Competence in Working life and Networks
Learning from teaching
In the following section, I describe what our group has done for our teaching session and what I have learned from preparation and implementation processes.
Topic
What are the absolute musts in networking for a (vocational/professional) teacher? Give examples and reasons and benefits.
Networking is “a form of social co-operation and collaboration among different individuals or institutions.” (Sliwka, 2003, p. 50). It has become popular over recent years because of the development of new communication technologies and communication platforms, like social media, and decrease in communication costs (Sliwka 2003). In educational contexts, networks may include local companies, associations, and national and international initiatives. The use of these resources has a direct impact on the level of entrepreneurship education in schools (Ruskovaara, Pihkala, Seikkula-Leino, & Järvinen, 2015). Educational networks take different size and types, at individual, the regional, national and international levels (Sliwka 2003). In practice, teachers can utilise networks by involving external stakeholders in teaching and learning.
The contacts from your networking helps inside and outside of the classroom. Networking is useful for both professional and personal development. You may have connections with colleagues, mentors, and experts in your field. You may ask guest lecturing to develop your teaching. You may have chance to be involved in new projects or work opportunities.
Aims of networking are for example (Sliwka 2003, p.53):
A political function: “Networking allows individuals pursuing a particular aim to meet with like-minded people beyond boarder of institutions or status.” For example in conferences, you can meet someone whom you cannot meet otherwise.
An information function: “Networking allows for the rapid exchange of information relevant for individual and organisational development processes (bypassing red tape and hierarchies.)”
A psychological function: “Innovators are often isolated within their organisations. Networking provides them with opportunities for collaboration and exchange and thus can empower innovative individuals”. It can bring benefits to see things beyond the border not limited to their own organisation or field.
A skill function: “Innovative work requires a range of new skills which are not necessarily offered by traditional training schemes. Networking provides innovators with opportunities for learning skills from their colleagues.”
An elevator pitch is a short description of yourself, an idea, product or company that explains the concept in a way that any listener can understand it in a short period of time. When explaining an individual person, the description generally explains your qualifications and skills, interests and goals, and why they would bring value to a team or a company or project. The speech to 30-60 seconds — that's the time it takes to ride an elevator.
Organisational network - network for vocational teachers in Europe.
Cedefop
European Center for the Development of Vocational Training.
Its aim is to promote lifelong learning and cooperation for the development of vocational training in the EU Member States.
Refernet
ReferNet is a network of institutions created by Cedefop in 2002 to provide information on national vocational education and training (VET) systems and policies in the EU Member States, Iceland and Norway. It shares knowledge about vocational education and training. ReferNet collects information on, and monitors developments in, national VET policies and systems. This information is used for different purposes and products.
Preparation for the lesson
Design of the pre-task
We asked students to do a pre-task which was recording 3-5 minutes video. Video should include brief introduction of themselves (about 30 seconds) and network experience in their own fields. This pre-task was designed based on the following pedagogical considerations (Hyppönen & Linden, 2009):
Learning by doing
Demonstrating guest-lecturing which is one of the common ways for teachers to practically use their network in teaching. In order to demonstrate, they needed to understand how to present themselves in a short time and to understand networking in their own fields.
Participants teach
By taking an active role during the lecture, students are able to reach higher level of understanding the content. In a bigger class, one of the challenges of this method would be to make sure other students’ understanding when a single student is presenting.
Purposes of pre-task
Activating their existing knowledge about their network experience already before the lecture.
Familiarising students with networking in their own filed.
Sharing field specific information, which teacher cannot bring.
Keeping students engaged by involving students actively in teaching.
Organising thoughts clearly and visualising as a material through video making.
Flow of preparation and tool
This week’s coordinator structured the contents of the lesson and suggested the pre-task. We worked collaboratively developed the contents based on the structure designed by the coordinator. Meanwhile we had two online meetings where we discussed details of the lesson plan and contents. I took responsibility in researching pedagogical considerations of the pre-task. As well, I created lesson plan which included time distributions.
Implementation of the lesson
We structured the lesson so that activities (demonstration of the pre-task) were located in between explanations of the lecture slides. In this way, students were able to take active role in the lesson and the lesson became more engaging than just listening the lecture.
Reflection of my teaching
I experienced technical issues related to the pre-task. One student prepared video for pre-task and another student prepared a recording. Both did not work by mirroring the student’s computer while playing the video or the recording. By uploading the video on Youtube and providing link, we were able to watch the video. Also it is possible to upload the file in google drive, for example, to watch or listen individually (but format might need to be adjusted according to the operating system of individuals’ computer). Due to the technical issues, I did not have enough time for the last discussion. Moreover, I used extra time about 10 minute. We should have mentioned to the potential technical issues, and suggested to upload the video already before the session.
Giving feedback to students work was successful. While the students were demonstrating their guest-lecturing via video and live demonstration, I made notes of remarks they mentioned and aspects which were related to my teaching content. After the student provided guest-lecture demonstrations, I made comments on the work and asked questions to encourage deeper discussion. In the lecture, I referred to some remarks from guest lectures’ presentations.
