VOC 2

Special Needs Education

Task: Teacher's reply to a parent

Dear Daddy -71,

Thank you for your e-mail. I understand your concern and I'm happy to tell that there are plenty of possibilities for your son, so you're not to worry.

As an answer to your first question I can tell that it is completely possible for him to continue in normal vocational education or upper secondary high school and he can have an assistant. You wrote that your son is very talented in geography, so if he would like to continue studies on this subject, it's possible in upper secondary high school. There are also training programmes in vocational schools that are related to geography, such as natural sciences or natural resources and the environment.

Reasons for special needs support include disability, learning difficulties, and social problems. The requirements are that he supplies the school with the doctor's or special needs teacher's statement that confirms that he needs an assistant or other special arrangements.

There are also other options than normal vocational school. There are seven vocational special education colleges in Finland with lot of options of training programmes. For instance, the vocational special education college Luovi has units in over 20 places in Finland and free student halls of residence.

You also asked about the laws and standards concerning special needs in vocational education. There is a decree on special need vocational education that regulates that each student in special needs education is provided with an individual educational plan (IEP). Besides the personal study plan of the student, the plan describes the special needs and the special support services of the student.

According to the law of Finland, everybody is entitled to the possibility to gain education after basic studies. This requires that the premises, equipment, atmosphere and teaching of an institution caters for students with special needs. The goal is to offer everybody equal, approving, and safe environment to study.

I hope this reply relieves your concern. I'd be happy to discuss more in details options for your son, so feel free to contact me, if you have further questions.

Best regards,
Teacher

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Entrepreneurship in Vocational Education

1. Business Plan

a) What is the product/service?
My company of this business plan is a Subway restaurant, and it's located in Jyväskylä or its surroundings. It's a franchise company.

b) What is unique about your product/service?
Subway is a fast food restaurant, but the food is considered to be healthier than in most other fast food restaurants. Also, my market place is good as the Subway chain has helped me to find the best place in my area.

c) What weaknesses are possible?
Competition from other restaurants is always a weakness. For example, if there appears a new sandwich-selling restaurant nearby.

d) What's the advantage of the customer in buying your product/service?
The food is tasteful and also healthy, depending on what the customer chooses on his/her bread. The food is served fast and it's easy to take with you. Subway is international brand, and the quality of food is high and stable. Sometimes there could be some special offers such as free beverage with food order.

e) Who are your target customers?
The largest customer group are people in the age range of 20 to 40, but there are also a lot of customers who are younger and older that that, for example teenagers and parents with kids. At lunch time customers are often working people having their lunch break. There are also a lot of tourists among customers.

f) How will you find your customers, how will you market your company?
My restaurant is located in a visible place in the centre and so it's easy to spot. Besides that Subway chain has local and national marketing efforts and hires a marketing company. Examples of local campaigns are newspaper and radio ads and special offer coupons delivered to homes. National marketing efforts are, for example, TV advertising campaigns.

g) What do you need? (People, money, expertise, a retail outlet...) 
I get a lot of help from the Subway chain, for example, with product and decoration planning. Subway chain has also a customer relationship with a insurance company that supports with financing. I need to hire a staff and accounting company.

2. What part of this Prezi did you find useful for yourself and what not so useful? Why?

I find the list of the most common ways to teach entrepreneurship useful. I don't have any experience as an entrepreneur, and thus it's challenging to think how to teach this sphere. It was also useful that you emphasized that entrepreneurship education is not the same than general business or economic studies. Furthermore, the example of students having a responsibility on a school restaurant a couple of days a week was useful to know. This information clarifies the concept of entrepreneurship education. It's hard to say what was not so useful. I didn't know much about this area, so I think every new information is useful as it expands my knowledge.

3. There’s an Enter-office in Pori which helps people starting up a business – can you find a similar local organisation near you which gives entrepreneurship help?

There's a unit called Tiimiakatemia that operates at the Jyväskylä University of Applied Sciences. Students of Tiimiakatemia study entrepreneurship in real-life projects and at the same time they develop their own business plans.

