Ideal School Reflections (Angélica)

Education League

I really enjoyed Education League’s video. Regarding the positive facts about their project I would like to mention:

•          The idea of the team planning because they used it to organise themselves in order to give each member of the group a similar amount of work and to keep up to date with this project. We kind of did a similar team planning but we didn’t think of including it in our presentation, though.

•          About the video, I really liked the drawings which resembled each of the members of Education League and how well-drawn they were. It was quite entertaining.

•          I also enjoyed the drawings of the structure of their school with open classrooms and surrounded by nature.

•          About the model and methodology that they would use, it was clear they wanted to base their school in constructivism, cooperative learning and inclusive education.

•          They also mentioned the connection of their school with real life experiences. This connection helps in developing critical attitude, teamwork, creativity and resilience which are useful skills in order to face adversities of life and getting adapted to them.

•          They also wanted to include different cultures and religions in their school and then they explained very well the kinds of leadership, choosing the democratic leadership as the one they wanted for their school.

•          About the coexistence plan, they choose KiVa which I think is the nicest way of dealing with bullying that we have seen. They explained that students and teachers collaborate in order to stop abusive practices and that they also wanted to have peer assistance.

•          The values they promoted were self-motivation and social and emotional learning, including the approach and participation of families with the Learning Communities project called “Entre Todos”.

•         Regarding ICTs, they wanted to have all sorts of digital devices such as laptops, projectors, tablets in order to help children with learning disabilities, and different kinds of apps and software, too.

    I also think that there are some things that they could have improved such as:

•         Focusing more in defining how they want their school to be.

•         Probably being more specific in some aspects such as the budgets or the values they want to promote, I feel like the topics are not deep enough and that they have missed a few things.

•         Although I think that the theory is worked and is clear, they need to go deeply in all of these subjects in order to explain and define better their ideal school.

•        And also, adding subtitles to the video because sometimes we couldn’t hear well what they said (but I’ve seen that they solved this later, so it’s okay).

    Overall, I think they did a really good job and that all of them worked hard in order to have this fantastic project done. Congratulations, Education League!

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Ana and Marta

First of all, I have to mention that Ana and Marta did a great job considering their team split and they had less time to prepare everything.

About their presentation and the video, I would highlight:

•          The model that they made. It was great for supporting the explanation of the structure of the school and how they would organise the different facilities and classrooms.

•          The fact that they talked about the violent nature of our society and how to solve them by using games, group dynamics, the support of the superior courses and encouraging non-violence and tolerance environments amongst students. Also, the use of the app called Bully Semáforo which uses a questionnaire to find out if a child has been bullied.

•          The fact of the emotional issues that can be treated through peer assistance and through the book collection “I am valued, I am emotion” by Begoña Ibarola, or the use of Emotiblocks for preschool, this shows that they have searched deeply about this issue

•        The Learning Model based in an inclusive education, with their motto “Somos Union” showed as an “U” in their main building.

•        Children as agents of change and the creation of a community with students, teachers and families.

•        The use of cooperative groups in order to work in projects, and how they will develop it in the classrooms (e.g. the tutor decides which role has each student). And the evaluation methods: self-assesment, coevaluation and evaluation of the teacher.

•        The “learning-by-doing” method applied in a natural environment, in order to learn real life facts. To emphasize this, they would use books such as “Monterapia” or their ecological orchard with the donation of crops to associations.

•        The Multiple Intelligences theory by Gardner, in order to work in other skills and their students’ needs.

•        The fact that they wanted to introduce the element of surprise in their classes in order to stimulate students’ memory.

•        The methodology that they used, with cooperative learning so that students learn how to work together, joining tables 4 by 4, for example. And the constructivism model, where students can investigate and discover by themselves.

•        The bilingual project to promote the knowledge of the English language, taught in different subjects, with the help of native assistance.

I would also like to mention some things that could have been improved:

•                   Maybe the organization of the information, since sometimes it felt like it was a bit mixed. For example, they talked about values such as tolerance when talking about their coexistence and anti-bullying program. However, it was hard for every single group to organise all the information that we were given, so this is completely understandable.

•                        They could have added some subtitles or maybe charts in the video in order to have a better understanding of the whole video. Sometimes it was really hard for me to understand what they were saying, and, in fact, I watched the video multiple times to get it.

•                         In some parts they could have gone deeper, but it is also true that they were only 2 people.

