Experiences in Catalonia

EXPERIENCES IN CATALONIA: CONTENTS

• SCHOOL PARTICIPATION CHARTS AND INTERVENTION SHEET
• CEIP DOG BESORA. Mollet del Vallès.
• CEIP SANT MARTÍ. Torrelles de Llobregat. Barcelona
• CEIP JOSEP GRAS. Sant Llorenç Savall. Barcelona
• CEIP DURAN AND BAS. Barcelona
• CEIP EL MARGALLÓ. Vilanova and Geltrú. Barcelona
• CEIP DOCTOR WRINKLE. drink Girona
• NADIS SCHOOL Barcelona
• THAILAND SCHOOL Girona
• CEIP ARNAU BERENGUER. The Palace of Anglesola. Lleida
• CEIP MONTENEGRE The Battalion Barcelona
• CEIP FOLCH AND TORRES. Palau-solità and Plegamans. Barcelona

PARTICIPATION GRAPHICS AND INTERVENTION SHEET

E-mails from the schools that have responded to the request for information

From the schools that have answered here you can see the ones that do class work with puppets and the ones that don't.  

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CEIP DOG BESORA. Mollet del Vallès. Barcelona  

Imma Buñuel, the director of the school, answered me very kindly and welcomed me to her school:

"We, at CEIP Can Besora, do not have an EE classroom. We are a Learning Community and we work with all the children in the classroom with the help of teachers and volunteers.

We work with heterogeneous interactive groups, both oral expression and the puppet corner. 

These groups are made up of 5 boys and girls and an adult who energizes interaction and motivates participation and learning. At the moment as we are a newly created centre 

They have the corner of costumes and puppets and they also have a corner of resources, in which there is material bought or made by the teachers to work on learning  

Puppets are not used for a specific type of therapy, but rather they are used to work on learning in ordinary classes.

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CEIP SANT MARTÍ. Torrelles de Llobregat. Barcelona  

 Sandra and Lorena, Special Education teachers, showed me the activities they do with the puppets.

They use them in speech groups (3-5 students) in the EE classroom.

There is a P3 group with students with a speech or language delay who go to the CDIAP and another group with P5 students (some have speech therapists from CREDA).

Each group has a puppet that welcomes and introduces the activities

(stories on paper, games, stories projected with the internet canon....). These two puppets are animals. 

"We also use puppets to recreate stories (eg the ladybug from the story the lazy ladybug).

When we tell another story, such as the little hood, we then stage it and each child plays a character (each at their own level).

Sometimes they choose different puppets and play a game of free expression where everyone communicates as they want.” 

The puppets they use are glove puppets. 

ORAL LANGUAGE CORNER P4- P5

"PHONOLOGICAL AWARENESS GAMES" are mainly worked on in this cornerin order to develop through the game some language skills that are fundamental in learning the written language.

The global method (visual skills) is not left out, but when necessary the pronunciation of sounds is emphasized (phonetic skills)

The work is oral and there is always a summary of the activity in the form of a file.

ORAL LANGUAGE CORNER P3 

The objectives are the following:

There is no speech therapy or phoneme articulation work.

In some sessions, a report is made of the work done.

In all these corners, Lorena and Sandra have the support of the puppets to introduce and carry out learning with the students.

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CEIP JOSEP GRAS. Sant Llorenç Savall. Barcelona  

Tere Abellan, EE teacher, explains her experience in the classroom with puppets

“My experience in the EE classroom with puppets is limited to a puppet I made myself with colored string and guided by fishing lines attached to a glove. Her little house is a box lined with glittery paper and she tries to be very magical.

I use it with a student who is in the 4th grade and has mental retardation and many difficulties in speaking. It is a project from the previous year and experience is informing me that Mr. Cordills needs a companion.

This student, at the teacher's suggestion, has built his own puppet. It's a yarn puppet with two gloves.

This contact with the special education teacher has been very beneficial and this professional has carried out another experience that I detail below: 

Title of the activity: We will make a "pel.li" of laughter!!!

It is about doing a puppet show with Mr. Cordills and Asuqui which are puppets built by ourselves. The performance will be filmed and passed on to the rest of the class later.

The work will be done from the special education classroom and will be carried out by two 4th grade students with different disorders. They attend the classroom individually, but on this occasion they will work together, because they are also very good friends.

Description of personal agents and mediating technology

The intention is to make a puppet show to publicize the work done by two students from the EE classroom to their classmates in the regular 4th grade classroom. The intention of these, which is not the first time they do a performance for the rest of the class, is to make them laugh.

