Pestalozzi Programme Personal Report

Training Programme for Education Professionals

Creativity & Innovation in Teachers Profession

CoE 2010 0512 - 0514 Czech Republic

12 to 14 May 2010

Report by Alves Corceiro, José Paulo (Portugal)

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Creativity & Innovation in Teachers Profession CoE 2010 0512 - 0514 Czech Republic Report by Alves Corceiro, José Paulo (Portugal) Part A. Personal Report In a world where almost all teachers complaint about the increasing distance between School and students, creativity and innovation are fundamental and important role players if we want to contradict this process. There are different approaches to these two concepts. Some assume that innovation is only possible with technological novelties, others want to alter the base structure of education as a mandatory procedure. In my opinion, balance is the secret to achieve this. I´m talking about balance, between freedom and codes or rules. The relationship established between teacher and pupils demands codes, but the first must achieve enough freedom to create the needed processes, if he doesn’t want to fail in the educational process. Contemporary society challenges the scholar institution with more advance means of communication, creation, propagation. So School is no longer the preferential and unique place of learning and growing. The options just are too much. Students are able to use a large number of instruments and ways to know more and communicate knowledge. As a Visual Arts teacher I’ve been searching for some time, for activities that would transcend the classical/traditional universe of conventional art. Nowadays, my pupils create art and learn more about it, using the instruments that they already know and use but that were prohibited inside the classroom. They automatically feel interest for the subjects when they find out that, they can just use their own mobile phones or portable game consoles in a way they never dreamt. For instance, creating stop-motion movies from a script or story-board written in History class, with their Nintendo DS consoles. Creativity and Innovation is inevitable if School wants to survive to the cultural turmoil of the 21st century and this only can be achieved with constant dialogue between teachers and the society the live. They need to understand completely what society is asking them, and what students are learning outside the bounds of the institution if they still want to reach them. On the other side, the practical and realistic tools will improve a lot if produced by sharing knowledge between teaching professionals.




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Part B. a. What did you learned about the Council of Europe?

Honestly, maybe not much than I already knew before. The things learned came from the brochures given on the first coffee-break, for instance the CoE goals and member states list. But, somehow, I´m more proud my country belongs to the Council.

b. What are the main lessons learned/experience gained? One of the most important lessons learned is related to the need to view further ahead, if you want to be a creative and innovative teacher, and this is only possible exchanging ideas and experiences between colleagues.

Another structural concept came from the fact that strategies used in one subject (scientific area) can be also be used in another one, even if it seems, at first very different.

Innovation in teaching is not only the use of innovative technological instruments and resources, but also the use of ways of communicating and promoting thinking. A precise and rigorous definition of creativity was also very important.

And finally, the activities developed as classroom tools were simply marvellous and useful!

c. To what extend did the European Workshop meet your expectations? Have participated in several compulsory or not workshops in my own country, I was a bit suspicious about the quality of this workshop. Most of the initiatives like this, in Portugal, are simply a waste of time. So the workshop organized by CoE exceeded all my expectations. The learning was real and effective and the gains were large and ready to be applied on my everyday professional experience. Only some of the activities (in a few numbers) were less interesting and useful. d. What additional benefits have you gained from your discussions with the other participants? These benefits aren’t confined to the workshop subject. I think these initiatives promoted by CoE are fruitful in a larger way, joining teachers from different European countries they are able exchange solutions to a universe of questions much wider than a single subject, even if this is made by informal means. I’m convinced that my consciousness of what Europe is, have improved with my participation and contribution to the workshop. e. How are you going to integrate the European dimension in your lessons? The European dimension is already present in many of my lessons, for instance in the artistic or historical context. I really can´t say that my presence at this workshop will improve this issue in any way. f. Your Role as a multiplier: - How do you plan to disseminate your experience?

