has involved more than 80,000 people from over twenty-five cultures.
Dr. Seagal and her team have explored the interaction in people of three universal principles - the mental (or visionary), the emotional (or relational) and the physical (or practical). In the human system, the mental principle is the objective one: related to the mind - to thinking values, facts, structure, focus, perspective. The emotional principle is the more subjective one: connected to other people - relationships, feelings, communication, organization, and synthesis. The physical principle is the more pragmatic one: it is the making, systemical and operationalizing part of us.
These three principals are equal in value and importance, but the way they give presence in our own human system makes us who we are, with our own talents and development needs.
In this workshop you will explore in a practical way your own most dominated Human Dynamics Principles and those of others.. These ‘findings’ will be used in the related second session Creating European Courses part 2‘.

C3 Equipping Learners with Valuable Abilities for a Sustainable Future!
Presenters: Christer Torstensson, Anna Mogren and Mathias Demetriades, the Global School/International Programme Office for Education and Training, Visby, Sweden
Workshop. 90 minutes. Target audience: General
Education is seen as central to economic competiveness, the reduction of poverty and inequality, and environmental sustainability. The Global School is a Swedish governmental programme promoting schools development within these issues. This session attempt to answer the question of how this work can be carried out in relation to the new national curriculum in Sweden. Some examples and strategies will be expressed and participants will be exposed to a simulation and active learning methods.

C4 Education for all
Moderated session: Paper presentations. Moderator Bill Goddard. Target audience: General
The situation of the gifted students in the Polish educational system
Presenter: Dr PhD Beata Dyrda, University of Silesia, Katowice, Poland
The author intends to present the research results concerning the institutional and individual support of the gifted students development in the Polish schools. The research study was conducted at three stages: collective case study of schools, survey among teachers and educational biography of gifted and talented students.

Extra-Curricular Enrichment Opportunities For Gifted Students: Challenges and Opportunities
Presenter: Dr John Kesner, College of Education/Georgia State University, Atlanta, USA
In the US today, education for gifted and talented children is often not viewed with the same intensity as are programs for children who are struggling academically. Extra-curricular enrichment programs have been recognized as providing opportunities for gifted students not typically found in regular education programs in schools. These programs can provide the academic challenge gifted students need as well as instruction better suited to the gifted student’s learning style. These programs can also provide the emotional support gifted children need for high achievement as well as providing socialization opportunities with gifted peers. This presentation will discuss the types of extra-curricular enrichment programs found in the US and highlight one example of a program which has been providing enrichment activities for gifted students for over 35 years.

Introduction programme to prevent early school leavers in upper secondary school
Presenters: Ola Johansson and Irene Lennemyr Winkler, Directorate for Upper secondary schools, Karlstads kommun, Sweden
For students not eligible for national programmes at upper secondary school in Sweden, from 2011 there are five introductory programmes that are adapted to the individual:
* preparatory education/language introduction,
* programme-oriented individual choice,
* introduction to a profession,
* individual option, and
* language introduction.
This presentation gives an overview of the new system and describes which options schools have to actively work in preventing students to become early school leavers.