Assessment reflections

Tonight I added reflections on the 'Evaluation and assessment of learning' session under the VOC I tab.  See this under the 'Session 3' portion of the VOC I tab.

Big additions to the VOC I tab!

Based on Juha's recommendations for our class, I have added a lot of content to the VOC I tab.  This mainly includes now my reflections on other team's teaching and what I learned from them, the topics overall, etc.  The VOC I page is divided up by each of the four sessions, and I have fully reflected now on the first two sessions (with the last two coming soon...).

Progress, progress...

My Special Education module video is posted at the bottom of the Voc II tab.  Enjoy : )

VOC II documents submitted...

I have uploaded all of my required VOC II summary documents into Optima (reviews of our own learning environment, as well as all those from the other four groups).  I will include much of this information soon under the VOC II tab in this blog.


Whew!

Two very full days in Oulu!

On Thursday and Friday, March 13-14, our IVET group gathered for two contact days at OAMK in Oulu.  The days went something like this:

Thursday AM: EduSci Debates (Blair)
Thursday PM: 'Wheel of Assessment' Activities (Blair)
Friday: Voc I and Voc II Wrap-up (Juha)

Both days were effective, but in different ways. 

We had been preparing for the EduSci debates for some time, as they were the culmination of Part II (of III) in our Basics of Educational Sciences course.  My group (Team Pink) had earlier been assigned to research, present, defend and now debate AGAINST the following statement:
"All learning at the vocational education level can and should have a measurable outcome."
In essence, we took the approach that we would try to prove that not all such learning has a measureable outcome.  We also pushed the idea that not all such learning is measurable.

The debate went quite well, although finding actual sources to defend our position took a great deal of time when we were originally doing the research earlier this year.  My Team Pink colleagues were Virpi, Minna and Aleksandra, and it was a nice team to work with.  We spent many hours together online preparing (Adobe Connect, Skype), which was not easy, but it ended up being worthwhile.

The 'Wheel of Assessment' that Blair prepared was excellent.  I will comment on this more in the EduSci section of this blog.

Finally, Juha led our class time together on Friday.  Most of the day was used as a way to review and wrap-up the VOC I portion of the course. Even though this officially ended back in December, when we had a peer-review of each other's blogs (the main assessment tool for the course), Juha had told us (in general) that some of us needed to add more detail to our blogs in order to get a 'pass'.  In recent weeks, he added more detail about what was missing, and we reviewed those things together in class. Then we had another peer assessment (and presentation) of our blogs, when Juha did some on-the-spot assessing as to whether or not they were complete.  In the end, I have a few additions to make (commenting on other group presentations and overall learning), and then I should be done!

All-in-all, it was a very worthwhile time in Oulu, and it was nice to spend time together with classmates that I have mostly gotten to know 'virtually'!

Special Needs Education

I have now completed most of the assignment for the Special Needs Education module - see the last section of the VOC II page.  I was fairly familiar with this topic, but did learn a few new things. 

I now need to complete the video task!

Entrepreneurship Module Complete...

I enjoyed taking part in the Entrepreneurship tasks, including creating my own business plan!  See this and more in the Voc II tab (see 'Entrpreneurship Module').

Global and Multicultural Activities Module complete

I have finished another module.  This one was no small task - it required many hours. I learned several helpful things, but I am thankful that not all student-produced modules are this lengthy.  I think it could have been shortened and been just as effective. 

You can find all of the completed assignments and links on the Voc II tab.

GLOBAL AND MULTICULTURAL ACTIVITIES MODULE

Check out the Voc II tab for more additions there from the Global and Multicultural learning environment I am completing.  It is quite a time-consuming one, but I have learning a fair amount from it. It has helped me to realize how much cultural sensitivity I learned during my university years when I took a psychology course that taught from a minority's perspective. It was eye-opening, and I learned that everyone has some kind of racial and cultural bias, whether known or unknown.  The challenge is to come to grips with it, and to 'tame the beast within' (deal pro-actively with the issue, not simply admit defeat).

Vocational Education, Part II page updates

I will try to update this welcome page with a blog post whenever I add content to the other pages within this blog.  I realize now that posts I have made in the past have not appeared as 'blog posts', including the date/time when they were added. For example, the 'July 15' post below was actually a series of posts, beginning July 15, and continuing through December! For some technical reason, this even happened again a few days ago with the below post.  Technical errors on my part, I suppose, but now I think the problem will be solved.

So with that, be sure to check out the VOC II page for recent updates!

Moving on with Educational Sciences and Voc II...

Things have been busy! Since December, we have progressed rapidly with both the Educational Sciences and Voc II modules. Balancing the demands of these courses, along with full-time work and family life, have been challenging. The work is constantly continuing in the background, but it is challenging to find additional time to transfer all of these happenings to this blog! 

See the specific tabs (Edu. Sciences and Voc II) for posts, updates and more...