A blog for students on the FDLT at the University of Northampton

at Leicester and UN

Blog Archives

June 25, 2019
by Jean
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FDLT and BALT venue details September 2019

The FDLT Year 1 and BALT groups start in week beginning 9th September, on your venue day. For each group (both UN and Leic) day 1 will take place at Waterside.

FDLT Year 1

Monday: Devonshire Place, Leicester

Wednesday: Waterside Campus, Northampton

BALT

Monday: Waterside Campus Northampton.

Wednesday: Devonshire Place, Leicester

Venue details:

LEICESTER

Devonshire Place, 78 London Road, LEICESTER, LE2 0RA

Parking: the car park is accessed via Prebend Street.

NORTHAMPTON

Waterside Campus, University Drive, NORTHAMPTON, NN15PH.

Parking: Sixfields Park and Ride

Open: All year round.

Location: Claret Car Park and the Saints Car Park, Edgar Mobbs Way, Sixfields, NN5 5JR.

Number of parking spaces: approximately 1500.

Open to: University staff, students and visitors. (Also open to NCC staff, different charges may apply).

Cost: park for free and ride the bus for £1 return.

Payment: pay on bus, contactless, Uno app or buy a monthly pass.

Frequency (peak time): every 10 minutes Monday – Friday, every 15 minutes on Saturday and 30 minutes on Sunday.

Route: west – east shuttle service including the rail station, town centre and Waterside. There is a route to link to St George’s Avenue that requires a change at Marefair (Sol Central pick up on the new 20 service (free intercampus bus) Monday – Friday).

​Opening hours: 6.00am – 10:30pm, Monday – Friday (no overnight stays).​

Full security: on-site security and CCTV system.

Ultramodern buses: luxurious interiors, free Wi-Fi, USB charging at every seat and low emissions.

Real time information: see when your next bus is going to arrive.

June 3, 2019
by Jean
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June is 30 days wild month!

Each June The Wildlife Trusts runs #30dayswild.

This is what The Wildlife Trusts say:

“This June, we challenge you to do something wild every day. That’s 30 simple, fun and exciting Random Acts of Wildness.

We’re giving you a free pack of goodies to help you plan your wild month, plus lots of ideas from your Wildlife Trust to inspire you to stay wild all throughout June (and beyond!). You’ll also get inspiring emails from your Wildlife Trust, invites to exclusive events and a chance to join in on social media.

To get your free 30 Days Wild pack, which includes a wallchart, a poster, an interactive booklet and some stickers to help you go wild, just select who is taking part and take the next step!” (The Wildlife Trusts, 2019).

You can participate as a family, a school, a care home or a workplace and post what you do each day on social media using #30dayswild. As people working in education one of the best things about this initiative is that you can pick up lots of great ideas to use to inspire and support learning.

The Wildlife Trusts (2019) 30 Days Wild. [online] Available from: https://action.wildlifetrusts.org/page/40705/petition/1#sign-up [Accessed: 30/05/19].

May 30, 2019
by Jean
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International connections on FDLT!

FDLT Students Enriching Experiences – Mystery Skype and Zoom Room

This week Year 2 Foundation Degree Learning and Teaching (FDLT) students took part in a Mystery Skype activity and had extended discussions within a Zoom Room.

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After the Mystery Skype task with the UN group on Monday, former UN Education Studies student Miti Mwape shared her experiences of teaching English in China. She highlighted the many opportunities that exist for mature students to work abroad (Teach and Travel in Hunan, China: http://teachinhunan.com/).

Dr Brenda Padilla (Universidad Autónoma de Nuevo Leónin) and her students scattered across Mexico took part in discussions with FDLT students within a live Zoom Room Video Conference. These online meetings resulted in extensive conservations between students on a range of comparative and international educational issues. The dynamic conversations crossed three continents, with FDLT student Nazia Saeed joining the discussions from India on Wednesday. Students from the Universidad da Vinci in Mexico also took part in conversations.

Dr Emel Thomas

May 22, 2019
by Jean
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Taking the learning outdoors!

Last week the FDLT Year 1 students had the opportunity to use the outdoors as a learning environment.We spent the morning beside the river exploring  and measuring the landscape.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On the way to the river we met sheep, lambs and some horses.
Horses in a field we walked through.
We used the river as the basis for some measuring and exploration.

We used an augur to collect soil samples to investigate.
The riverbank revealed some of what lies beneath the grass.
Looking at the soil sample.

Collecting a kick sample to investigate later.
Using string, poles and a metre stick to measure the meander of the river.
A closer look – using a magnifying lens clipped to a mobile phone.

Story strips – we gathered a record of exploring the churchyard. This could be tried in different seasons and locations to make comparisons.

The activities the students tried out are those which pupils need to experience when learning geographical and scientific skills and they also provided opportunities to apply mathematical learning.

We also explored the book The Lost Words by Jackie Morris and Robert MacFarlane – a fantastic inspiration for English in the context of the natural world. There are supporting resources for this here.

In year 2 of the FDLT course students will take part in a module entirely focused on learning opportunities beyond the school site so this experience was a valuable introduction.

April 16, 2019
by Jean
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A new online course from DLAB!

