The European Music Portfolio – Music, languages and holistic well-being through interaction in multicultural learning communities

You are warmly welcome to
CPD 2016: The European Music Portfolio – Music, languages and holistic well-being through interaction in multicultural learning communities

From 3-7 October 2016, the European Music Portfolio - Languages Team is offering a boost course for the teaching and guiding oriented fields of work, with ways to support the experience of well-being and to link music education and language education as interaction, to strengthen the child’s learning processes based on the natural holistic ways to explore and experiment the world. We learn a lot e.g. from the observations of the child’s mother tongue acquisition processes. The basic understanding in the course performance is supported by the Finnish curriculum 2016, with a child-oriented ground.

The course is particularly suited as a kick start for different kinds of teacher tandems from the same organization or from several organizations coming from a certain city or city area to collaborate, who are planning a more collaborative project work with each other in the future. However, also the prior connections already constructed can be benefitted as models to meet at the CPD (Continuing Professional Development), to strengthen the collaboration ways and aims for professionals coming from various countries, such as the job shadowing or eTwinning partners.

So, there are two main strings to follow and to interact with during the CPD:
1) the new beginners on the EMP-L comprehension and tools; and
2) the continuing participants with a prior experience already on the EMP-L, with prior CPD participations as a ground.

The course is hosted by the Laurea University of Applied Sciences, in Southern Finland, in association with the University of Eastern Finland and the University of Applied Sciences, Switzerland. Please find information on the European Music Portfolio projects in http://emportfolio.eu

THE FUNDING APPLICATION
• send the funding application as advised at your national Comenius office well before by the deadline, February the 2nd, 2016 at 12.00 (Brussels time). Link to the funding application: http://www.cimo.fi/instancedata/prime_product_julkaisu/cimo/embeds/cimowwwstructure/67795_KA1_KA101_A_3.02_EN_PROD.pdf
• Support in filling in the funding application form can be received at the national agencies: http://ec.europa.eu/programmes/erasmus-plus/tools/national-agencies/index_en.htm

PRE-REGISTRATION
by February the 3rd , 2016
https://elomake3.laurea.fi/lomakkeet/11837/lomake.html

OBS. If you already have a funding decision that you would be able to use to participate this course in October 2016, please pre-registrate by April the 25th, 2016 at the latest! Please be aware to make sure you would be able to do the pre-tasks during the spring/before the CPD.

Course and accommodation, costs
• The course fee: 490 € (including the course participation, materials, lunches, coffees, an excursion)
• Costs for accommodation: 85 eur/ single room; 99 eur/double room
• You have the possibility to apply for a grant from the national Comenius offices over your institution of employment. Funding is limited to: course fee 70 €/day (max. total 350 €) + travel expenses (360-530 €) + living expenses (53-120 €/day)
• The financial support for the organizations gained in general is 350 €/person

Accommodation & course venue
• Cumulus hotel in Hyvinkää, see further in http://www.cumulus.fi/
• Venue: Laurea University of Applied Sciences, http://www.laurea.fi/en. The CPD venue is situated in Hyvinkää, one of the 7 locations of Laurea UAS. Please see further for the city details inhttp://www.hyvinkaa.fi
• Trips to Hyvinkää and other cities in Southern Finland are planned with focus on culture, nature, school and education. You can sign in to these on the basis of your individual choices, with a separate fee.

Learning environments
• Besides the face-to-face meetings during the week, learning processes are supported and benefitted by the possibilities of modern ICT in the form of the e-learning platforms to exchange ideas and thoughts before, during and after the CPD
• Basic material (activities and videos) can be found on www.emportfolio.eu. These will be complimented by materials and tools developed further during the course and shared on the e-platform.
• The course caters for different backgrounds and interests by offering parallel workshops and open-ended tasks. Much emphasis is placed on collaborative learning and teaching. Small group work allows for intensive exchange in own fields of interest.
• Participants are supported in their activity design process by mentors.
• Visits besides the cultural targets, will be organized for the local schools and day care centers, in collaboration with the local pre-primary, preschool and primary school teachers, and in the secondary schools, on the basis of the interests expressed
• Interaction with the Finnish profession is encouraged

Who is this course suited for
• You are interested in music and languages and in holistic education, starting from the understanding of the child-centred processes
• With the support of the understanding of sounds as interaction (music and languages), this course orientation supports your work with the multicultural layers, such as the immigrants, and the facing of diversities to focus on the inclusion of eg. high achievers or disabled students
• Learning more about the individual experiences to meet the needs of well-being and learning, is supported by the early childhood and even prenatal learning experiences
• The understanding of an individual supports the comprehension of social processes
• You only focus on music and/or languages as a specialized teacher, or as a part of your whole teaching work (kindergarten, classroom or other)
o in a school or
o in a kindergarten/day care or
o among socially oriented organizations (immigrants, multicultural families, child-oriented aims)
o among cultural education (such as music or arts schools),
o teaching college or university
♣ in the field of pre-primary school/day care or
♣ primary/secondary school education and /or
♣ you are involved in intercultural education or
♣ working with children of migrant workers and travellers

You have
o attended an EMP-Language basic CPD between 2012-2015, or
o the possibility to collaborate with someone who has already participated in a prior CPD (a colleague/a friend)
Teacher pairs or tandems from the same school are encouraged to register together. The course also offers the field to collaborate further with eTwinning or job Shadowing partners.