Learning from other groups
Social media in (business /work / education) networking? Pros and Cons. (FB, Insta, Twitter, Snatchat…) Give examples.
Important notes from the lecture
The group introduced several benefits of using social media in education:
Student’s view
Getting information easily
Expanding connections which can be useful in career building
Teacher's view
Professional development through connection with experts and colleagues
Institution’s view
Communicating students, teachers, staff and stakeholders through social media.
Personally using social media in teaching and learning is not very preferable. First, I would like to separate my own professional relationships (teacher-student) and personal relationships. Using social media in teaching and learning is mixing up the professional and personal life. Second, social media (e.g., facebook, instagram, twitter) are not designed for teaching and learning, thus some functions are not optimised for educational purposes. I used both social media (facebook) and learning platform (Claned) in educational contexts as a student. I experienced discussion in two platforms. I found Claned much easier to work because it has functions to highlight the discussion, see, react or reply to other’s comments, and reflect own performance. On the other hand, while I was using facebook as a tool for discussion, I found it very difficult to follow the discussion because the screen is small and posts are ordered chronologically which makes it difficult to find or compare the discussion topics. Moreover, I unconsciously understood that facebook is for only personal use, not for educational use, thus it was difficult to recognise facebook as a learning tool.
Good practices
Activating question in the beginning “Do you use social media for networking?” was effective way to provoke students’ existing knowledge about the topic. The question was not too serious so that students were able to answer easily, yet it was related to the topic of teaching.
The group introduced pros and cons of using social media in educational contexts as summary of the lesson. It was a great way of summarising multidimensional topic.
Outline some theoretical background for (social) networking. Some buzz words and catch phrases: Social network theory, Network analysis, Human biology & behaviour
Important notes from the lecture
Social network theory (Borgatti & Ofem, 2010; Liu, Sidhu, Beacom, & Valente, 2017)
Social network theory is the study of how people, organizations or groups interact with others inside their network. Social network theory sees a social group as a network of interconnected elements (actors) which represents individuals. It focuses on relationship (ties) between actors in information transmission, behavioural changes and personal influences.
Network analysis (Borgatti & Ofem, 2010)
Network analysis is the study of dynamics and relationships among social groups. Relationship among social groups can be analysed by similarities (e.g., location, membership, attributes), social relation (e.g., kinship, friendship, social roles) and mental relations (e.g., affective, cognitive).
Good practices
Activating question in the beginning “Do you use social media for networking?” was effective way to provoke students’ existing knowledge about the topic. The question was not too serious so that students were able to answer easily, yet it was related to the topic of teaching.
Individual work
Write about YOUR personal networks, both work based and outside work. What do you benefit from these?
Work based network
I find work based network is beneficial because it gives me new opportunity. I have worked in several projects and companies in Finland. I got those opportunities mostly through my network. Those jobs were mostly temporary position and not permanent job, but I am always happy to take the opportunities because then I am able to get to know new people and expand my knowledge and network. Having network leads to interesting unexpected path as well. I was not at all interested in technologies, but because of network I have built, I have work experiences in a makerspace, digital marketing company, IoT company, and the faculty of Information Technology and Electrical Engineering at the University. Those networks and experiences have encouraged me to try new things and be open to new opportunity.
Outside work network
I have many different networks in my personal life. Those networks bring me joy and benefits. Each network has different characteristics and relationship, but mainly I consider benefits are information shared in the network. Types of information is normally related to how the network was built as we share interests. For instance, in the network with classmates, we often share our experience of work experience, study related topics (technology and education), job opportunities. It is beneficial of course, but personally I enjoy being connected with those people itself. It is simply a great joy to be connected, share interests and follow and celebrate each other’s life events.
References
Borgatti, S. P., & Ofem, B. (2010). Social network theory and analysis. Social network theory and educational change, 17-29.
Hyppönen, O. & Linden, S. (2009). Handbook for Teachers - Course Structures, Teaching Methods and Assessment. Publications of the Teaching and Learning Development Unit of the Helsinki University of Technology 5/2009.
Liu, W., Sidhu, A., Beacom, A. M., & Valente, T. W. (2017). Social network theory. The international encyclopedia of media effects, 1-12.
Ruskovaara, E., Pihkala, T., Seikkula-Leino, J. & Järvinen, M. R. (2015). Broadening the resource base for entrepreneurship education through teachers' networking activities. Teaching and Teacher Education, 47, 62-70. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tate.2014.12.008
Sliwka, A. (2003). Networking for educational innovation: A comparative analysis. Networks of innovation: Towards new models for managing schools and systems, 49-63.
Tafel-Viia, K., Loogma, K., Lassur, S., & Roosipõld, A. (2012). Networks as agents of innovation: teacher networking in the context of vocational and professional higher education reforms. Vocations and Learning, 5(2), 175-193.
(Last update: 17.12.2019)
