Fifth Shadowing Session

Today was a very nice shiny day. Our group started in the early morning. Our today's session started at 8:00 am, so we had to be in the train station before 7:30 in order to be there on time. It was the earliest class we attend since we got here. It reminded me of my back home classes that start at the same time. The difference here is that I am the teacher over there while I am just an observer here. The class we attended called an ENG. Electronics lab. First we had a little meeting with Professor Timo Leinonen, the lecturer of the class. He was very nice and funny especially when we commented on his signature. He started introducing to us the course structure and passed out to us some handouts. The course consists of 6 lab experiments and a final exam. After each lab experiment there is a tutorial class to explain the experiment as the session we attended. 

 My personal reflection:

I think the class is a mixed of different learning theories. One of the methods followed in this course is the famous and known behavioral method where the professor is the main key of this class. He prepares the subjects and experiments to be taken during the course period. He explains and simplifies issues and matters. Then he examines the students, and in the end students may or may not pass the class. I think this type of method will not be totally replaced by other method. It is a dominant one and it is of course the basic and start of knowledge everywhere around the world.

The students interact with each other where the professor has only a role of an assistant when they do their experiments in the lab section of the course. I think it should be this way there since the students must work on their own to implement what they have learned. This part of the course may be considered to be a social gathering where students learn by working as groups a partially absence of the professor.

I would like to mention some of my noticed things about this session and relate them to previous sessions. In all sessions our group has attended so far there were some students coming late, the professors didn't say a word about that. In this session the professor asked the late students of the reason of being late in a funny way. It seemed to me in the beginning of the early shadowing sessions that it is normal to come late since attendance is not a must in the Metropolia University, but what happened in today's session made think again it is a matter of a professor's behavior and way of running the class.    

Finally, there is something special about today's shadowing session. All previous sessions were shadowed during the lecture time, but today somehow our group has the chance to live the actual professors' culture during their break time. When we finished shadowing the lecture, we went with the professor to the teaching faculty lounge to have some coffee and discuss more issues regarding learning methodology. There we many professors sitting there having a short break. We talked about who and how curriculum may be chosen and designed. One of the interesting things the professor told us was that once a while the department professors and director meet in the sauna and have an informal discussion. Then when they meet in the department they discuss those issues again in a formal meeting. It sounded funny when he told us that, but I think it is kind of an ice breaking in the way of managing the department and working as close as it could be in the sauna. I really liked today's shadowing since I have added something new to my experience.

Fourth Shadowing Session

The today's session started at 10:00 as scheduled. The course was a first year course called "Introduction to calculus". Mr. Timo Salin the instructor of the course was very friendly and has welcomed us and introduced us to the class. He started the class explaining to us the structure of the course and the grade systematic. We asked him if he has some materials to show us, but he showed us the textbook of the course only, which is shown in the next photo.

 

The professor started explaining the today's lesson by relating it to a previous one. He used an A4 paper as a note in his hand while explaining the lesson. I think from my experience that most of Mathematics professors use the same techniques, especially when they explain what is called theory's proves. I discussed my observed notice with my collogue Othman Amin since he is a math teacher.  He told me that it is true in some cases but not most of the time when there is a long example to explain.

The first half the lecture was a normal behavioral learning method. The professor explained the lesson and the students were just taking notes. But the second part of the lecture changed somehow to a social interacting method when the professor passed out an exercise hand out to the students to solve. Then he solved it on the board with some explanation, and after that moved to the next part of the lecture. I think it was a good strategic technique to follow in order for students to understand the lesson very well. In general the lesson itself is one of the very basic math lessons, and in most universities and schools math teachers use almost the same technique.

In general I think the session was given as expected a teacher explaining some math stuff and the students take some notes with a little interaction from the students.

Third Week Encounter

The third week was the start of fun to me. On Monday we started the week by solving a puzzle game which is to rearrange a picture that been cut into pieces as shown in the next photo. The puzzle was very easy but it was nice working as a group with other members of the class.

  

Then we started another kind of learning game. We had a punch of cards with some sentences written on them and try to figure out which situation belongs to which type of learning method. The most interesting thing about it that when it came to discuss our selection with the rest of the class member we figure that we had a wrong selection in some cases. The idea behind that game was very clear to us which is to take some real life cases and figure out in which category they belong and also to expand our knowledge by solving real life problems. The photo below shows the final work of the whole groups in the class and it was a very nice final result.

