Follow up course for participants who have attended at least one ICI course
The key focus of the course is the creation of rich, group worthy tasks in participants chosen topics relating to their everyday practice. The course will build on previous courses so detailed lectures on intercultural education and cooperative learning will be referred to but not repeated. A key aim will be to draw on previous courses and reflection on related main criteria in the creation of tasks for participants own students to and topics.
Target group:
The target group is schools and organisations which have strategies or core aims of improving learners key competencies including:
Cooperation,
communication,
initiative,
resilience,
entrepreneurial skills,
critical and creative thinking,
citizenship,
teamwork,
problem solving etc.
underpinning core skills and embedding these within the subject curricula.
Participants could be teachers or trainers at all levels of education from primary, secondary, adult, further and higher education in both academic and vocational areas.
The condition for participation is that participants have completed at least one InterCultural Iceland course (or have extensive experience of using cooperative learning in their teaching.)
Preparation: Participants will be expected to read the course program and pre released reading material before arrival at the course
Aims:
That former participants have the opportunity to exchange experiences they have had with the content learned on the course
That former participants learn to develop group worthy, creative and thought provoking cooperative learning tasks
That they get the opportunity to develop tasks in their subjects with tutor guidance and in cooperation with other like minded and critical teachers
That they get the opportunity to try out their tasks and get feedback for improvement
That they return with tasks that they can put into practice in their classrooms and share with other teachers at their schools
Methodology: Learning by doing is our leading principle. This means that the training is organised in such a way that the participants participate and cooperate actively both working individually and in small groups as in plenary sessions.
All participants should be able to discuss and present in English language.
Outcomes: Participants will have the necessary skills and materials to implement creative cooperative learning in their own classrooms and to guide others in implementing it. They will have developed concrete materials in their subjects where they train the learners social and intercultural competences as well as teaching them their subject in an active, inclusive and creative way. Participants will individually and in small groups create their own tasks in their subjects and get feedback from the trainer and other participants.
Follow up: On return to their home locations participants will try out their tasks with their learners and share their experience and material with other participants through e-mail or on an internet platform. The main trainer will also give feedback and counselling if asked for.
Day by day training program
Day one:
Meeting in Reykjavik. Maybe meeting some old friends from previous courses
Review of the topic. Why Creative Cooperative learning? How does it give more learners access to the learning process?
Day two:
Thinking about the details and the criteria. What is a “group worthy” task?
Cooperative learning can be simple or complex. Working with the simple structures to create an example in your subject
Trying out the new tasks
Day three:
Getting to know some more complex structures
Following a criteria, participants start to work on a more complex interdisciplinary task
Day four:
Continue working on the more complex interdisciplinary tasks
Day five:
Trying out the more complex tasks
Day six:
Assessment. Adding formative assessment criteria to their tasks
Individually or in pairs modifying the complex tasks so that they can be used right away on return.
Dissemination. How will you share your knowledge with your colleagues?
Day seven:
Evaluation and certification
Discussions on further cooperation
At the end of the course the participants will have a certificate of attendance including description of participant’s contribution and time input.
Included in the course fee is the book “Diverse Society – Diverse Classrooms” where participants will find detailed description of the process of using learner centred approaches in the classroom.
For all further information please contact Guðrún: Gudrun@ici.is