•              I think that their strong point was the organization and structure of the school and that maybe it took them a very long time to build the model, which could have been solved by a drawing instead. However, the model is also very nice and well-done and I also think that each group has a point that is stronger, in their case, the building.

Overall, I really liked it and I think that they made a really great effort in order to have everything prepared for the day of the presentations. Plus, I really liked the model! Well done, Ana and Marta!

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Los Gochos

I really liked the video of this group. I had the feeling that they made a big effort in making the video and also that they have a great union between all of the members. I want to point out some things that called my attention and that I liked:

• The fact that they mentioned the four pillars of education by Jacques Delors: learning to know, learning to do, learning to live together, and learning to be.

• About the methodologies, they took into account aspects like the curriculum as a questionable guide, the individuality of each child or the multiple intelligences.

• The methodology is based in a democratic environment and they want to raise curiosity in every student. They also mentioned that knowledge is nurtured through nodes based in a theory called connectivism.

• I liked the methodology based in working by projects that allows students to be self-directed and to become creators instead of passive recipients in order that they create their own knowledge.

• Something that called my attention was the balloon game, which is a relaxation technique that they would use to relax their students and prepare them for the learning lessons, as well as connecting with the classroom and their classmates

• They based their methodology in the Waldrof method.

• I also liked the fact that they would do meetings with the school community to talk about the best diet for their school, which is based in the Mediterranean food.

• About leadership, they mention that they have a distributed and pedagogic leadership, and describe how the headmaster is. He shares responsibility, promotes a collaborative environment, uses realistic strategies and is involved in pedagogical decisions.

• I really liked the fact that they mentioned the promotion of coeducation and that they supported it with facts and figures (female unemployment and salary rates).

• The role of families in the school is quite important and the do periodic meetings with them. They also keep up with the teacher’s professional development and make sure that there is a continuous improvement.

• They also want to develop the emotional intelligences in their students, even using the Pygmalion effect to improve the self-esteem of them.

• Parents are encouraged to participate in excursions, workshops and shared reading.

• The classroom organization is very well explained, which are bright, extensive and adapted to every student’s necessity. The acoustic, ventilation and temperature are also taken into consideration. They also mentioned the fact of the uncomfortable chairs. They also mention some other issues such as light and dividing classrooms into two spaces and the library section which is located in the centre of the school and it also keeps an aesthetic environment.

• They mention the values they want to promote such as: civilization, wisdom, strategy, science or justice.

• Bullying program is KiVa and through an assistant plan which consists in choosing a classmate by assembly that will supervise any conflict and act as a mediator during breaks. They also mention the Godfather plan, which is a method where a higher course student helps the younger students which also serves as a method to help new students’ integration.

• I also liked the fact that they mentioned their school is surrounded of nature, with a vegetable garden and animals.

Of course, there are some other things that could have been improved such as:

• Using subtitles because sometimes I couldn't understand what they were saying.
• The fact that Miguel spoke in Spanish, even though if it was for the joke, it still doesn't make sense.
• It feels as if some of them made a more ellaborated content and had longer parts in the video, so I feel like maybe they didn't have the same amount of work, or maybe not all of them put the same effort onto it.
• Umaima's cat is very funny, but it is quite distracting! :)
• I also felt like the classroom organisation and the buildings structure and environment played a big role in the video and took a great part of the video.

I think that this group had a lot of fun doing the video as you can see in the last part of it. It has been very well done even though it was the first time they edited a video. Congratulations, Los Gochos!

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Fernweh

First of all, I have to mention that Fernweh is a group that has improved a lot since the beginning of this subject. In this last project, I felt that they were more united as a group than in the rest of the projects. Anyway, I want to mention some of the things that I liked and that called my attention during the video of their presentation:

• I really liked the logo of their school Sinergia, plus the facilities and the 3D building design of the school were really good. They included the importance of having natural light which requires many windows as well as the importance of being surrounded by nature.

• They also mentioned how important cooperative work and the educational community are, meaning that all parts are essential and that teachers, parents and students should all be united.

• They gave a context, too. Their school is going to be located in Madrid, on the outside, because of the per capita income which is the highest of the country (31.000€ per year). I really liked the idea of starting by being private and then, little by little, becoming public through projects that will finance the school (such as the one with BQ).

• I also liked the idea of using the facilities of the school in the non-teaching hours for enjoyment of those people that belong to the centre and those who doesn’t, too, by renting them.
• They also talked about the participation of families, with facts and figures from the INE, and they consider very important to raise the rate of participation of families in the schools since it is essential for them.