The project will be planned by the students themselves and together with the classroom teacher, who will help them make the project a reality. The students' goal: to make their classmates laugh.

Objectives of the teacher:

The computer, the digital camera, the video, the projection cannon, consultations on different websites that we will write down later and we will use e-mails to communicate with two puppeteers; one from the village and another from outside the village. The writing of the text of the work will be done with word processing and the program to project the video through the cannon.

Personal agents:

Description of the departure problem in technological terms 

The use of different technologies to achieve our goal 

According to Jonassen we can say that the problem has the following characteristics in technological terms:

Well structured: Since we start from a well-defined initial problem (to make known what the students do in the EE classroom) and a goal (to make the classmates laugh).

Complexity: The problem in question would be of medium complexity, due to the moderate number of variables that act in the problem. 

The problem is context specific in that it is situated and embedded.

Based on the description of the initial problem, the mediating agent (the EE teacher) will manage, together with the students, a series of well-structured tasks with the children, with the aim of achieving meaningful learning by the students and that at the same time will give an answer to the problem raised initially.

Approaching the problem together with the learners

The use of puppets in the EE classroom to work on one student's oral expression difficulties and the other student's shyness and other peer relationship difficulties has been a fact since the previous year. At the beginning of this school year, the EE teacher contacted, and offered her collaboration, a puppeteer who has been granted a study license with the aim of demonstrating how puppets are a therapeutic means to work in US classrooms

The work approach arises from a proposal from the EE teacher What can we do with our puppets? The students begin to propose ideas that we write down on a piece of paper. Jokes, telling a story... We want to do a performance for the children in our class. We want to make them laugh!

We decide to also ask the opinion of the two puppeteers we know and via e-mail they provide ideas before starting our project. 

Context of the activity

The context will be in the EE classroom for activity planning. If necessary, the computer room will be used. The filming will take place in the audiovisual room during the hours suggested by the course tutor.           

The work, planning and execution sessions will take place according to the schedule of the EE classroom and in times that the two students already have assigned in the EE classroom.  

Cognitive, emotional, attitudinal and physical characteristics of learners

We set out to carry out the project with an excellent degree of motivation. Make a movie! for students with significant difficulties who will go on to become indirect protagonists of a filming is basic. 

The two students with different disorders will be the center of attention in their class. They will be the protagonists who will try to make their classmates laugh and distract them with a story invented by them.

The two students will do an activity for the others, but at the same time it is therapeutic for them for several reasons:

• It makes it possible to deal with topics that concern the students.
• They live the performances through the puppets as if it had nothing to do with them. They make a transference, in psychoanalytic terms.
• Representations in front of colleagues help to integrate them into the group, from the conception and work of diversity.
• They ensure confidence in their abilities and improve self-esteem.
• This motivation favors a collaborative and participatory attitude towards the development of the work. At a cognitive level, it will be based on previous knowledge in the use of technological means and the own level of oral and creative expression.

It is necessary to avoid possible frustrations and for this reason a good joint planning will be proposed with the help and responsible commitment on the part of the students. It is about successfully achieving the learning, which is meaningful and functional.   

Specific skills that the learner must achieve 

• Experience the creation of a puppet show in a guided way.
• Know how to create a script and dialogue to perform the performance.
• Make transcriptions with the Word program.
• Use e-mail as a means of technological communication.
• Familiarize yourself with the video camera.
• Work collaboratively, with meaning and functionality.

Contents

conceptual

• Extension and improvement of vocabulary and oral expression.
• Word text processing application.
• How email works.
• The basic operation of queries on different websites.
• The basic operation of the video camera.
• The operation of the camera.

Procedural

• Creation, planning and representation through puppets.
• Taking photographs with a digital camera.
• Filming with the video camera.
• Preparing to play the footage.

attitudinal

• Interest in overcoming the difficulties that arise.
• Respect for the material we use.
• Positive and collaborative participation in the activity.
• Personal improvement and to strengthen individual confidence and security.

Forecast of the sequence of activities and directions for action

The sessions will last 1 hour.

Session 1:

Session 2:

Session 3:

Session 4:

Session 5:

Session 6:

Session 7, 8,...:

This forecast may be altered according to the work rate of the students. It is necessary to ensure the success of the activity taking into account the characteristics of the students.

