| Report on the Results: |
“THE GREAT UNIFICATION… OF THE PLANETS”
IOSOF GABRIELA-DOCHIȚA¹
ABSTRACT- In order to stimulate the students’ cognitive, interpersonal and social development, I opted for organizing an extracurricular activity whose objective was to develop the children’s ability to understand and perceive what happens to us, “the little ones”, ina gigantic Universe. The activity offered them the possibility to practice their skills and abilities in an integrated manner, to holistically develop their personality. The strategy emphasizes the vital import of multiplying the recorded positive experiences and urges the extension of the intervention space in the educational process with a view to capitalizing on all the educational valencies in the student’s higher interest.
Key words: extracurricular activity, students with special educational needs, Cosmos
Introduction:
The “embryo” of the activity was a Geography lesson that took place at National College “Michael the Brave”, in Turda, in grade 10, humanities department. The subject of the lesson was “Demographic characteristics”. Asa result of the educational activities engendered in the classroom, the students were so impressed and motivated to discover new and appealing things regarding the diversity of the individuals that, during the next Geography class, we debated the role each of us has in “accepting” the differences among various individuals in society.
The teacher’s role was precisely to facilitate the manifestation of the student’s motivation to develop by emphasizing her attractions/ preferences, her interests; thus we convened to elaborate an extracurricular activity in which we were to integrate students with special educational needs. Since, in our college, there are no students registered with special educational needs, we agreed to organize the activity at “Mihai Vodă” Secondary School, of Mihai Viteazul commune, district of Cluj, with which the TurdaNational College “Michael the Brave” has set up an urban-rural educational partnership. We chose that the activity tookplace during the World Cosmos week, which occurs at the beginning of October.
What happened on this occasion?
A group of 10 students from grade 10 got involved in riveting tasks, playing various roles within the work groups formed by the five students with special educational needs from grade 5 and the 8 pupils from grade 3. Each of the organized 6 group works was assigned the task to highlight the characteristics of a planet in our solar system. The suggested activities reminded us of the fact that learning can happen not only by memorizing information but also in amuch more pleasant and useful way- by capitalizing on the resources available (magazines specialised in these topics, encyclopedias, thematic boards, educational CDs).
The formula through which all the participants got involved in attaining our proposed objective was the game. We manufactured helmets of duplex carton, we used crepe paper, water colours and scissors… we cut out, we coloured, we wrote information on personalized badges, we offered rewards, we inflated balloons and we immortalized snapshots of the activity…
Irrespective of age, we felt children again, eager to relate, to discover new things about ourselves and about our collaborators, to enjoy the classmates’ smile, to listen to the Moonlight Sonata by L. W. Beethoven.
Communication and relating skills, team work, critical thinking, creative problem solving, initiative and enterprising spirit were, equally, fundamental features and specific emphases in the integrated approach to this activity, achieved particularly in a non-formal learning context.
All of us, students of various ages, students with various needs, educator and teacher underwent learning experiences that can be included in a collection of attractive and efficient educational practices, meant to enhance the students’ interest in school, in general, and particularly in building their own learning.
Conclusions
The import of the teacher’s role as an attitudinal and cognitive mediator between the one who is being formed and her sources of information entailed the use of various didactic and educational strategies. The teacher’s position regarding the learned contents changed.
The structuring of the school’s objectives to and through authentic values by taking into consideration the need to integrate the students with special educational needs through various activities.
Any teacher can opt for using those didactic strategies which motivate students to show interest for in-depth, experiential, personally built learning, for learning through discovery, so that it will lead the students to become aware of the usefulness and applicability of learning in everyday life.
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