Finally, we discussed the method of think-pair-share using the shadowing as a subject. It was very helpful in which helped me planning and preparing for my coming shadowing sessions. I think Monday was a very lovely day in the third week. The rest of the week days were more serious work in order to prepare and discuss our shadowing sessions. Also I would like to say I wish to have as much fun as I had this week.

Second Session Shadowing SSS

Introduction:

The second shadowing session was a physics lab course that held in the Metropolia university. Mr. Max Poppius was the professor of the class. It was a typical lab classroom where there are some tables and many of physics tools. Also there were some computers loaded with programs to be used in the lab experiments.

My personal reflection:

Also this session was a social workshop type of class where students are divided into groups. Each group consists of about three to four students. They have to finish ten experiments during the semester. So they come to the lab in a set time where the professor attends also in case they need help with their experiments. The professor role in this type of class is to work as an assistant who provides help when ever is needed. The professor is considered to be as one of the students since he doesn’t have to give any type of lesson in a behavioral way.

The interesting thing about this session was the students have different physics majors, yet they have to do the same experiments in the lab. So we as a group discussed this matter with the professor who was very cooperative and helpful. He provided us with a very nice explanation and he also gave his opinion about this type of class. Normally, with each class of physics there is a lab to test some experiments, but what happened in the Metropolia University as the professor told us there is no labs for any course of the physics majors. But there is one complete and separate class which our group attended called Physics lab. This why the student's majors where different from one to another.

The professor told us that he prefer s the old normal way where there is a lab for each different major of physics. Also he prefers a pass or fail kind of grading, but he has to give a grade of 1 to 5. He gave an explanation for this kind of course division by the university. They think that the lab experiments if they not completed on time may affect the students' grade, so the university decided to make a separate course for all majors' experiments in different course which is called as mention above Physics lab.

Third Shadowing Session

Introduction

Today our group met the instructor of the Data Structure and Algorithms course Dr. Jarkko about 15 minutes before the lecture started. The session started at 10:00 am in Metropolia university. The professor was very cooperative and well prepared. He provided us with  useful handouts explaining the course outline in general, the first lecture slides, and this lecture slides. Also he provided us with a handout of the advanced course of course he is teaching.

As understood from the professor and the handouts, the course consists of theory lectures and lab workshop. The attendance is not a must for the lecture part, but it is for the lab section.  A student has to finish all the labs and to take a final exam in the period of exam time which is at the end of the semester.

My personal reflection

In my opinion the method of learning of this course is considered to be a mixed of behaviorism and socialism. In the lecture part of the course the professor has to do all of the work of teaching, preparing, and explaining to the students. the students as our group has noticed are sitting in the class listening to the professor and take some notes if needed. The handouts are available to them through the university system. We noticed there were no any kind of interaction between the professor and the students.

As noticed by our group, the course was a very typical class and there was nothing new has been explored. In comparing, the students in this course to our students back home in somehow they acted mostly the same. Some of the students were not paying any attention to the lecture. And this is normal since the professor was doing most of the course. 

The lab part of the course which our group didn't have the chance to attend is more an interactive class than the lecture part. The students attend the lab and work on the course labs and try to finish writing the programming codes. The professor doesn't have to give and kind of lecture or lessons to the students, but he may explain clarify some issues or programming theories whenever a student asks for his help.

Again in my opinion the lab part of the course may be considered more socialism since the students may work in groups and on their own and the professor acts as if he is one of them trying to provide help whenever is needed.

Finally, I would to say that I think until to this point, learning cultures are similar to each other even though names and places are different. I think the difference is not how to prepare or teach the course, the difference is how the knowledge is implemented and link to real life. In general, it was again a nice and helpful experience being in this course and I had enjoyed this shadowing session.

First Session Shadowing

Intro:

Our group had its first shadowing session at the Metropolia University of Applied Science in an electrical course at noon in the 17^th of April 2012. The members of our group are Othman Fallatah, Khalid Alfaris and I Nawaf Almzaini.  As been arranged for us we met Mr. Adel the session coordinator at the front desk in the main building in the Metropolia UAS. He was very cooperative and helpful. Then we went to classroom where the session was held. We didn't have enough time to meet the professor before the session started because he came couple minutes late. It was a computer based electrical engineering lab. The students have an access to it using their electronic tokens, and there were about 12 students at most. To tried to take seats in the back to leave the front ones for the students. The professor told the students he will speak in English because of us. The lesson was very short. It was about 35 minutes and after that we had the chance to discus many issues and ask many questions with professor at the end of the class. He was very friendly, cooperative, and helpful. Finally we thanked the professor and the other and just left.   