Psycho-pedagogical foundation of the design and link with the contents of the subject

Starting from the constructivist theory with which the school tries to work and taking into account the line and approach of this subject, I base the activity psycho-pedagogically with the following contributions:

• It starts from the prior knowledge and level and abilities of each student to build and expand knowledge in a constructive way.
• An activity with meaning and significance for the students because they proposed and created it themselves. 
• It starts from the motivation on the part of the learners.
• Plans and works through sharing and learning together; students, teachers, classmates from other classes.  
• Through the modeling of the EE teacher.
• It starts from a contextualised, globalized and inclusive task.
• It will allow both students to realize their own meaningful learning process.

The activity is thought and planned taking into account the context, the capacities and marked progress goals that we believe are possible. 

Evaluation procedures and criteria

A continuous evaluation of the entire work process will be carried out. It is necessary to value the attitude in a special way because they are special students.

The evaluation will take into account the objectives set in the specific skills.

The students' own self-assessment is essential. 

Bibliography

Jonassen, D. (2003). ICT and meaningful learning: a constructivist perspective, in Cabero, J. (coord.) New technologies of information and communication in education. Ed. UOC Barcelona

SURVEY CARRIED OUT BY THE TEACHER TO KNOW WHAT THE STUDENT THINKS 

Why do I like making puppets go?

What did you like most about making puppets?

Has it helped me learn to speak better?  

Do puppets help me feel good?

Are puppets like your friends?

OPINIONS OF THE SPECIAL EDUCATION TEACHER

The work carried out with Teia has been really profitable for different reasons.

On the one hand, we did some really therapeutic work with two students in the special education classroom. Two friends who never have the chance to work together.

On the other hand, global work has been done where ICT has been the means to carry out the initially planned work.

The priority objectives when planning the work were the expansion of the vocabulary and the improvement of the structuring of the sentences and oral expression, especially of one of the students. Personal satisfaction and being able to enjoy the school grounds with a non-academic task has been the goal of work for the other student.

Based on constructivist theories and meaningful learning, the two students were able to start from a problem, a topic they wanted to work on in order to plan and decide how they wanted to organize their own learning process. 

It has truly been a rewarding experience. Puppets have become a rewarding and motivating medium that has allowed, together with ICT and the application of constructivist theories, to do effective work at a therapeutic level. The two students have experienced what it means to be able to simply be themselves and show their colleagues what work they have done. His self-esteem has changed. The two students are happier and have more interest in finishing their academic work well. 

I think that this fact can complement what Teia wants to demonstrate in her thesis. The puppets have helped two students feel emotional and emotionally confident about themselves and at the same time verify that despite the differences between the diversity they are them. Santi and Toni. Two students capable of doing beautiful tasks that make their classmates laugh.

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CEIP DURAN AND BAS. Barcelona  

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CEIP EL MARGALLÓ. Vilanova and Geltrú. Barcelona  

Here I am transcribing the explanations that Anna Sanchís, Special Education teacher, has so kindly given me:

“I am working at the CEIP El Margallo in Vilanova i la Geltrú. El Margaló is an ordinary school of one line with 8 UEE.

I have worked with students with severe and permanent SEN as a speech therapist for 10 years and as a UEE tutor for another 6 years. 

I wanted to send you some proposals for working with puppets that I have been using during these years in Margaló.

I also wanted to tell you that I find the subject of your study permit very interesting.

So, I'm going to explain the proposals for working with puppets. I will use the "intervention sheet" that you suggest...

• Age of the student.

• Stage and level of schooling of the student.

• Pupil disorder.

• Types of puppets used in the activity.

• Explanation of the activity with puppets. 

ACTIVITY 1

Pupil disorder

Autism spectrum disorder.

Objectives of the activity

• Work on aspects of the student's emotional behavior linked to behaviors of denial or avoidance:
• Difficulty changing situations (leaving school when his mother comes to pick him up...).
• Resisting a situation of change (running away, shouting, getting very angry... when he sees his mother coming to school...).
• He starts to get anxious when the moment of change approaches (walking up and down, "talking to himself", not wanting to pick up, refusing to leave class...).
• Check these behaviors or others that resemble them using the puppets.
• Incorporating elements of change in the face of denial/avoidance behaviors (looking for "other endings" for the situations experienced, using characters who act as "mediators"...).

Activity methodology

It would be about "recreating" emotional situations that are difficult for the student to resolve without making it clear that "these" are their own behaviors (trying to find a certain "emotional distance").

Use "mediator characters" who propose "new endings" for situations and help contain emotions.

