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MODEL OF TRAINING IN ECOLOGICAL AGRICULTURE BASED ON ALTERNANCE

PHASES OF THE PEDAGOGICAL MODEL

This pedagogical model reflects the views onli of the authors, and the Commission cannot be helt responsable for any use wichs may be made of te information contained there in

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INDICE

INTRODUCTION. 3

OBJECTIVES OF THE PROCESS. 4

METHODOLOGY. 5

Dual education. 5

The Work Plan. 6

The intellectual processes of the Work Plan. 7

The Practice Notebook. 9

Relationship with Practice companies. 10

RELATIONSHIP OF PRACTICES. 11

PERSONALIZED EDUCATION. 14

THE SMALL GROUP. 16

ASSOCIATED TRAINING. 18

PERMANENT EDUCATION. 21

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INTRODUCTION.

In alternance training or dual education students learn through a system in which the periods in a company are alternated with periods of in school classes, that is why one can speak of school-life alternation and not only of school-work, because, although it is primarily through work, this working concept involves life in society: company, leisure, social relations, family, etc. In this alternation, school is enriched by the daily life, and the life is enriched by the school in a mutual creative process.

In short, the dual education system can carry out an educational process that starts from the concrete needs of the students and their families. This process makes it possible not only the individual learning in rural areas, but also enables the search for solutions to problems: employment in rural areas, dynamism and social development, involvement of the business sector in training for employment, etc.

Training practices aims to assist students in the acquisition of professional skills through a joint process of training and employment, allowing them to combine periods in a school or training centers and in the workplace.

Alternance training allows

To associate the contents of the curriculum to life, work and the social environment

Practices in educational alternation

Analysis and reflection on the socio-professional environment

Achieve the practice of active pedagogy

Becoming a true protagonist of his/hers learning process

Involving professionals in the educational task

To search for solutions to improve, and avoid generational gaps

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OBJECTIVES OF THE PROCESS.

Increase the sense of responsibility and initiative.

- Through professional-work activity. - Conducting studies, surveys. - Contacting with other people. - Participating in the life of the people of the group, in the environment in which

it develops knowing its problems and concerns.

Socialization.

- Group life. - Exchange of experiences.

Ability for reflection, reasoning (development of intelligence) and maturity.

- Integration of knowledge acquired from reality. - Observations, analysis of professional results. - Work and study topics. - Developing a Field Notebook.

Personal Expression-Communication.

- Different actions and responsibilities. - Writing texts.

Important factors in students learning

The professional field

Develop their own capacities

Perform a concrete technical task

Improve their income professional and socially

See the profession as a means of self-fulfillment

Develop as a person in all its aspects

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- Oral expression.

Ability to organize work.

- Organization of professional work. - Development of a Field Notebook. - Search for documentation. - Accuracy, order, method at work. - Participation in the development of the work.

Aptitude for lifelong learning.

- Participation in meetings. - Information research. - Associated training. - Progress in knowledge acquisition. - Use of documentation. - Interest in knowing more and more deeply the professional subjects.

METHODOLOGY.

For this, previous to the practice the student prepares a task to develop during that same time called "Work Plan".

Dual education

Allows to achieve the objectives

The student is absorbed in the professional issues

Sees the need for a complementary theoretical training

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The Work Plan is divided into chapters each of which consists of an affirmative sentence and a work questionnaire.

The affirmative sentence establishes the problem that will be studied in that chapter. It is the hypothesis of a real situation that motivates the student to reflect on his own situation and puts him in a dynamic attitude.

Following that introductory phrase follows a series of inquiring questions that define the subject. The following questions lead to comparing this fact with other facts. From this comparison comes the reflection on the causes, advantages and disadvantages and consequences of a given fact. The last questions reduce the subject to its most essential aspects, placing it in its more general lines.

The Work Plan

Is a script based on questions regarding a particular professional subject

This script summarizes the issue among students

It focuses the students' interest and defines the field on which to reflect The Work Plan aimes to cover the stage of motivation of the students Is the element that catalyzes questions and dialogue

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THE INTELLECTUAL PROCESSES OF THE WORK PLAN.

1. Discussion in class:

It is a time of consciousness about the proposed theme. The progress of the discussion allows each student to become aware of their ignorance or insufficient knowledge. Finally the teacher stimulates the desire to deepen this knowledge.

2. Search for the method to prepare the Work Plan:

An operation requires the facts and observations provided and a subsequent abstraction to outline lines of action and opinion. A good behavior on the part of the teacher will quickly mature these first intellectual habits of the student.