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Sustainable Development module

Question: How do you define ‘sustainable development’?  Do your best to come up with your own, comprehensive definition (i.e. do not look it up!). Type it out below, in your own document.

I understand sustainable development in its ecological context. It means development that helps to save this planet to the future generations. It refers to different means and strategies that support ecological sustainability, for example turning out the lights when you leave a room.

Question: Watch this video (approx. 4 minutes), take some notes, and further create your definition of sustainable development.  Type your 'improved' definition into your document.

Sustainability calls for global thinking, as the source video points out. Sustainability is based on economic, social, and environmental considerations, which all belong together. Environmental aspect of sustainability means climate protection, protection of natural resources and biodiversity, and organically grown food. Economy aspect of sustainability involves decisions made in business organizations, for example that food should be grown in your area and not transported far abroad. Social aspect means better education and training opportunities, equal rights for men and women, fighting poverty, and prosperity of the whole humanity.

Unfortunately I can't fully agree with this idea of sticking merely to local food. Food resources are not spread equally everywhere in the globe, so for that reason some food must always be transported. For example, without transportation we wouldn't have fruits in Finland at all, except apples in autumns.

Assignment: Answer the following questions in a page or two.
 
a. Please explain briefly your own interest in Sustainable Development.

I find environmental issues important, and I would like to include the views of sustainable development in my future job as a teacher. I have performed some courses of corporate environmental management at university, so I know something about the problematics of sustainable development. One practical example that clarifies difficulties of this sphere is that changing single-use cartoon package material  for durable containers is not always automatically more environmentally friendly, as using containers several times consumes a lot of washing water, detergents, and electricity. So the environmental impact of the both options should be counted before one can decide which option is better.

I'm also interested in social justice, especially the entitlement to education and work, and that is another reason why I find sustainable development important. Currently many companies concentrate only on the economic aspect of sustainability and neglect the social aspect. The result is that there are a lot of lay-offs and firings in companies.

b. If you are from another culture than Finnish give a brief overview of the socio- political landscape of the country, resources and their constraints. What are the values and the attitudes of the local people towards sustainable development? Are there any concerns related to sustainable development long term?

I'm from Finland, so this question doesn't concern me.

c. How should one direct, govern and teach sustainable development in schools?

Schools should create networks that include sustainable development experts and organizations, and the management of a school should encourage teachers to work in co-operation with the network.  The curriculum should be developed within the network to include more environmental education and sustainable development in the contents of many subjects. Schools could also include new courses in curriculum concerning sustainable development. Participatory approach helps to engage the staff of the school with the plan. Schools should set their own criteria on environmental performing. Schools could also participate in projects related to sustainability.

There is teaching material available for environmental education on different subjects, and thus a teacher should look for it. The staff should have positive attitudes towards sustainable education, and for changing attitudes they may need training.

Students should be encouraged to participate in practical tasks and developing environmental awareness of their school.

d. How does sustainable development link to your area of work or study? (Think of the three spheres of sustainability: economic, social and environmental) Please give some ideas of how you could combine or apply a sustainability perspective to your subject.

I don't work as a teacher yet, but I'll write here, how I could link sustainablity to my future job as a teacher. Of all of the subjects I have studied, sustainable development would link best with business studies as corporate social responsibility includes these same three aspects than sustainability:  economic, social and environmental. Sustainability is also important part of companies' supply nowadays when  supply chains are usually international.

I would also search for teaching material that is available for environmental education on economics. Sustainability could also be taught, for example, by analysing companies'  social responsibility reports, which often describe companies' performing in these three areas. Students could also collect newspaper articles on companies' actions and critically analyse, how sustainable their performing is.

e. What was especially interesting or even surprising for you in this material (texts, video, and pdfs)?

As I mentioned, I haven't worked as a teacher yet, and thus I didn't know that curricula include environmental know-how in vocational competence. Also, I didn't know that there are materials relating to sustainable development included in so many subjects that your blog described. That was useful information to me as now I know that I can look and ask for it, when I need it.

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Working-life Orientation

What I learnt from this module http://workinglifeorientation.blogspot.fi/?