You have
o tried out and/or developed different activities in your class to encourage more language learning or music learning, or
o you have a possibility to test some material before the CPD in October 2016, during spring 2016, to prepare yourself for the CPD.

You would like to exchange experiences and build on what you know; you are willing both to share your experiences and learn from the experiences of the others as a basis for the developmental work

You have ideas or projects you would like to develop further with other similar minded teachers, or you are eager to join some other’s ideas and projects, to further develop them together

You are interested in the possibilities to exchange ideas after the course with the support of a closed virtual environment aimed for the course participants

You are possibly interested in starting up an eTwinning exchange project or are looking for a Job Shadowing possibility.

What do we hope to achieve:
• Offering a creative space for further development of ideas, activities and projects.
• Combining resources and learn from each other.
• Developing ideas for exchange projects, building and strengthening networks to support more collaboration in the future, with the focus to start from child-centred processes.
• Giving the opportunity for various teachers/professionals coming from the same school/district/from two countries, to get to know the teaching styles and principles of each other better and to develop ideas for new school projects that combine music and language learning with cultural accommodation, various kinds of learners and well-being.


Why we think this course is worth attending:

Teaching more music in language classes benefits the learning process, and vice versa. This understanding can be benefitted more widely, to gain from the sound education based on the understanding of sounds as a human innate resource and as a shared net available for anyone.

It is about making more of what is already there. This syntegrated way of teaching is a skill that needs time to develop. It depends on the ability of a teacher to recognise learning opportunities, to recognise the potential of the learners in their class, and to use this potential, to benefit from the understanding of transversal learning processes. It involves the ability to improvise, take risks, combine existing knowledge and skills in new ways. It demands a good understanding of how to guide learning processes in different subjects in a holistic way, to start from the child. This form of teaching asks teachers to think out of the box. It is creative, exciting but can also be frustrating, especially if new ideas do not work the first time round and if teachers are working alone. An individual needs the social interaction to learn.

You already have the basics and you have been working on developing your skill in this area. This course gives you the opportunity to learn, work and share with others who are in a similar situation. This can be an encouraging and a motivating and confidence-building experience. We hope this course will help you to find your path to making learning a more rich experience, and to find partners to join you on this way. We also hope the equation of motivation, learning and well-being would be inspired.

Programme:
The programme follows this basic structure:
Monday + Tuesday: Memories, tuning and orientation; musical-cultural experience;
input and exchange

Wednesday + Thursday: Collaborative activity and project design (group work with mentoring)

Friday: Peer teaching and evaluation; Projects and visions - next steps (follow-up)

(Saturday: A symposium Optional, based on a separate sign-up process)

List of workshop themes as a basis to specifically develop the program to respond to your needs and expectations further (final selection based on survey of needs)

Progression in language learning Progression in musical learning
Making use of many languages in our Interaction as a basis to teach
classes
Child well-being and curricula
Various learners and inclusion transversal learning
Exploring the cultural dimension Tools for sound education
Working with a story-line
eTwinning & Job Shadowing - basics
Activity and task design - basics
Activity and task design - advanced
Active listening - strategy training in music and language work
Encouraging learners to think and ask questions (progression in thinking)
European Music Portfolio Portfolio – A Creative Way into Languages - basics
Value of portfolio work

Pre-course preparation (further details provided for the course applicants after the application left in the national Comenius office):

1. On the basis of the list given below, please plan, implement, record and document at least one music integrated musical, general learning or well-being focused, or linguistic activity or project you do with your class(es)/group(s) or with your students. Focus on one of the following categories below. Share the activity and the results with the other participants during the course. Explain how language and music learning took place, and what were the consequences. Formulate ideas for further development of your activity or project. If it is not clear what you should do, then please contact: francoise.haenggi@fhnw.ch or kaarina.marjanen@laurea.fi
Rhythmic vocalisation
Singing
Body percussion
Playing instruments
Dancing and moving
Exploring, improvising and composing
Listening to music
Painting, writing and reading music
Using ICT
Conducting - teaching music

2. Please bring material with you that you would like to develop further in the group (a story, song, dance, poem or similar)


Post-course follow-up opportunities
• Use the time during the course to build up a personal network to initiate an e-Twinning exchange project, a job-shadowing placement or a personal exchange project.
• Post videos, ideas and activities on the new EMP-L exchange platform: coniel.com (access rights will be given after the course participation confirmed).
• Start-up or join an existing Facebook group.
• Possible exchange workshop and CPD in 2017.

Course team (core team)
The course leader:
Kaarina Marjanen, Ph.D., music education, Senior lecturer, Laurea University of Applied Sciences, Hyvinkää, Finland (especially pre-primary, pre-school and lower primary level)

Sini Granström, Planner, Laurea University of Applied Sciences, Hyvinkää, Finland

Markus Cslovjecsek, Professor of Music Education, School of Education, University of Applied Sciences Northwestern Switzerland (especially secondary level)

Françoise Hänggi, Senior lecturer in foreign language didactics, School of Education, University of Applied Sciences Northwestern Switzerland (primary level)

Ritva Kantelinen, Professor of language education, School of Applied Educational Science and Teacher Education, University of Eastern Finland, Joensuu campus (primary level)

Seija Jeskanen, University lecturer, language education, School of Applied Educational Science and Teacher Education, University of Eastern Finland, Joensuu campus (primary level)


A separate symposium to end the course week will be offered with the focus on the same theme, on Sat 8.10.2016 for the interested ones with a separate sign in process. All the course applicants will be informed about this possibility as a part of the response on the course interests expressed.