3. Drafting of the Work Plan:

With this Work Plan, students will develop their professional work in a company and will focus on the most important part of their personal work during the duration of the practice. The Work Plan must be developed during the internship period and will give place to the Practice Book in which the student will have made all kinds of notes and observations as he or she gradually solves the Work Plan. The student must have a period of time each day to record the results of

Preparation of the Work Plan Scheme

Introduction Element

Formal Example

Analítical Fase

Comparative Elements

Reflection Action

General Conclusion

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their work and the new questions that may arise to ask the person in charge of supervising their practices. With all this material, the student will write his/her Practice Notebook (a first draft), which will be later corrected and updated, in the form of the final Workbook.

Design of the Work Plan

Time for practice in companies

Development of practices Development of Practice Notebook

Theoretical Training Activities

Development of the Final Practice Notebook

Global Sequence of alternance training

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THE PRACTICE NOTEBOOK

The didactic goals of the Practice Notebook can be grouped into four sections:

1. It represents an awareness and a curious perception of ordinary life.

All people live a real situation but not everyone questions the meaning of all this nor reflects on it. This reflexive awareness is what holds the Practice Notebook because it invites the student to dialogue, to inquire, to understand a certain situation and to inquire about the problems presented.

2. It favors the intellectual maturity of the student.

This development is carried out in five phases, which correspond to the five phases of global development of the practices.

a) From the school to life:

In class, the teacher makes the student reflect on the reality that surrounds him in a first intellectual act.

b) Reflection in life:

The hypotheses formulated will lead the student to live in a reflective way, seeking the yes’s, the no’s and the whys. The written report that is made obliges him/her to write down, classify and order reality.

c) Confrontation of the results with those of the other colleagues:

Through a Settlement, the student moves from the domain of the questioned facts to the search for the deeper reasons.

d) The teacher provides the scientific data required by the questions.

e) The student gives an answer that is always an unfinished answer.

3. It promotes the human and social development of the student.

Their social relations (knowing how to ask, dare to do it, organize a survey, etc.).

4. Develops the quality of oral and written skills.

The Practice Book is made of data and opinions that the student collects personally in response to the questions made in the Work Plan. All this work constitutes the first draft of the Notebook that the student develops and takes with him at the end of the alternation.

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The teacher/trainer reads and studies alone and calmly, taking note of errors, incorrect expressions and other points to improve. Then he meets with the student to make all the relevant observations.

Then each student with his Notebook and with his results will make the socalled Settlement that serves for the student to overcome his own particular case and expand his perspective on geography and the difference between men and the solutions they give to the problems psychologically.

The student thus acquires the sense of what is relative and, at the same time, the sense of his individuality in the heart of the group. This dialogue activity involves a deep intellectual and social training. Intellectual because it will improve their expressive talents and their analytical capacity. Social because they will learn to understand the diversity that occurs in all manifestations of human life.

The teacher conducts the session taking care of the order of the interventions, of their expressive correction, highlighting the important points or guiding some intervention that move away from the central theme. Through the questions or comments he must suggest and discover new perspectives.

With all the data of the Settlement a final report is made and is incorporated in the Practice Notebook. It must be a correct, well-structured and concise text.

The Settlement is one of the best tools for improving oral expression. Joint discussion of different points of view or information on a given topic is a spur that arouses interest and excites the exchange of information.

Finally, it improves students' ability to reason and abstraction.

Within the resources of the Practice Notebook, all means of expression are used: texts, sketches, graphic representations, photographs, drawings, etc. Its interest lays not only in the different communication capacities but, above all, in the learning of notions such as proportion, perspective, scale, etc., which are very important for the student's total expressive capacity.

Once the Practice Notebook has been completed with the Settlement, it is rewritten and the final Workbook is made.

Relationship with Practice companies.

A collaboration agreement is made between the company in which the student can carry out his practices and the entity in charge of carrying out the theoretical training.

Each of the students will have a personal tutor from the entity that carries out the theoretical training. This tutor will be in charge of carrying out a personalized tutoring with the student.

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In this personalized tutoring will be analyzed various aspects of work and the evolution of student learning throughout the classes and also practices.

This teacher/tutor will also be responsible for the control of the student during his internship periods.

This control will happen fundamentally in two aspects:

- During the internship period the tutor will go to the company in which the student performs the practices to have a meeting with the student and the person in charge in the company who will assist him/her.

- During the periods of theoretical training the tutor will hold periodic meetings with the student to analyze the development of the practices in general and the Practice Notebook in particular.

In the practice company the student will have a specific mission to perform and a person in charge of attending and checking his skills. The student will have full freedom to be able to carry out the Study Topic by asking the relevant questions to the person or persons who can best answer him. Sometimes the study topic will lead him to go out and ask other companies because the topics can be more specific.

The results of these surveys will inform the person of the company who is in charge of their internship (practice) period. These topics will be discussed later with the students tutor.

In this way and little by little the student will prepare the Practice Notebook that will be corrected personally by the tutor and will follow the work plan described above for its final elaboration.