Teacher's role in guidance

I learnt about teacher's role in guidance (http://workinglifeorientation.blogspot.fi/p/how-is-working-life-oriented-lerning.html). From given different options I felt that the multifaceted balancing teacher role would suit me best. Here are my reasons why I chose this role and my other answers to the questions:

I have a lot of work experience from different organizations just like this example teacher. I think co-operation with companies is very important for successful guidance. I would like to have a good contact with the instructor and also learn what kind of learning environment this company is. With this example I also like that the teacher asks from the company of what kind of work contribution they need from students. It's motivating to the students that they know their work is important for the company.

Question: If you see the workplace instructor guiding your student in a wrong way, how would you react and why?

I would tell the instructor that we use different way in our vocational school, but I would try to be very diplomatic when pointing this out, since I wouldn't like to spoil the relationship with the instructor and the workplace. I suppose the instructor would like to be respected by the student and thus not criticized by the teacher.

Sometimes workplaces may use old, out-dated practices because of the lack of resources, for example they may not have the latest technology. In such cases it's useful for students to learn flexibility, since it is the reality that workplaces are diverse and may be different from training environments in schools. I would find it important that the student notices and understands this situation and thus I would talk about these differences with the student as well.

Question: What are your strengths and weaknesses in guidance within this role?

Strengths: Co-operation and conversation with companies supports the training period of students. This way I can establish long-lasting relations with the companies.

Weaknesses: The weakness is that it takes time to create any relations. Would this kind of procedure exceed my paid working hours?

Developing competences

I also studied about how a vocational teacher will maintain and further develop his/her working competences. My answers to the interview task are below:

A. What are the challenges of the future working-life from educational point of view?

The future working-life changes so fast and is even more highly technological than nowadays that it is challenging for the teachers and education institutions to keep up with the phase. It's challenging for educational institutions to find skillful teachers and create effective connections to working-life.

B. Why do you think that the prediction of the article Future or Fiction was or wasn't realistic?

The article states that "The education of the work has mainly taken care of the people in the working life and these educated work place tutors are also paid for that." This sounds like apprenticeship system (oppisopimus), which is an old invention. I think it's only good if it's coming to a wider use in future. But I doubt that it would replace the traditional way of teaching in vocational schools this largely that the article claims. Apprenticeship needs a lot of resources of companies, and that hinders this development.

C. Think about your educational history and describe what are those learned skills that have carried you further in your working-life?

I have studied information technology as a minor subject at university, and that has helped me to get many job opportunities. I majored in organizational communication, and that has also support me in working-life. Many managers seem to realize the importance of communication nowadays. A good command of English has also been important for some of my jobs.

D. How do you make sure that your knowledge about the future working life is up to date?

I'll do further studies and follow the working-life practices of my field. I don't work as a teacher yet, but at other position, so I'm still fully connected to "the world of work" that we are referring to here. Later, if I worked as a full-time teacher, as I hope, and felt that I don't know what's going on in working-life anymore, I could go and do an internship period at some workplace, for example abroad.

Summary on my learning

Here are my answers to the summary what I learnt from this module:

Question 1.Find in the framework of working-life oriented learning the key aspect you find most important at the moment. Why did you choose this aspect?

I find co-operation between vocational schools and companies as the most important thing. This way the school can ensure that the content of the training period is truly useful for the professional learning of students.

Question 2. What are the working-life oriented learning environments that you have experienced as most useful and why?

When I studied at university, I did my compulsory practical training in the computer centre of the university. That was useful to me, since my tasks were diverse and I got a lot of work experience. I also made contacts that helped me to get further jobs.

Question 3. In your opinion what are the key factors for succesful working-life oriented learning guidance and why?

Both the instructor and the teacher should be enthusiastic about guidance and think what kind of tasks would benefit the student best. The tasks should be described in an internship agreement before the internship starts. The teacher should familiarize herself/himself with the company before the internship and get to know the instructor. The student should be encouraged to inform the instructor and teacher, if there are some troubles during internship.

Question 4. What was your personal take away from the interview about developing your future working-life competences?

It is important that teachers should go to work in companies every now and then to keep up their professional competence.

