“Student-centered learning and 21st century skills” I Erasmus+ KA1 (1st – 7th May 2022)
Proud to announce that the third group of three teachers (Nuno Mantas, Marta Augusto, and Dulce Carrelo), on behalf of the Erasmus+ Programme “O processo de inovação pedagógica do AEBA – capacitação de docentes” (which foresees three courses and six mobilities involving twenty-four teachers) is already in Helsinki, Finland, to attend the course “Student-centered learning and 21st century skills” at the educational training institute EduBorealis.
Worldwide, May 1st is celebrated as an international working-class holiday. In addition, Finland also celebrates May Day, ‘Vappu’ in Finnish. May Day is a noisy urban festival, a traditional feast of university students to welcome the long-awaited Spring.
The celebration starts on May Day Eve, as the downtown streets, pubs and restaurants start to fill with people in party mood and continues May 1st, when people head to the parks for a picnic brunch. Colourful balloons, serpentine throws, pompoms, party blowouts and sprays, noisemakers, and student caps are an important part of the celebration.
The main principle of student-centered learning is to give all students control over both the content of the lessons and the learning method to promote autonomy and active learning in a way that they become the leaders of their own learning process.
The purpose of the present mobility is to discuss/interact and share knowledge with experienced Finnish teachers and students and explore a variety of student-centered methods and activities in actual Finnish classrooms through workshops.
Today, our teachers were introduced to the course (networking activities and individual expectations) by the host (educational training institute EduBorealis) and visited Helsinki Rudolf Steiner School/Sotunki lower and upper secondary school.
This one-week course will expose our dear teachers Nuno Mantas, Marta Augusto, and Dulce Carrelo to the world-renowned Finnish education system and its effective pedagogies for the 21st century learning. We cannot forget Finland is a country where students are stress-free with minimal exams and homework and teaching is a highly respected job.
Expectations of today’s workshops highlighted the Finnish education system, loads of Q&A with Finnish teachers, comparison of different school systems and perspectives exchanged with other course participants in a multicultural environment.
Since true learning is based on personal experiences, the afternoon’s workshop gained insight into Project-Based Learning strategies sharing. PBL is student-centered learning that allows students to take part in autonomous and active learning. Through PBL students develop deep content knowledge as well as critical thinking, collaboration, creativity, and communication skills necessary to flourish in the 21st Century.
In between the intensive scheduled activities there was enough time to do some sightseeing and explore and admire Helsinki Cathedral and the traditional Market Square (Hietalahti flea market).
Our teachers find Finnish teaching practices very inspiring. In fact, this is a great change to make new connections worldwide while getting familiar with the Finnish education and enjoying everything the country has to offer.