Our team from the University of Northampton would like to invite you and your staff to join our free online course on What if the sea level rises? Exploring language and culture in a future setting. This course has been developed as part of a European funded project, ‘Digital Learning across Boundaries’, that brings together teachers, student teachers and lecturers in Norway, Denmark, Belgium and England to connect classrooms, and to explore and share technology-related themes.

This is a fantastic FREE resource for primary and lower secondary teachers. It includes case studies of lessons and an international online community sharing ideas. We hope you can join in to develop and share your own ideas on our themes of survival, communication and sustainability. 

The course runs for one week starting on May 6th and will remain on our website for teachers to dip in and out of as much as they want.  

We hope that this is of interest. You can find out more and sign up here: 

http://dlaberasmus.eu/courses/what-if-the-sea-level-rises-exploring-language-and-culture-in-a-future-setting/

 

Alongside this free opportunity, I would like to let you know that we are recruiting for a new Postgraduate Certificate in Digital Leadership, starting on 20th May 2019. This is a one-year, part-time, fully online course that leads to 60 Master’s credits and can form part of an online Masters pathway open to an international audience. It is intended to develop both subject and leadership expertise, and is designed to accommodate complete beginners as well as those with some existing knowledge in the field. You can find more information here: https://www.northampton.ac.uk/courses/postgraduate-certificate-in-digital-leadership

 

Do contact me if you have any queries about either of these courses:

helen.caldwell@northampton.ac.uk

All best wishes,

Helen Caldwell

(And the DLaB team at the University of Northampton)

April 4, 2019
by Jean
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Animating science!

This week in the FDLT Year 1 groups we have been using the stop motion animation app iMotion and the video editing app iMovie. The students devised, scripted and designed short animations to explain an idea or process. After they had made their film they added music and sound effects from iMovie and sounds made themselves.

The films can be watched here:

It was interesting to see the skills, knowledge and understanding that students used as they worked in teams of three or four. They had to check their subject knowledge and understanding of the ideas and concepts they were presenting. Sometimes as they worked this evolved as they added detail: vocabulary and visual examples. They worked effectively as teams, taking different roles, co-operating, sharing ideas and solving problems. Cross-curricular approaches were evident as students worked across the subjects design, art, science, English, mathematics and computing. 

Making stop motion animations allows people to move from passive users of technology to creative makers where the technology is a tool to create.

 

March 20, 2019
by Jean
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Exploring nature

There are signs of spring all around us! The Woodland Trust has lots of great resources to encourage children to be nature detectives.

With older pupils you might track the effects of weather and climate change by using the nature’s calendar resources here.

With younger pupils you might use the Nature Detective resources to  observe and explore outdoors here. This spotter sheet focuses on noting the first signs of spring.

 

 

 

 

Another useful set of resources is available from The House of Illustration, who have made a set teacher and pupil resources called ‘Illustrating Science’ based around plant life cycles and spotting nature outdoors which can be found here.

Reference:

Woodland Trust. (2019) First signs of spring. [online] Available from: https://www.woodlandtrust.org.uk/naturedetectives/activities/2016/01/first-signs-of-spring/ [Accessed 20/03/19]

 

February 11, 2019
by Jean
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Congratulations to our graduates!

FDLT and BALT students graduate in the winter graduation ceremonies at the Royal and Derngate theatre, Northampton. We send them all our congratulations and wish them well in their next steps!

 

 

 

 

 

February 4, 2019
by Jean
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New sculptures appear at Waterside!

This afternoon the FDLT Y2 students explored the sculptures placed around the Waterside site.



They then chose their own space on campus and made a maquette (the small model that a sculptor would make as part of the design process). They then used green screen technology (DoInk app and Ipads) to virtually place their sculpture in the space, manipulating its scale to fit.

Some of the sculptures are inspired the university experience (learning and graduating).

Some are inspired by the materials themselves.

Others are inspired by the site itself (railway heritage and wildlife).

Continue Reading →

February 1, 2019
by Jean
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Activity Passport

You may have seen in the news recently that the DfE have released details about an ‘Activity Passport‘. The announcement reads:”Primary school children will be challenged to go on a nature trail, visit a local landmark or make a treasure map through a new ‘passport’ of activities launched by the Education Secretary to encourage more family time and help build children’s character and resilience.

Endorsed by organisations including the Scouts, Girlguiding and the National Trust – as well as children’s charity Action for Children – the list of activities is intended to support parents and schools in introducing children to a wide variety of experiences and fulfilling activities like flying a kite, learning something new about the local area or putting on a performance.” (DfE, 2019, lines 1-9).

Many of you will have been aware of the National Trust’s “50 things to do before you are eleven and three-quarters” which you explore here. 

You can access an editable version of the passport here.

You can download the National Trust list here.

Those of you working on PDT1o64 or PDT2016 will be considering how we enrich learning and access resources and places to bring learning to life. What would be on your list of 50 things to do before 11? If you work with pupils over the age of 11, what would your list of 50 things pupils should do between 11 and 18 years?

Michael Rosen provides an alternative view to this initiative here.

References:

DfE. (2019) Activity ‘passport’ to inspire schoolchildren and boost resilience. [online] Available from:https://www.gov.uk/government/news/activity-passport-to-inspire-schoolchildren-and-boost-resilience [Accessed: 1/2/19]

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