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Feedback to the other groups

Working life orientation

• The group has found vast range of different angles on the topic.
• Tasks are interesting and not difficult to do.
• The group had used different methods such as snowball and interview.
• The section 'Different roles of teacher in guidance' included interesting information on different types. It was also useful to analyse your own behaviour in the task.
• The study material was well done. The group had studied the topic thoroughly and used a lot of sources.

Special needs education

• Good introduction of the topic.
• Useful study material.
• Tasks were demanding, which is both strength and a developmental point. The letter to a parent was difficult because you couldn't just list the facts, but you had to really imagine yourself into the teacher's position to write a letter.
• These tasks were more difficult to do than other groups' tasks. I had especially problems with the video task as I didn't have a tablet at that time. The task itself was not difficult, but planning the technological part and having several trials that did not work made it a pain. Maybe there could have been an option for a video.

Sustainable Development

• The study material is very good for this iVET training. There are practical advice in the material how to put sustainability into practise in vocational education.
• The methods are well chosen: for some tasks you can write about your own experiences and knowledge of the theme and for other tasks you have to study the material.
• Tasks are not difficult, but you have to read the material to perform them, which is good.

Entrepreneurship in Vocational Education

• Good basic information package on entrepreneurship
• Visually attractive learning environment made in Prezi
• Tasks are fast to do, but yet they offer step-by-step approach to learn basics of business plan
• Prezi has its limits: To search for some certain information, you have to scroll through the whole learning environment. A normal webpage would be faster for this purpose. Moreover, Prezi doesn't let you copy the text, if you would like to take notes

 

Individual Study Assignment

1. An assessment on how your own theme group worked when compared to the agreed procedures

We planned the themes for the online learning environment as a whole group by emails and few online meetings. Then we split the workload so that each member of the group had their own responsibilities of what questions to plan. After the students' had returned their answers we also split them so that every member of our group took the answers of four students for assessment.

Planning period was quite difficult as we communicated mainly by emails. For some reason we didn't have so many online meetings in this group work. Discussion progressed quite slowly that way and emails stretched very long. Sometimes we had already agreed about some solution, but then somebody wanted to change for example the methods that we were going to use. Sometimes I just said 'OK' even though I didn't quite agree as I just wanted the group work to progress somehow. I found planning by emails quite frustrating. Face-to-face meetings are much more effective. Online meetings are the second best choice, and we should have used them more.

2. An assessment on how the planning and teaching activities were carried out in our theme group

When we met in Oulu with the whole class, we got the feedback that our tasks were the most difficult to do as they were so time-consuming. We should have realized this when we planned the tasks. Now the result was that not everybody even answered to all the questions. I let a couple of students pass the course even though they hadn't answered to all as their score exceeded the minimum amount. This was not a desirable situation as I'd rather they had answered to all the questions even shortly and thought over those issues that we had planned to be important to study. The problem here was with the methods we had chosen as some of the tasks took too much time to do (an essay and interview especially).

3. Reflections on how the other groups’ themes are present in my own line of work

Working-life orientation: The interaction with the working community is important in all kind of vocational education. I could work as a teacher of business administration and in that case I would have a contact with the mentor at the workplace when the students have internship periods in companies. Usually these internship placements are sought by students, and the contact between the placement mentor and the teacher is quite remote. Perhaps there could be more to do by teachers, for example, could teachers negotiate the same, successful placements also for the next year for new students? That is something I would like to find out as a teacher.

Special needs education: A teacher should know about the legislation concerning the special needs education to be able to support the students with special needs and apply the practices in vocational education. A teacher should also be able to plan and execute individual educational plans.

Sustainable development: The curricula of vocational institutes include environmental know-how. Sustainable development relates to many subjects such as marketing and management, and I would like to include the views of sustainable development in my future job as a teacher. Corporate social responsibility includes the same three aspects than sustainability: economic, social and environmental.  

Entrepreneurship in Vocational Education: Entrepreneurship links naturally to business administration. As the planning group stated in their learning environment, there is a gap to be filled as entrepreneurship is not included in all parts of the VET system. Entrepreneurship could be covered also in other subjects than business administration, for example, if I taught languages, some of the study material could deal with entrepreneurship.