Professional e-Learning with ACSI Europe
The ACSI Eu
rope team has been working hard to develop high quality professional learning courses for teachers, and to facilitate these courses in a way that maximizes interaction between participants. We believe this makes professional learning relevant, and takes advantage of the possibilities that technology provides us.
Our first series of courses for 2018 has now been completed. I have been facilitating one of these courses, and interacting with participants in another. Being able to hear the perspectives, ideas and plans of teachers from such a variety of cultures has been inspiring to me.
It would be wonderful to hear the experiences of participants. If you have participated in our e-learning courses (recently or in the past) please leave a comment below sharing your experience. Tell us:
- Which course you participated in.
- What were the most valuable ideas you learned from the course?
- What and how did you learn from other participants in the course?
- How has participating in the course changed your thinking or classroom practice?
Comments
Leo Kosten
AuthorDear colleagues,
I wanted to learn about exchange with another school. We made the choice for the topic Meaning and Celebration of Easter, because we could write about this core of our belief during the real celebration in our different countries.
As for organization I think it is important to keep the deadlines. That makes it possible to talk about the stuff and to work on the topic during normal lessons.
We were working with groups. But after sending to and fro it became confusing. So, work easily with numbers and let the numbers correspond with each other.
we got some questions in a different language than English. No problem: the boys started their translation tools and got the gist of the question. Amazingly!
About the content I will mention this. Some of my guys asked me about ‘weird’ questions, which gave me the opportunity that they were judging using their own experiences. An important lesson not to judge too quickly, because other christians were grown up in other circumstances.
Different times students were asking directly what does Easter mean FOR YOU? Good question to appear to the heart.
We perceived that Easter was not celebrated everywhere on the same time. And during this exchange I confronted my students with the speech on Easter of Donald Trump (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vGc0amozokk). Nobody could imagine that the political leader or the king in the Netherlands would tell such a biblical message!
We are still going on with this exchange. So, I am anxious to know what I shall learn more about the topic and about working together with friends far away.
Leo Kosten, Calvijn College, Goes, Netherlands
Roslyn Barnes
AuthorThanks Leo for sharing about your collaborative project with a school in Romania. Glad to hear the discussion between your students and their Romanian peers about Easter is fruitful and on-going.
Leo participated in our very first “International Collaborative Projects for Christian Schools” course in February this year.
Marita Harju
AuthorThank you for letting me know about this possibility. We cooperated and still are in contact with a Hungarian school. All my students from the ninth grade studied the book of Ruth and its possible relations to our home city. We made presentations according to my students´ interests about our home city and are going to share the results in Hungary in May when we have a chance to visit our friends there and see the presentations made by them. I have really enjoyed working together with them. The only problem with this project was the exact dates when I should have had something to be read by others here. I was almost always late. Sorry. But anyway, I really liked this way of cooperating and getting to know each others. I also got a lot of new ideas how to teach the language. So thank you all and may God bless you.
Marita Harju from Finland
Roslyn Barnes
AuthorThank you Marita! It is great to hear how your collaborative project is progressing, and that you will soon visit your partner school.