Attempting to Explore Schools in Portugal

I had a chance to travel to Portugal for a week.  My husband had a conference on air pollution in Cascais, which is located a half an hour train drive from Lisbon. This was a good opportunity for me to explore the country and not to pay a fortune for the hotel room. Of course, I wanted this to be a “business trip”, so I attempted to explore Portuguese schools. 

Students waiting for the program to start at the park

The week I arrived to Portugal, was the last week for schools.  I contacted few elementary schools in Cascais to arrange visits and I was informed that all the schools were having “end of the year celebrations”.  I was invited to an all-day event, a recycling party, for all the elementary schools in the Southwestern region of Portugal.  The event was held in Marechal Carmona Park, which I reached with my rented bicycle in 30 minutes from my hotel. 

Getting ready to enter the park. 

A goodie bag for every child.  

Discussions with the Top Educator in Finland

Today I had a very informative discussion with Professor Jari Lavonen, who is an expert in education and is considered the most influential educator in Finland.

Professor Jari Lavonen
Photo Credit: University of Helsinki

“Dr. Jari Lavonen is a Professor of Physics and Chemistry Education at the University of Helsinki, Finland. He is a director of National Teacher Education Forum and member of the steering committee of the Finnish Education Evaluation Centre. He is a visiting professor at the Michigan State University and University of Johannesburg. He has been researching science and technology education and teacher education for the last 31 years and his main research interests are science and technology teaching and learning, curriculum development, teacher education and use of ICT in education. He has published altogether 150 refereed scientific papers in journals and books, 140 other articles and 160 books for either science teacher education or for science education. He has been active in international consulting, for example, involving the renewal of teacher education for example in Norway, Peru and South Africa”.

I have been very interested in teacher education all this time, so this discussion with Jari was truly amazing.  I believe that the success in learning is the teacher; how she/he motivates and excites a student to learn.  

Education in Jyväskylä, University and High School

The beginning of the trip was complicated.  I had to be in Jyväskylä at 11 am to meet the head of the Education Department at the University.  The city is located 4-hour train drive from Helsinki and I was too nervous that I would miss the 6 am train, so I decided to travel the day before.  Well, there were no hotel rooms available in the whole city. I called all the 12 hotels and they were all booked because of some conference on social services. I could never imagine this happening in Finland. I did not have any other choices than Airbnb.  I found a small studio near the university, arrived the night before and settled in. 

Lobby of the Building designed by Alvar Aalto.

I met Matti Rautiainen, Senior Lecturer in pedagogy at 11 am the next morning at the University of Jyväskylä, Department of Education.  We headed to cafeteria where he served himself a lunch and I sipped my delicious smoothie.  My main reason for this meeting was to get familiar with the teacher education at this university. I had plenty of questions and he had the answers.  
Here is what I learned:

Hallway at Norssi High School Science Wing

Product Design Gala 2018 at Aalto Design Factory.

“All you need is Love, Design, Business and Engineering! “

This was a showcase for the students who had been participating in a product development projects.  Students from engineering, business and arts came together to develop state of the art solutions to real problems.  At this event, I was able to witness and experience unique and exciting discoveries to many problems we face today.  Twelve teams presented their products in this showcase.  The members of the teams came from Aalto University in collaboration with students around the world.  

Team Unit 3.  "In 2010 Aalto University merged three of Finland’s finest schools into one: Helsinki University of Technology, Helsinki School of Economics and the University of Art and Design Helsinki. Now that the business and design students will be joining the Otaniemi family; one of our oldest and most beloved organizations – KY – has sponsored the development of a symbol of ‘Student Unity’.

Team Unit3 has accepted the challenge of creating something that symbolizes student life at Aalto University. It is our hope that it will also be used as a functional space by our future students. In addition to this, our design must incorporate wood as a featured material."

Defending a Doctoral Thesis in Mathematics

Thesis defense events are open to general audience and they can be boring if you don’t understand the topic.  That’s what happened to me today when my "Fulbright Buddy" Pirkko invited me to attend the thesis defense event at the Aalto University in Espoo for her nephew. 

The title of his defense was “Generalized Solutions to the Porous Medium Equation”. 

Page from the Thesis

At the beginning, everyone received a 140-page report that was full of equations.  It was written in English.  I glanced the book and at that moment I was thinking, what did I agree to do!  Exactly at 12.10 three people in black suits walked in and everyone in the audience stood up.  One person of course was the thesis defender Pekka Lehtelä, one was the opponent from Madrid Spain, professor Matteo Bonforte, and the third one was the advisor, professor Juha Kinnunen.

Fulbright Finland Foundation Grant Award Ceremony

The celebration, which honored this year’s Fulbright Teachers in Finland and the new Fulbright Grantees from Finland to US, took place at the Helsinki City Hall, followed by a reception at the residence of Daniel Cobb, Fulbright Bicentennial Chair in American Studies. 

Celebration With my Fellow Fulbright Teachers

The Keynote speaker was Mikko Koivumaa, Director of Communications from the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment. His topic was “Fulbright Grantees as Ambassadors of Finland and Promoters of Our Country Brand”. Other speakers were Anni Sinnemäki, Deputy Mayor of Helsinki, Anita Lehikoinen, Permanent Secretary Ministry of Education and Culture and Donna Welton from the Embassy of the United States.

Achieving Technology Curricular Goals Through a Robotics Learning Center

Robotics board came for pre-and elementary school students

The new Finnish Curriculum Reform that will take place next fall requires teachers to teach "coding" already in the first grade.  The reform calls for developing mathematical skills by performing tasks, playing games, or using senses in different learning environments. Robotics has been found to be an ideal tool to accomplish this, all the way from preschool through high school.