This will happen in two different aspects. The first is the one about the subject itself – Creativity and Innovation on Teachers Profession, originating a webpage linked in the main school site. Will result in a synopsis of the presentations attended at the workshop, my conclusions and links to the addresses of their authors. The second one is about the




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Pestalozzi Programme alone, and the interest already demonstrated by my colleagues at my school. This will be made by an opened to teachers presentation, where CoE, the programme and the practical issues will be explored. - What activities do you intend to organise in your school? With your pupils? With your colleagues? In your country? In my school I will organise the activities described above. With my pupils, I will use many of the strategies/activities suggested during the workshop in almost all presentations. With my colleagues, I intend to promote creativity and innovation in an informal and formal ways, through the web and direct presentations. In my country, I can´t give a conclusive answer, I would like (very much) to promote a Pestalozzi event but that will depend on the support of national institutions. - How will you promote the Pestalozzi Programme? As I said before, my school colleagues already shown interest in knowing more about the Pestallozi Programme, this will originate a presentation and references in the web tools of my school.

Part C. A short evaluation of the European Workshop:

“Creativity & Innovation” are two of the most discussed issues on education sceneries in my country, so I was anxious to find new opinions and views about them on my first ever, participation on a Pestallozi initiative. Generally, I think that the gains were clearly large and important, with many and diverse ideas and strategies being discussed.

In my personal view, there have been two easily identified higher moments: the presentation “Creativity in Education” by Dr. Stepanek and the one about the Mathematics Department of Hradec Kralove University by Dr. Marie Kupcacova. Both were at first glance, useful and full of information on new and challenging ways of teaching.

The first opened my eyes to, completely and new fresh processes that can be used effectively in a classroom. All of the participants, including me, joined with happiness and enthusiasm the several pedagogic activities proposed by the talented Dr. Stepanek. Some of the educational “games” were simply amazing by their simplicity and efficiency. One important point referred and reinforced by Dr. Stepanek was the difference between “Creativity and Innovation” and straight and simple “Technological Innovation”, for instance, the paper dictionary can be a better instrument than the digital one in languages learning because promotes the discovery of a wider universe of vocabulary. Creativity in education is much more than using electronic devices, and demands of the teacher freedom and wide cultural view without prejudices. Other important issue referred in this presentation was the useless attention paid to error and less to the “learning with errors”.

Dr. Marie Kupcacova revealed herself as an interested and fascinating university teacher, despite the fact that she doesn’t speaks English (a colleague translator solved this issue), she was surprisingly communicative and captured the attention of all, with her techniques in math teaching. Dr. Kupcacova develops her teaching skills, building real tridimensional models with pupils. Those models permit her to reach the student empathy and interest in a, many times, hard to teach subject. Being a Visual Arts teacher myself, I was surprised by the many ideas to my classes brought by this presentation.

As I said before, these were to me, the higher points of the workshop, but his doesn’t mean that all of the other presentations revealed themselves as useless. All of the presented views and topics from the various participants contained at least one important knowledge. The opportunity to contact in a closer manner with the different countries educational/teaching reality, and the way the different cultures deal with creativity and innovation was enriching. Enriching because I felt the problems in education are growing in the same way, and to the same set, in the various European




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nations, but the solutions found are not the same. From Greece we were able to know more about “special needs” strategies, from Croatia about innovation in the teaching of blind children, from Spain about the use of songs in English language, from Ireland about the transition year programme, etc.

The documents delivered to the participants reflected the quality of the various presentations; Dr. Stepanek handle a lot of useful materials to the audience, Dr. Kupcacova highlighted the most important web addresses to a good understanding of her presentation. The CoE printed information was vast and enough.

Generally, I think the majority of the participants learned a lot about new ways of implementing the diverse subjects on their daily teaching jobs, but felt that this workshop was only a starting point to research and effort. Most of us felt that our will was rewarded and our quality as teachers was improved in some way.

I would like to suggest a greater care with communication between CoE and the candidates to the seminars and workshops. The confirmation email came too late, only ten days before the trip to Czech Republic what made impossible to buy cheaper or direct flight tickets from my own country.

I think that is almost compulsory to refer the excellent organization of the workshop, provided by Dr. Martin Skutil. He showed always a great will in solving all the problems of the participants, revealing enthusiasm and competence I would like to give him my personal thanks.

José Paulo Alves Corceiro

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Documents

Pestalozzi Programme Personal Report