Week 4, Self-efficacy

This morning we discuss in our bunker groups, about how we would build self-efficacy within the people who have left the bunker. The ideas that we came up with is by encouraging one another, through compliments, positive feedback, communication with one-another to come up with a plan on how to build the world as listening and valuing one-another views or beliefs shows respect and will build on a persons confidence. Another way of building self-efficacy within the survivors could also be accomplished by the group setting out goals that they want to achieve in a certain period of time. Self-efficacy may be achieved when the group achieve their goal, as every individual would have a part of it, which may make members feel accomplishment, and motivate them to carry on building the world.

We then went on to learn about South Oxhey which consisted us watching a clip of the invisible town. I then learn about that task we have to do in study week, which is going around the university and in our groups make a poster- map which links to last weeks reading. We then had a task we had to do with our bunker groups. The task was to make a collage relating  to the reading with the key ideas. This is our unfinished poster

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Week 3, Post-apocalypse

So, today we had another unusual lesson, I swear the lectures always seem to amaze me. This module is totally different from the others. In todays lecture we were yet again in groups, our group consisted of 6 people and this weeks group task was based on last weeks lesson, but we had to think about happened after finally being able to leave the bunker. We had to think about:

• How will our world run
• What world would we build
• Plan a world and a education system
• Think about what would be done in the word after 0years, 5 years and 10 years of leaving the bunker.

Every group got given a year that they had to discuss what they think would be done in this empty world after coming out of the bunker. We had to build a world from scratch but have to consider what would have been done, not only in the year that our group got given but the others to, for example our group was given the year 10. So we first considered what we thought would happen in year 0 then year 5 so that we could workout what would be done in year 10. This is what we come up with:

We then had to pick one person from the group to get up in front of a panel to present our ideas which the panel them commented and made note about, which are presented below:

We then went on to look at two texts that look at education,  the two texts were: Giroux article on lessons to be learned from Freire and Thornburg on metaphors of learning spaces. Everyone was in groups and we all had to read through the text and highlight important/useful information.

Week 2, Role play

Today I encountered another interesting lesson that I really was not expecting first thing on a Wednesday morning. We started of with an activity that consisted of us being split into groups of 10. Which then lead us into a role play activity based on being in a bunker. We all picked at random a person that we would be and had to discuss which three people out of the 10 should stay in the bunker while the others were kicked out. The group of girls and I all had very similar ideas who we thought should stay in, luckily I was one of them. I chose at random the a couple, ‘green’ while some of the other possibilities of people were:

• •Gay scientist
• •Bisexual lawyer
• •Pregnant women with a child
• •Buddhist priest •Atheist doctor
• •Elderly women
• •Army officer
• •disabled man
• •atheist doctor
• •unemployed person

My group ended up picking, after a 30 minute discussion, the green couple, the gay scientist and the doctor. Everyone agreed on the doctor and the gay scientist but half of the group wanted the pregnant women with the kid and others wanted the green couple, which ended up being the one that stayed. The reason why some of the girls wanted to keep the pregnant women is due to the their maternal instincts but had no actual reasons other than she’s pregnant and has a kid. The reason for the green couple staying is that in the bunker there is a green house which the couple could use to plant veg and fruit so that they have more food.

After this we went to our seminar where all the groups gave their decision on who they wanted to stay in the bunker. We then as a class discussed all the groups decisions on why they wanted these three people to stay. We then went on to look at three different opinions/statements from different people on education which we had to discuss with the person next to us. We then had to draw a portrait of our partners based on our discussion. Afterwards we compared our own self portraits to the representations that our partners made of us. Unfortunately I do not have my partners representation of me but here’s my self portrait:

Week 1, Intro to the module

Today I had my first introduction lesson for my module, becoming an educationalist. It was probably one of the most nerve-wracking experience I have encountered. The change of meeting new people, learning a new language that comes with the course, coming out of my comfort zone and putting my self out there to succeed.

Our introduction to the module was not like any other module intro, as our course leader-Tom, was used as an ‘object’. We separated our selves into groups and had to come up with 20 questions to ask the ‘object’, which allowed us –the students to find out important information that are crucial to our course. Questions such as ‘are there any core text books that are needed for this module’ or ‘how many assessments are their’ were asked. We found out the answers to our questions, thanks to our successful ‘object”-Tom. The information that we found out about our module were:

• How we shall be assessed – Portfolio 30%, Essay 1500words, Research project 30%
• About making our own dictionary of words that we do not understand
• How to reference in our work
• That we will have to do a performance – (this is what I meant about coming out of my comfort zone!!)
• Blogging– as Im doing so now and about the Digital aspect of the module
• Finding out relevant researchers, philosophers such as Ivan Illich, John Hult and Carl Rogers
• Books we should read- Freedom to learn by Carl Rogers and Essential Study Skills by Tom Burns and Sandra Sinfield.

Towards the end of our morning session we received our two page visual summary of our handbooks. It was CREATIVE, easy to read/understand and had IMPORTANT information about the course and basically summarised our whole lesson of questions. We then started to prepare our drafts for our logs so that we could swap and share with our peers, so that we receive feedback from our peers and making note that in next weeks lesson we have to hand in a presentation/object about our selves that will help Tom and Sandra remember our names. The end of our lesson was as memorable as the unique introduction we received, as our ‘object’ of the day -Tom, handed us some PORIDGE!!