The main focus of the training will be on active learning in a diverse group of learners through the application of learning activities and Cooperative learning techniques, especially focusing on outdoor activities and tasks for different subjects.
Target group:
The target group is organisations and schools which have strategies or core aims of improving students key competencies including: Cooperation, communication, initiative, critical and creative thinking, citizenship, teamwork, problem solving and underpinning core skills and embedding these within their understanding of the environment and nature. An important part of the training will be to practice methods to improve the class/group atmosphere, to improve their learning as well as social skills through group worthy cooperative learning strategies. Participants can be teachers or trainers of all levels (kindergarten to adult education)
Preparation: Participants will be expected to read the course program and pre released reading material before arrival at the course and to carry out the methods and evaluate them after the course.
Aims:
That learners become open minded, critical and active citizens
That learners learn to live and work with others
That self image and self confidence is increased through outdoor activities
That learners get the opportunity to train key skills and competences at the same time as they are learning their subjects
That learners become sensitive about their environment and sustainability
That teachers learn how to create an inclusive and creative learning environment
That teachers learn concrete, structured and creative cooperative learning methods
That teachers learn through theory and practice how to incorporate cooperative learning in general, especially outdoors and how to prepare their own tasks for outdoor learning.
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 in group work as well as in plenary sessions – indoor as well as outdoor. The methods introduced will be used actively during the course. 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 and outdoor activities with their learners and to guide others in implementing it. They will have developed and tried out concrete materials in different subjects where they train the learners social and intercultural competences as well as teaching them their subject in an active, inclusive and creative way – indoor as well as outdoor.
Follow up: On return to their home locations participants will try out the different approaches with their learners and share their experience and material with their colleagues. Trainers will also give feedback and counselling if asked for.
The main trainer of the course is sociologist, teacher and teacher’s trainer Guðrún Pétursdóttir
Guðrún Pétursdóttir finished her master’s degree in sociology from the Freie Universität Berlin. Besides sociology she also studied intercultural education at the Institut für interkulturelle Erziehung at the same university and later finished the teacher’s qualification at the University of Iceland. For the last 25 years Guðrún has worked in different fields connected with migration issues and teachers training and has since 2003 ran the independent centre InterCultural Iceland (www.ici.is). She taught courses at the pedagogical department of the University of Iceland from 2003-2009. She has run Grundtvig/Comenius/Erasmus+ In-service training courses for teachers and educators since 2004, developed cooperative learning methods and materials and she is the author of three books: Intercultural education (1999), Everyone can do something nobody can do everything; a practical handbook for teachers (2003) and Diverse Society Diverse Classrooms; Critical, Creative, Cooperative and Interculturally Competent Learners and Teachers Ready for the 21st Century (2018)
-400x300.jpg)