Stage the situations with these "new endings" (different behavior patterns).

ACTIVITY 2

Student disorder

Muscular dystrophy. Difficulties in emotional development.

Objectives of the activity

• Work on aspects of the student's emotional behavior linked to situations of loss and grief:
• Being able to express emotions such as anger, sadness, fear...
• Stage experienced situations that are difficult for the student to elaborate on (risky situations, difficulty walking, falls...).
• Being able to express one's wishes (walk better...).

Activity methodology

It would be about "recreating" emotional situations that are difficult for the student to resolve without making it clear that "these" are their own behaviors (trying to find a certain "emotional distance"). 

Use "mediator characters" who propose "new endings" for situations and help contain emotions. 

Stage the situations with these "new endings" (different behavior patterns).

• Observations

In this work it is important: 

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CEIP DOCTOR WRINKLE. drink Girona  

Maria Bahí, the special education teacher, explained her experience to me:

"We have some puppets in the special education classroom, as well as some dolls basically to work on language and relationship issues between individuals, but we don't have any generic project of puppets, other than that it's just another resource.

The activities we do are mainly simulations of real situations, such as going shopping, domestic situations (breakfast, conversations at home after school, family conversations before going to sleep,...), playground situations, trade simulations ,…”

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CEIP NADIS Barcelona  

We are the Nadís Special Education School, and we have worked with puppets on the stories.

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CEIP THAILAND Girona  

Célia Díaz, special education teacher, tells me about her experience: 

"For a few weeks I have been trying to get Sergi to work with theater and puppets, he has quite a few difficulties in the field of relationships andthe expression do first Since I had a special interest in the comics of Massagran and Benet Tallferro, he made it easy for me. We made sock puppets and since we almost know the stories by heart we are ready to start putting them down and start improvising different situations with these characters. Or at least that's my idea. I have to tell you that so far he has done the 95% of the work (he approached the comics and started asking me to play the characters), what I try to do is see where I can sneak into his world to help - him to go out to ours."

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CEIP ARNAU BERENGUER. The Palau d'Anglesola. Barcelona  

5 year old student.This child's learning level is approximately P3. He has a generalized delay at all levels: motor, learning and speech.

The activity that is done with the puppets is based on the representation or dramatization of routines and activities of daily life, such as: bedtime, breakfast, lunch and dinner; the sequencing in morning, noon, afternoon and night, hygiene, etc. The puppets are clothes that represent a family: father, mother and two children.

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CEIP MONTENEGRE The Battalion Barcelona  

This experience that follows is carried out by Merche Polol, an EE teacher who, after replying to my e-mail saying that she was very interested in the project, asked me for help to work on the habit of pooping in the toilet with a 5-year-old student from P-4, with moderate mental retardation with difficulties in the articulation of language (the A.). I prepared an activity with puppets to achieve this learning, and he sent me the result of the activity.

"I put it into practice two weeks ago, in two consecutive sessions.

I prepared a box as you told me and put it in front of me on a table and the animals inside. Then I was reading the story, which I had hidden, I was taking out the characters as I was naming them. Then once he explained this character, he stuck it in front of the box with "glutac" and so everyone was present when the chick finally comes out and represents that everyone is happy that it poops.

Then the story ended very soon, maybe I should go on a little longer. And then they went, because they were in a circle, to their place and I explained to them that we were going to make a puppet, with the animals that had appeared in the story. They were very happy. I taped them to the board so they could see them in case they wanted to color them the same and handed out the different animal templates. 

Desprès ens varem dedicar la tutora i jo a ajudar-los a punxar amb el punxó, aquí potser els va resultar més complicat per algun revolt que hi ha en algun dels dibuixos i clar ells seguien la línea negra del dibuix i varem haver d’enganxar més d’un bec perquè el van punxar o alguna cua. Però res que no es pogués solucionar. Els varem ajudar a posar la tija amb celo i així varem passar les dues hores. Va anar justet de temps, perquè la construcció ocupava més del que em pensava. L’A. estava molt content i tots els nens també. I van sortir amb el seu titella a casa contentíssims. Però he de dir que m’ha faltat la part d’anar al vàter amb els ninotets. Al dia següent l’A. em deia «el pollet que fa caca» i crec que si puc treballar amb ell més periòdicament, alguna cosa en trauré però estic ara que em passo els dies, les setmanes (bé porto tot el curs) substituint i no puc fer treball continuat amb els meus alumnes.

