Montessori Method

Hello everyone!

Today, we are going to talk about a very interesting method of the pedagogue and educator María Montessori.

María Montessori defended that the game should be the principal activity of children during the first years of their life. Through games, children investigate everything related to their environment in a free and spontaneous way. The little ones are relating their knowledge and experiences with other news, creating individual learning processes, fundamental for their growth, independently of their environment.

At first, Montessori became interested in children with mental disabilities, getting these children in order to help them to learn to read and write, using experimental methods. Later, she developed her own methods that she applied to all kinds of children. She came to the conclusion that children, "build themselves".

All her theories were based on the observation of activities that children did, without the supervision of adults. Children would be the teachers of themselves and in order to learn, they need freedom and multiplicity of actions.

The role of the teacher in the philosophy of Montessori is to guide children and create a respectful and affectionate environment. The teacher should be a conscious observer, being in continuous learning and personal development.

Therefore, the idea of María Montessori is that we should transmit to children a feeling of being able to act without constantly depending on the adult. Following this idea, they would be curious, creative and they would learn to think for themselves.

Finally, we think that it is a good way to give children an opportunity to experiment, imagine and create by themselves. Thanks to that, they could feel more motivated and confident about what they do.

And you? What do you think about Montessori method?

Here you can see an image of Montessori classroom:

In the classes in which Montessori method is developed, we can find:

• Freedom is well understood. Children decide what they do and how to do it. Not everyone carries out the same activity. 

• Children are in groups of different ages  (0-3 years, 3-6 years, 6-9 years etc.). The different groups can talk or work with each other.

• The environment is adapted to children in order to be able to develop the best potential of themselves. The class is adapted to children size and the materials are specific.

• The teacher does not have an active role. He stays in the background watching without intervening.

Thank you for your attention.                                                                           

                                                            
                               
                                                                                                                      Regards, 
                                                                                                                      Strong Bloggers
                        

                                                                                                           

Academic Life II

Hello guys!

In this post, we are going to continue talking about our School Experience and the informal education.

Throughout our stage in Primary Education, we have represented theatres of different issues, some to give off the course, others to represent situations of our daily life, and we did some of them in English classes to improve our foreign language skills. Until  we have investigated, we haven´t realized the amount benefits that it produces for children. It is a very useful tool for expressing their feelings, a simple way to acquire knowledge learning, using a playful and enjoyable process. Furthermore, thanks to all type of theatres, children will develop and improve their body language.

This type of activity is closely related to the previous post, as children learn and they acquire   knowledge and skills in a dynamic and innovative way, based on their own experience.

Puppets, stories or theatres are methods of expression which favour the physical, mental and intellectual development of the children, and it provokes that children could acquire a wide vocabulary, and develop their body and oral expression. Music is a very important element in the representation of puppets; usually each character is associated with a “leitmotiv” that it helps children to follow the course of history. (Prieto, 1981)

Theatres stimulate children's creativity. They become the main actors when puppets interact with them. Children are an important part in what’s happening in the story. To sum up, when children are spectators of this kind of representations, they also learn different knowledges like academic, moral values… For this reason it is so important telling stories with moral messages to children in Primary School in order to improve their behaviour and avoid serious conflicts in the school environment which can produce bullying.

We hope, you will like our post.

Regards,

Strong blogger

References:

Naranjo, S.C. (2016) Los títeres como recurso didáctico para estimular el desarrollo del lenguaje en los niños de educación inicial. Universidad Técnica de Machala Extraído el  3 abril 2017 desde: http://repositorio.utmachala.edu.ec/bitstream/48000/9146/1/ECUACS%20DE00042.pdf

Pacheco, M.C. (2015) Dramatización de obras de teatros infantiles para desarrollar la expresión oral en el proceso de aprendizaje. Universidad Técnica de Machala Extraído el  3 abril 2017 desde: http://repositorio.utmachala.edu.ec/bitstream/48000/3926/1/CD00320-2015-TRABAJO%20COMPLETO.pdf 

Touriñán, J.M.(2009). Análisis conceptual de los procesos educativos formales, no formales e informales: Revista Interuniversitaria,8,55-80. Extraído el 3 de Abril de 2017 desde: https://gredos.usal.es/jspui/handle/10366/71784    

Prieto, M. A. (1981). La representación de títeres: su ámbito educativo desde el análisis de una experiencia. Aula abierta, (33), 64-70. Extraído el 3 de Abril de 2017 desde: 
https://dialnet.unirioja.es/servlet/articulo?codigo=2324999

Academic Life

Hello everybody!

In this post we want to show you a section of a big project that we are currently doing for two of our subjects: General Didactic and School Management. Today we will talk about our School Experience, focusing on the Academic Life, but not on the formal education (exams, evaluation, degree etc.); we want to make emphasis on the learning that children achieve thanks to the informal education, which give a lot of importance to friends’ relationship, students’ participation, extracurricular activities…(Herrera, 2006) We think that this topic is very interesting, and we have read and studied a lot about it, and because of that, we have realized how important it is.

In primary school, there are some trips in the middle of the course, and children go to different places, but people don’t usually know why children do these types of activities. People think that it’s only a way to go out the school and break the routine in order to spend a great morning with the classmates, but there are a lot of things behind these excursions and plans.

For example, in our case, we remember some outings we did when we were in Primary School. We went to the Science Park in Granada, to the Farm School, to the Zoo… When we were children we only saw these moments like an opportunity to loose a class’ day and to enjoy with our friends. But now, we have another perspective and we have a different opinion. It’s true that these activities are not designed to teach in a specific way, but they allow for the development to learn some things that maybe we don’t work so much at school, like the respect we should have for the environment and the animals, the education in values against the violence, against the discrimination… the use of the dialogue to solve problems etc. Only going out the classroom and being educating outdoors, children feel more motivated (Touriñán, 2009).

These activities could seem useless, and maybe, there are people that think they are not considered in the didactic program, but the truth is that all these excursions are very considered, thought and studied in order to achieve the planned educative goals, which we have already explained.

It’s only an example of informal education. There are more and we will write about another one, which we think is very important from an educative point of view in another post.

See you soon!

References:

Herrera, M. (2006). La educación no formal en España. Revista de Estudios de Juventud, 11-25. Extraído el 3 de abril de 2017 desde http://www.injuve.es/sites/default/files/2017/08/publicaciones/revista_74.pdf

Touriñán, J.M.(2009). Análisis conceptual de los procesos educativos formales, no formales e informales: Revista Interuniversitaria,8,55-80. Extraído el 3 de Abril de 2017 desde: https://gredos.usal.es/jspui/bitstream/10366/71784/1/Analisis_conceptual_de_lorprocesos_educa.pdf