• About the learning and methodology, they want to apply a constructivist plus a social constructivist model, in order to base learning in the student’s autonomy and in the cooperation of everyone to result in an effective learning.

• They also mentioned that they want to use the Learning Based in Projects, in order to teach their students how to respond to real life problems, and also the Cooperative Learning model, in order to improve the student’s attention, involvement and acquisition of knowledge.

• I really liked the fact that they took into account emotional intelligence within multiple intelligences. They want to foster a dynamic learning connected with emotions in order to develop them.

• They talked about fomenting an inclusive education, too, giving the same opportunities to all the students and adapting their way of teaching to each student’s special needs.

• The values of their school are related with being a well citizen in their society, considering students the future of our society. They want to teach them in co-education and social integration, promoting equality, in a comfortable atmosphere at the school. Also, they want to teach them in a creative education, as the world changes and we change with it, keeping up with new teaching methodologies in order to make education more attractive. They also think it is very important that children should be able to do everyday things by their own, and to do so, they need some freedom.

• I really liked the concept of a bidirectional education, which means that students learn from the teacher and the teacher learns from the students. It is an education where students, parents, and the management of the school can take decisions and participate actively in their education.

• About leadership, they defined the characteristics of a good leader, which would be persistent, patient, comprehensive, tolerant, curious, able to organize the time, innovative, he should encourage everyone’s participation and create a well-environment to work, promotes a climate of respect, acts as a mediator and adapts to each situation.

• And lastly, they talk about ICTs, as they have a really big importance in today’s world, they want to introduce their students into this ambit, as they will have to use ICTs in their real life. They also looked for a project with BQ, which, through a contract or agreement, provides and gives grants for diverse kinds of materials and technological contents such as computers, tablets, digital blackboards, robots and so on.

I also think that there are some things that could have been improved in their video and in their presentation:

• I feel like they didn’t explain deeply the spaces and structure of the building. For example, how they would organise the classrooms, where will the teachers meet, and so on. They could have explained this while they talked about the 3D design of the building.

• I also think that maybe all of them should have talked in the video, as it feels like they didn’t have the same amount of work when you only hear one of them presenting how they want their school to be.

• I believe that some ideas should have been justified a little bit more, for example, they included a swimming pool but they didn’t say why would they include it (I feel like it is quite expensive and maybe it is not necessary).

• They also could have explained how they were going to apply the theoretical framework, like, for example, how would they apply the problem based project more specifically.

• I believe that there are some missing parts and that some of them are a bit mixed, but it might be because they didn’t explain everything too deeply, for example, I know that they want an inclusive education, but they don’t talk about a program for foreign students or a program for bullying.

However, I have to say again that this group has made an enormous advance. Now it felt like they were way more united as a group and that this project was the result of a great effort. Well done, Fernweh!
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Travelchers

To start with, I think that the idea and the work of this group must have been a really great effort, because they challenged themselves to build the school classrooms and facilities by hand, with all the furniture and everything and this really takes a lot of time, so I really appreciated that. 

I want to mention some positive facts about their video which I really liked:

• The intro of the video is very original with the smartphone using Google Maps to locate their school in Santander (Cantabria).
• The main goals of their school are empathy, self-control, self-confidence, agility and adaptability. 
• They also want their school to be an inclusive one, which promotes diversity, responsibility, respect and tolerance. Moreover, they want to cover every child's needs. 
• I also liked the idea of the collaboration and cooperation between the educational community and the society. They want to follow an educational model based in Learning Communities, with the introduction of principles such as inclusion, equality and dialogue.
• Their leadership model is well explained. They chose the democratic one which facilitates the conversation, encourages people to participate and requires collaboration between leaders and the rest.
• Also, the knowledge that they want to transmit is to know to be and to know to do, to prepare their students for the real life. They chose the constructivist and behaviourist methodologies, both combined.
• I also learned about the Design For Change model they proposed with their structural model, which involves four steps of development: Feel, think, action and share.
• I feel like they made a big effort creating a new organisation of the school with the introduction of the TIMEs instead of the regular classes and subjects.
• The concept of TIME is really good since it focuses in developing the skills of the students and in offering different learning opportunities for children that can adapt to each of them.
• They also included some facts and figures, such as the number of students per teacher in Cantabria (28 students allowed). 
• I also find interesting the fact that they want to include 3 teachers per class, one focuses in the tasks, while the other two focus in the part of socialization, observing the environment and giving support to students.
• By having 60 students per class, they can promote active participation which leads to the development of self-organization, autonomy and motivation.
• I really liked the concept of "Aprendizaje en Escenarios Prácticos", which means that classroom must be a place connected to real life, and follows the idea that any place is good for learning, for example, in extracurricular activities.
• They also adopted the Flipped Classroom model, in order to store everything in a network. 
• They included the use of ICTs and the different materials, resources and software they would use in each TIME.
• I also find very helpful the idea of having the reference books in the school library or uploaded in the cloud, since not every student can afford them.
• The classes are a cooperative space, which is very flexible, versatile and allows cooperation between students, always including the help of ICTs.
• I find very interesting the idea of Linguistic Immersion, where students can communicate with foreign students in order to learn about new cultures.
• It is also really good the idea of teaching nutrition and creating their own menus with what they have learned.
• I also liked the fact that they want to teach the understanding of emotions. They would do this through interactive groups by dialogues with families. 
• They also have a welcoming project for immigrants so that they feel comfortable.
• I liked the idea of using a webpage with a flashboard for parents to be informed about their children and what they are doing in school.
• I think that the idea of the green projects is very well explained and developed, in order to raise awareness in students about our environment.