RELATIONSHIP OF PRACTICES.

1. Preparation of the land and implantation of crops in ecological farms.

2. Prevention and management of agro-ecosystem health.

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PRACTICE Nº 1. PREPARATION OF THE LAND AND IMPLANTATION OF CROPS IN ECOLOGICAL EXPLOITATIONS.

PRACTICE NOTEBOOK.

Introductory element.

The preparation of the soil is done to avoid that hard layers are formed that will limit the movement of water and air through it, which will favor normal growth of the roots, in addition, it incorporates plant remains from the previous crop and fertilizers that are going to reactivate the activity of the organisms contributing to maintain the natural fertility of the soil.

Aspects to be determined.

Describes how the organic farming farm is organized: soil management, subsystem systems, associations and crop rotations.

Analytical phase.

• Determines which are the most important factors when managing the soil of an organic farm production.

• Explains how important the various ecological tasks are (tillage, fertilization, associations and rotations) and how they affect the agro-system: strengths and weaknesses when preparing the land and implementing a crop.

• Conducts a survey of 4 organic producers to gain a more global view of soil management.

• Analyzes the impact of land management on the crops being planted.

Comparative elements.

• Compares soil management systems and how they have evolved over time. (What was done before, what is done now).

• List the differences in land management that he finds among the 4 organic producers interviewed and his farm practice. Which are they.

• Explains that there are possible differences or no differences. • Explains how soil management can evolve in the future.

Attitude of reflection.

Are the methods used in soil management grounded? What are the most important results? To what extent does the organic producer solve the problems that arise on the farm land? After the acquired experience, what factors are the most important in the ecological management of the soil? How does it favor established cultivation later on? To what extent do farmers have a technical qualification?

General conclusion.

Make final conclusions by expressing their reasoned opinion on the experience gained in this practice.

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PRACTICE Nº 2. PREVENTION AND MANAGEMENT OF AGRO-ECOSSISTEMS HEALTH.

Introductory element.

Phytosanitary issues are often of great concern to farmers as they see them as a major cause of the loss of crop returns. In Organic Agriculture, these issues are also of concern, although there is a much broader vision of crop health. The most sustainable is to avoid the need to systematically combat pests and diseases. If this happens it is that we are forcing too much soil and plants that we cultivate and that our farm has little biodiversity.

Aspects to be determined.

Describes how a phytosanitary calendar of the crops is carried out in the organic agriculture farm: common parasites, time of appearance, preventive measures, control measures.

Analytical phase.

• Determines which are the most important factors involved in the phytosanitary control of two pests and two specific diseases of a given crop.

• Explains how important cultural work is to prevent pests and / or diseases. • Conducts a survey of 4 organic producers to take a more global view of

phytosanitary management in organic farming. • Discuss the best treatments with vegetable broths against insects and fungus.

Comparative elements.

• Compares the evolution of phytosanitary protection systems in organic farming, explaining why they are due. (How it was done before, how it is done now).

• Lists the differences in the phyto-pathological management of pests and diseases that they have found among the 4 organic producers interviewed and in their practice farm. Which are they.

• Explains are the possible differences due from. • Explains how phytosanitary management of pests and diseases can evolve in the

future.

Attitude of reflection.

• Are the methods used in pest and disease management adequate? Which are the best results? What factors depend on the results? After the experience gained, what are the most important factors in the organic management of pests and diseases? What are the advantages of associations and rotations? To what extent do farmers have adequate technical skills to manage pests and diseases?

General Conclusion.

• Makes final conclusions by expressing your reasoned opinion on the experience gained in this practice.

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PERSONALIZED EDUCATION

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PERSONALIZED EDUCATION.

Personalized education is one of the most important pedagogical aspects. Students are considered as a unique and unrepeatable person with specific particularities that differentiate him or her from others. The student seen as protagonist of his educational action, the educator seen as a friend, with a driving roll, a person that helps the individual and group educational actions.

Openness means opening up to rural society to offer what it has received from it, being an agent of intervention and development of its own environment, in order to modify and improve it.

Personalized training is the most important way to achieve an educational relationship based on help and service to the student, not on paternalism or servility, but on an authentic student-educator relationship where communication, dialogue and goals of improvement are the bases that are orchestrated.

On the part of the team of educators, educational actions are planned that contribute to personalize the education. Each student is specially assisted by his tutor who performs the role of animator and guide of the process of personal, professional and social development.

Personalized training makes each student feel has the protagonist of their educational process, and that is assured the necessary help for the development of their personality.

Personalized Educational is included in each and every one of the phases that constitute the alternation system.

A personalized system is characterized by being global, comprehensive and adapted.

a) Global: It addresses all aspects of the human dimension.

b) Integral: Attends equally to all the components of the person.

c) Adapted: Taking into account the singularity of the student: his personal, family, professional and social situation.

