Brdo, 24.9.2003 – 28.9.2003T.E.A.M.A.Müller-Kalt, E.Reissner

Workshop 3.3: Friday morning

T.E.A.M.

Train Expertise And Methods

Angela Müller-Kalt / Eva Reissner

TGM Wien

AUSTRIA

Overview of the workshopGeneral information

TGM - our school

LlM - a new subject

evaluation of LIM

concept of our self-evaluation

methods of our evaluation

practical part

1.Our school

We are teaching in the TGM in Vienna. TGM is a HTL - a technical, vocational upper secondary school for students aged 14 - 19, finishing with the A-level. After the final examination they have to work for three years - then they may use the title engineer. Wehave about 2.600students and 300teachers in our school.

2.LIM - a new subject

LIM means Learning - and InformationManagement.

Why did we create LIM?

  • the requirements of the modern job market
  • new learning conditions and demands
  • high drop-out-rate

2.1.Our main aims

With LIM we want to react to the demands of the job market, to the new learning conditions in general and to the recognized special demands in our school.

Generally you can say that LlM is a subject where we are teaching strategies and methods. The students are encouraged to apply them at once on subject matters.

2.1.1.Aims on students side
  • preparation for lifelong learning
  • application of learning techniques
  • competency in methods for:
  • procurement and selection of information
  • goal-directed processing of information
  • goal-directed and fast search in the internet
  • development of soft skills in order to get:
  • the ability to work in a team
  • knowledge of rules for a team
  • development of a good working atmosphere in the classroom
  • interdisciplinary thinking
  • higher demands for highly performing students, encouragement of weaker students
2.1.2.Aims on teachers side
  • teamwork
  • learning from each other
  • binding character

2.2.LIM - how does it work?

a subject in our first an second forms - 3 or 2 lessons per week

2.2.1.Involved subjects
  • first form:
  • geography
  • chemistry
  • maths
  • electrical engineering
  • second form:
  • mechanical engineering
  • electrical engineering
  • physics
  • maths
2.2.2.Other facts
  • cut the lessons in participating subjects
  • the ministry of education doubled the lessons
  • two teachers in the classroom
  • different teams in a rotation system
  • responsibility for special competency - for instance:
  • responsible for the basic information for a goal-directed search in the internet
  • responsible for the basics of good lecture
  • responsible for soft skills
  • learning techniques

3.Evaluation of LIM

  • Why do we wish to evaluate ourselves?
  • LIM needs extra financial support
  • only possible to get the money by starting a so-called “test project”
  • that pilot projects are always accompanied by an external evaluation
  • What do we evaluate?
  • not the individual teacher but the team should be evaluated
  • at the moment we have only feedbacks from our students

4.Concept of our self-evaluation

every team decides which instrument to choose, because didn’t want to create competition between the teachers

research questions:

  • In how far does the project team succeed in establishing a new culture of teaching and learning?
  • Does the project team succeed in its team development?
  • In how far do the teachers in the project team improve in their profession?

5.Methods of our evaluation

5.1.Symbols

the symbols method uses free associations on an certain topic

  • two teachers, one chairing the discussion and one who makes notes
  • the students and the chairperson of the discussion form a circle with their chairs
  • in the centre of the circle are some objects - daily things
  • then every student is asked to take one object, which is in his opinion a good symbol for LIM

5.2.Two dimensional diagram

you need

  • a poster, on which you draw the axis of a diagram
  • each axis stands for one questions
  • each student is asked to stick one point onto the poster at the position which seems best for him
  • everyone is asked to comment freely on the result
  • the results should be taken down

5.3.Videotape

  • you need: a video camera, a video tape and a tripod
  • the students were asked to play some typical situations in LIM

5.4.Closed question questionnaire

  • the students had to choose if it is rather difficult or rather easy to do something
  • the result was statistically analysed and presented in a diagram

5.5.What else happened?

  • open question questionnaires
  • one-minute-papers and
  • open dialogs

6.Analysis and interpretation of our data

6.1.Analysis

  • find categories suitable for the data
  • organize the data into this categories
  • describe the categories and the content with three or four sentences for someone who does not know the data
  • verify it with one example

6.2.Interpretation

method of “cooperative consultancy”

  • the persons who got the feedback describe the situation and the obtained data (5minutes – not more)
  • the colleagues ask questions for full understanding – not any critical comment, no opinion and no advices
  • everything is allowed: the colleagues give their comments, their point of view, their opinion and their advice how to interpret the data - the teachers who collected the data are silent
  • the persons who got the data give their point of view and draw their conclusions
  • write down the consequences

7.Practical part

We have prepared four sets of data from our self-evaluation for you – all translated into English:

  • a paper concerning the symbols method
  • the diagram concerning the method about learning how to search the internet. You need not have any knowledge about internet to interpret the data at all.
  • the videotape - we have inserted some English translations, but you will get also the written version of the text
  • the data from the closed question questionnaire

you are asked to analyse the data and to make a short interpretation

Finally we have prepared another very quick and easy method of evaluation: a target.