I also have to mention some of the things that could have been improved in this presentation:

• I think that a lot of ideas are mixed and that maybe they could have organised them by using some titles or charts that can make it a bit easier and clearer for the viewer.
• It is a very long video and sometimes it is really hard to keep the attention.
• I feel like there is a lot of information which added to the new organisation of TIMEs can make you feel very lost in the video, they could have used a chart to explain the TIMEs and the whole organisation.
• Some information such as ICTs could have also been mentioned in one section instead of repeating everything every time they talked about a classroom.

Anyway, they did a really big and great job since they included a lot of information and they build their own facilities and spaces, I can appreciate the effort and the time that this work must have took them. Congratulations, Travelchers!
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Contrasters Crew

And last but not least, here is my reflection about Contrasters Crew. 

First of all I have to say that, as they were the last group, they had all the chances to improve their work until the last minute in order to make it perfect, since they could fix every mistake the rest of the groups made. 

The things that I liked the most about their video were:

• The fact that they chose Cabanillas del Campo since it is a small village (8000 inhabitants) and the way they focus their school to foreign students.

• They chose a Democratic leadership for their school in order to make it more participative.

• I also liked the Self-Review framework in order to be in contact with other schools and compare them in order to develop together.

• The fact that they make a comparison between how much the government spent in education a few years ago and how much spends now (from 53 millions to 44 millions of euros) and also taking into account that the number of students has raised (7.7% more).

• Their school has a cooperative learning structure for children with different capacities and mindsets, including mutual support instead of creating rivality environments.

• They take into account the introduction of ICTs in the school and its risks.

• They also mention an app to fight bullying called "Bullying No More", that shows how to work against bullying and how to act, and it also can send a warning to teachers if a student is being bullied.

• The use of ICTs is also included in order to help children with learning disabilities such as dyslexia or autism. They want to use different apps to help them develop correctly despite their conditions.

• They included an inclusive program as Cabanillas is really close to Madrid and a lot of foreign people live there because they work in Madrid. The program they would use would be the Assistant Plan, where some students are selected to be the helpers in the task of coexistence.

• I liked the fact that they did a research about bullying in Spain, as that shows that they went deep into this topic.

• I also really liked the 3D building as I think it is really hard to create one. They also went quite deep in the structure and material of their classrooms (e.g. organization of tables and chairs in order to foster project based learning).

• I also love the idea of the garden in order to learn by doing, touching, smelling and so on, as it makes learning more tangible for children.

• The values their choose are very nice, including freedom, fun, power and the sense of belonging.

There are a few other things that they could have improved in their presentation:

• Although it's true that they went deep into some issues such as ICTs, bullying or the building structures, they could have also gone a bit deeper in some other aspcets like the values or the economic or social context.

• I feel like there are some things missing related with educational psychology, maybe they could have talked a bit more about methodologies and how to apply them in their ideal school.

• I also miss knowing how a typical class in their school would be, maybe they could have shown it while they were talking about the building structures.

• Sometimes topics are mixed or disorganized, for example, they explained a bit the Self-Review Framework, and later explained it deeper.

I think that this group did a really good job since they had the chance to correct any mistake and learn from the rest of the groups as I mentioned before. However, I know that their original team split and probably they had less time than the rest of us. Anyway, very nice work and very well done, Contrasters Crew!