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THE SMALL GROUP

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THE SMALL GROUP.

This system works with a small group of students, which allows the teacher/trainer a greater attention. These students come from different backgrounds, which contribute to a mutual enrichment not only in a personal level, but also in a professional, geographic, ethnological and cultural one.

In the periods that students stay in the centre they take care of all the functional aspects of the school, living as in a micro-culture: they are responsible for schedules and material.

In this way the coexistence developed in school becomes one of the most important aspects in the acquisition of routine and social and human attitudes.

Students’ live real opportunities to exercise both democratic values and those that correspond to human and spiritual dimension of human beings: tolerance, respect, responsibility, solidarity, order, dedication, companionship, etc.

Human relationship between peers and between students and trainers is built by a series of formal and non-formal activities during the periods inside school, which allows a relationship of authentic friendship and also personal and group strengthening.

In short, the main advantages of this small group are the following:

a) The development of a human environment and responsibility capable of developing attitudes and values .

b) A harmonious, serene, trusting, cheerful, optimistic, affective, responsible and lasting educational relationship (teacher-student) is possible.

c) Learning to work individually and in group; the work initially is individual but always thinking about the group. In the group the personal experiences are debated and the conclusions obtained are capable of enriching the collective.

d) A wealth of experiences and knowledge is obtained that allows to acquire knowledge of the social and cultural reality beyond one’s own possibilities.

e) Bonds of affectivity are established that lead to value and accept personal differences, to become aware of the group, to identify with the environment and to want to modify and improve it, each one from its particularities and, of course, from the community.

f) Promotes the student as the protagonist, making him an active subject of his own educational process.

g) The Student is personally and socially responsible for doing his best to contribute to the promotion and development of the rural environment, each with total freedom from his active work and from his involvement in social, political and economic structures.

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ASSOCIATED TRAINING

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ASSOCIATED TRAINING.

One of the characterizing elements of this pedagogy (active and participative) is the associated training: general training is associated with the professional training, from classroom to life, from which it receives the raw material for reflection.

The didactic elements to achieve this associated training are the elements that make up the whole process: the Study Plan, the Study Visits, the Common Conclusions, the Professional Conferences, the Technical Courses that intend to give answer to the reflection or subject of study.

This pedagogy makes possible, thanks to the alternation education, to produce a teaching-learning method centred on problems, but unlike other systems that have used this method, all the problems and needs on which the whole study arises are real, authentic, without any simulation.

Around this centre of interest, problems or real needs revolve around the didactic elements, which constitute the whole set of technical resources that allow not only the teaching-learning process, but also a space for reflection, analysis and confrontation of the environment to which students belong.

The Methodological application of associated training suppose structuring it in several stages:

a) Observation: The student directly observes reality since it is involved in it through professional work. With this method, the observation goes from being passive to being active and systematic.

This is where the Curriculum becomes the didactic element capable of putting in gear the alliance of associated learning that will allow obtaining a more practical, technical, scientific, social and cultural knowledge of its own reality.

b) Association: When the student has actively observed his reality, ideas and results of this observation are new elements of learning.

This phase makes possible the confrontation school-life, school-work, school-society, theory-practice, etc. and causes the student to submit to an intellectual process that goes from concrete to abstract, from particular to general , from action to reflection, from questioning to problem solving.

c) Expression: The analysis of the reality studied, through all the didactic elements, are recorded in the Company Notebook, the instrument where students express in writing everything they have researched and discovered in their own reality, as well as the proposals of improvement that proposes to modify the environment, or solve in a scientific way the problems that have been raised.

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In both periods (in business and in school), the student has the opportunity to express his problems, his observations, his difficulties in action, his own reflections and those of others, his conclusions and his proposals for improvement.

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PERMANENT EDUCATION

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PERMANENT EDUCATION.

Permanent education is a concept that not only covers the entire life of the person, but also takes into account all dimensions of the human being. So much so that the Permanent Education is not something artificial that is done to better adorn the alternation pedagogy. Permanent Education is the implementation of all the actions and purposes that lead to specific responses to specific problems, not only of the students, but also of professionals and the entire rural population that participates and is involved in the processes of professional, economic, social, cultural, and other processes f development.

That is why, apart from non-formal education for adults, various actions are taken with the goal of meeting the aspirations of rural population and therefore provide the community with certain programs and classes aimed to the improvement of one's own work, job creation and self-employment, occupational guidance, personal promotion, etc.

The actions of Permanent Education are directed in parallel to adults who are entering for the first time the work market, and the rural groups that are a suitable means to satisfy their professional, educational and cultural needs.

In short, the permanent training of rural population aims at allowing the constant personal training of people, and as a consequence, makes such needed social dynamism possible for implementation of successive processes of improvement of living conditions and rural development.