My personal reflect:

I will start with the session method of teaching directly since the date, time, and place were mentioned above.

First I would like to talk about the environment of the class. It was a computer based electrical lab divided into columns, right and left, and there were two seats in each one. Each student has a computer and there were shared electrical tools.

Second I would like to talk about the teaching method the professor followed and applied during the session. There was no introduction in the beginning of the session; he started directly with explaining some electrical designing code. The outcomes of the subject were unclear to our group the beginning since it wasn't clear to us what the lesson is. We as group tried to figure everything out, but there was only some explanation for a code of an electrical design about 35 minutes. After that the professor finished and asked the students to complete their work. So it seemed to us in the beginning that the session was typically a behavioral, since the students didn't interact with professor during the session.

We as group notice that the professor didn't relate the session to any sort of previous one. But the students seemed to know what it was all about. We felt that the class was arranged mainly for our group. In my opinion it was a very typical lecture. The professor explains some materials when he or she finishes asks the students if they have some questions, and then the session ends.  

In fact the lab was well organized and has almost all the technological and learning materials the professor may need. And it was very appropriate for the students, and of the thing I have noticed as I mentioned above that each a student have and access to the class using their electrical tokens. I noticed that because my master dissertation was about gathering information about certain University or an Institute and designing a database program in order to help that University to improve its learning process. This information can be gathered using such tokens when facilities and students attend lectures and sessions.    

After having enough time discussing the session's documentation with the professor, I noticed that he prepared well for the course in general. One of the things I liked about it is the grading system he used to evaluate each student.

The students have a project to accomplish by the end of the semester. They work as group of four students. There will be a grade of 40 for the group when they finish. So each student will have a grade of 10 if they get the full mark. But if one of them doesn't work or help the group at all they have to tell the professor before the grading takes place, so they would not lose the grade of the fourth member. But instead the full grade would by divided by three.

In general I have enjoyed the shadowing session and I think I have added some experience to mine. For me it is something new to be shadowing in a different culture of mine and compare it to it. I have noticed that we have different cultures but still learning is the same in concept and different in applying.

Second Encounter

The second week of the program had three different issues. First, the vocational pedagogy was introduced to us since we all are teachers in a vocational organization. The class covered some aspect of pedagogical infrastructure such as learning theories.

Also one of the things a liked about that session was the discussion about learning and what does it mean to every one of us. Metaphor was the key point uses to raise such discussion. It was interesting to hear what learning looks like in everyone's mind. For me learning looks like food in general. Most of the food is good, but not everything is healthy, junk or delicious. Learning is good in general, but not everything is good to learn or to know. Some issues may turn to unsafe to know, for instance it is not good for children to know how to fix electricity while they are not measure enough; They may harm themselves.

The second interesting thing about this week was the city tour. We have discovered many good places and had to know a little bit about the history of Finland. We had taken a lot of photos and enjoyed the trip a lot. Then we were invited to a cup of coffee which showed us the generosity of the Finnish people, and we as Arab are famous of our generosity so it was very appreciated by my collogues and me.

By the end of this week we had a session about how to create and post blogs. Most of us including me were his first time to use blogger. This is why the first week reflection is not published yet. In general I liked to second week as well as the first one and I hope the rest of the program go well and smooth.

First Encounter ( Snow in April )

 My first impression when I first came to Finland was seeing the snow in the month of April. I have seen snow before but not in this particular month that even Mr. Laris was surprised and he told us that it is the first time to happen during the last ten years. the first thing came to my mind was thanks God I have brought with me a lot of heavy cloths as I was expecting, and in the same time I said I hope it will not be a boring trip since cold weather always makes it so.

On Monday the program started. I was so excited to meet my collogues for the first time even though we all are from the same organization. Before I knew them by names only and almost from which city everyone came are. Also I was happy to meet the program teachers and participants. The classes for the rest of the week were very good and well prepared. Everything seems to be fine so far and I think the program will be very beneficial and interesting.

Since this week had a long weekend and I didn't know in advanced I had to prepare a fast and near trip so I went with some of my collogue to Tallinn. It was a very nice city but also it was snowing so there was nothing much to do.

Note: This reflection was written earlier in the program, but it is just published.