The truth is that it is very "cool" and I really liked it, it is encouraging and the message reaches the children much easier. Oh! we were also able to do the performance with the children alone. It was really fun because while they were painting it among the small groups on the tables, they were playing at being a family of animals. And we had a great time at the performance. They felt totally protagonists!! I plan to do it again before the end of the year and I don't know if I will be there next year at this school, but if so, I would start with A. already in the first trimester. Auntie, a hug and thank you very much.” 

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CEIP FOLCH AND TORRES. Palau-solità and Plegamans. Barcelona  

Teacher: Maria Teresa Martínez Moner

This is an experience I had in 1999, when I was remedial at a primary school, with a student with a personality disorder.

"This student, P., was a person with psychotic features. Aggressive with the teacher, with peers, with teachers, obsessive... As you know, people with this personality disorder do not take into account the rights and feelings of others. Most characteristically, they express their conflicts impulsively and irresponsibly, sometimes with intense hostility and violence. They are often unable to foresee the negative consequences of their antisocial behavior, and have no sense of guilt. 

Punishment rarely changes their behavior or improves their judgment or foresight, but instead confirms their view of a world without feelings.

This student has been in school since Kindergarten. He went to individual classes with the Special Education teacher for a few hours a week, and individual reinforcement classes for a few hours as well. I was in charge of giving him these reinforcement sessions, since it was decided from the direction and tutoring that they would be positive sessions for him and for the rest of the class, since in this way the rest of the class had a time to work normally (the 70% of the time with him in class was impossible to do). 

He was a student who only participated in tasks that interested him. He was therefore predisposed to always show his skills or knowledge to the other students, finding in this way a self-affirmation in front of others.

The reinforcement that I began to do with Fr., was what had been planned since tutoring: to strengthen his knowledge of the Social and Natural Areas. I soon realized that we were not going that way. And I started looking for resources to capture interest and create an effective work habit.

Being a very curmudgeonly and aggressive child with a terrible lack of affection, I decided to start building a string puppet between the two of us and learn how to manipulate it to channel feelings.

The yarn puppet proposed was very simple, it was made of a handkerchief and five balls (head, hands and feet) it had three threads on the head and two that made the hands and feet move at the same time. It is a puppet with limited movements but very expressive. One of the important features of this puppet is that its manipulation requires a very controlled and slow movement to convey actions or feelings. That's why I chose this particular guy, since P. was the complete opposite. 

In the first session I brought him the marionette (string puppet), and manipulated it in front of him. I showed him the mechanisms he used for manipulation (command, wires..) and as a directed physical action on his command, he moved one part of the body or another at will. I also showed him how the character could express things (emotions, actions...), how he could have a soul. And especially that I was the one who caused these situations and that the threads and the puppets were transmitters. An unexpected reaction from him was to want the puppet to come up to him and kiss him.

Then I let him handle it. He was very receptive. He started by trying to do the movements I had done, and kept asking me how they were done. Then I suggested that we build a doll like that together and that it would be for him. He was excited.

The second session was purely plastic work. I brought the materials and he painted it and gave it personality according to his judgment. He was also very cooperative.

In the third session we started to manipulate the marionette. I would stand next to him with my puppet and he would do the same movements with his.

Later I tried to create situations between the two puppets. He was obsessed with whether those puppets could fight. I told him yes. And we started a mock fight. But the curious thing about the case is that he was very careful not to "hurt" the characters (when at school he had self-harmed and hurt classmates and teachers). Later I created situations of getting close, of caresses, in definitely try to remove the sensitive part. There were really tender moments. All these scenes were short. It was important to maintain the tempo, otherwise the exercise would not have been useful, since the student's characteristics did not allow him to spend a long time doing the same task, so that it would be effective. With a personality disorder like Fr's, it was hard to believe how he could convey such delicate feelings. At that moment, he was using the puppet as a transmitter of his own feelings. It was a very fresh, relaxed and rewarding experience. Both for him and for me.

In another session we brought the puppet to class. It wasn't planned but he asked me. He handled it in front of everyone but was more self-conscious, even though he had the approval of the rest of the class at the time. 

One thing that surprised me was that once the sessions were over he didn't want to keep the puppet, because he told me that I would take better care of him, that if he took it away it would break, that at home they would lose…..

It's as if he doesn't want to have any emotional attachment to any object.

Later we worked on shadows, juggling and magic. I read to him (stories, historical facts, curiosities that had to do with the sciences...), we shared our opinions about them, he informed me about the subjects he knew... but that's another story."