Energizer - the most important activity

5 minutes is everything you need to wake up your audience - 5 minutes is decisive to the concentration level and amount of focus in the classroom, staff meeting or Thursday afternoon workshops.

We all now it, we have all seen ourselves almost fallen a sleep to a "death by PowerPoint all day long- kind of workshop".

Energizers is the key, the key to a higher level of concentration, a significantly presence, a break that gives energy instead of reminding you about how tired you are. Move a little, have a laugh and if it's important you can actually learn something in the mean time.

While planning a workshop for my colleges at school i found this catalogue with 100 different energizers. They are easy to understand, simple to implement and it's possible to find something for all different kind of purpose and audience. It's the best catalogue I have seen for a long time so have a look next time you have to plan find it here.

Thanks to the International HIV/AIDS Alliance for publish the catalogue online and for the well animated, easy accessible inspiration.


Often energizers are well functioning on their own, and in meetings or workshops at a workplace the purpose is often just to raise the energy level/move a little and have a laugh.

I thought that in school environment we can use energizers as part of our teaching and let the students learn and move around at the same time.
So I'm planning a workshop with energizer involving learning as well and I would like to share my favorite one so far, as a little inspiration:

Matching phrase and definition – class activity 

Write a phrase and its definition/example on two different pieces of paper. You need as many pieces of papers as you have students, so each person has either a phrase or a definition/example.  All papers get fold and placed in a box,  each student pull out a piece of paper from the box. Now everyone has to find their match.

Don't be afraid of planing 5 minutes of a moving activity next time you are responsible for the agenda. It makes your audience way more aware of the things going on simply because energizers give energy to the brain and system. People will remember better and be more focused - I promise;)

The Link

I finally found it. The link! The link between my education and job, the connection between my professional and personal life, the bridge to my ongoing development.

I love professional as well as personal development, I constantly challenge myself and I'm searching for a new place or role as soon as it makes sense- sometimes too soon.

I have joined a mentoring program here in Dubai called "The Link" with a vision as ambitious as I am:

"Our vision is to have a generation of women with more confidence and leadership capacity to reach their goals and contribute to the growth of the UAE." the-link.org

I will attend as a Mentee and will get a Mentor to support me in achieving my goals and develop my potential. We will both learn more about ourselves through honest conversation and reflective questions - I hope!

I'm really hopeful about the program in general. I'm wishing to get a goal for the future, for my career, to find the right track for me,  and most importantly all the steps of the "how-to-get-there-process". It's maybe a little ambitious, but hey, that's how I'm.

I have already attended the introduction program, which was a full day of different tasks getting a ground level knowledge of mentoring and especially the mentoring we will experience in "The Link". I walked away with a really good feeling inside: This will be the beginning of my future journey.


  

What does a LSS do - the actually work

I am now fully into the job as a LSS (learning support specialist) and able to explain a bit about the job. Every LSS is given one main student to work with most of the time, being responsible for the overall development, to create a contact person for the student and to have weekly contact with the parents. Most of the students with full support have support in every lesson (mostly except PE though).

In the beginning of the school year we all worked with our own main student, full time. Now we have started swooping around so we work with different students, with the aim of getting variation in our work, get challenged in a new way, work closer together as a team as well as the students learn to work with different adults – at least for a few hours per week.

The support we do is support in normal lessons. The aim is that our students can participate as equal as possible with their classmates for normal teaching. We sit next to the student in the classroom and remind the student to focus, repeat the things the teacher have explained and basically helps and motivate the students in their work. In collaboration with the teacher we modify the curriculum so it’s more suitable for the students understanding and level.

A lot of these students are not only struggling academically but often with their social and life skills as well which mean we sometimes have to step into the learning process of life as the role model we are.

Uddannelsesvidenskab IRL

For English version see below

Jeg er blevet kontaktet for at høre om jeg kunne tænke mig at bidrage til et arrangement der skal give "nye" uddanelsesvidenskab'ere inspiration til, hvordan man kan bruge en BSc i UDV.

Og selvfølgelig har jeg lyst til det.

Oplæget fra arrangøren lød på følgende refleksionsspørgsmål:

- Hvad har jeg lavet siden jeg blev bachelor i Uddannelsesvidenskab? 

- Hvordan ser jeg mine uddannelsesvidenskabelige kompetencer i spil på arbejdsmarkedet? 

- Hvilke overvejelser har jeg gjort mig i forhold til ikke at tage en kandidat? 

- Hvilke drømme har jeg for fremtiden? 

Og nedenfor kan du så se resultatet der blev til et synes jeg selv ganske godt første videooplæg. 

English:
I was asked to do a video presentation about my work experiences after graduating. I'm one of the few who started working instead of studying and therefore i'm able to inspire some of the current students on the bachelor education in educational science. The above video is my result. Unfortunately there is only a danish version.