By Paweł D. and Bartek G.
Interview
On 16th may Paweł met the assistant professor and head of the laboratory of the University of Silesia Piotr Duda and asked him several questions about his opinion on our takes on the improvement of the schooling system.
Paweł: Good Morning
Piotr: Good Morning
Paweł: I’m Student from LO2 in Jaworzno and I’m going to ask you several questions. So let's start. Do you think that education based on modern technology and the internet will increase its level and accessibility of knowledge for an average student?
Piotr: Generally yes but there are some subjects like chemistry and physics that need to be done physically in school so students can easier get in touch with the subject. For example, experiments and manual works are more engaging in the laboratory or workroom. And there could be a problem of accessibility for some poorer students who don’t have good equipment and internet at home.
Paweł: Which one is more important in your opinion: Improvement of equipment or modernized curriculum. Why is it more important?
Piotr: Both of them are important because they complete each other. If you have a modernized curriculum but no or bad equipment, what great curriculum gives if you don’t have tools to teach and vice versa. But If I had to choose I would choose better equipment with some improvements to the curriculum.
Paweł: Now I will present to you some ideas we came up with our e-twinning group and tell me which ideas are sensible and possible to implement in our education. The first one is: learning sites to learn for yourself.
Piotr: I think that is a very good idea for students that want to learn more and those sites can be a big library of knowledge for everyone and from what I know sites like this already exist and I want to see them improve in the near future.
Paweł: The second one is: school bus as a suspension railway to save time and get to school faster from further away.
Piotr: It would be hard to implement because of two reasons: - students going to secondary schools and Universities often live in very different places far from each other and building such infrastructure would expensive. - In big cities, there is not enough space for this type of transport and infrastructure for it. But there are some places like small villages and towns where this could work.
Paweł: The third one is: Wlan for all students
Piotr: It is sensible and possible. Internet access for students in the school area is very important because it fights inequalities and gives poorer students more possibilities to learn more and learn more efficiently.
Paweł: The fourth one is: More freedom for students to use mobile devices for class.
Piotr: It depends on some students use modern devices during lessons to learn and some students get distracted by their own devices. I don’t think it is a bad idea but I don’t think it will work well most of the time but in some environments, this idea could work really well .
Paweł: The last one is: School app with timetable and etc.
Piotr: In Poland apps like this already exist for example Librus, and I think apps like that are great because they make the life of the student easier.
Paweł: Which one, in your opinion, is more important: group work or individual work or maybe both? Why is it more important?
Piotr: I think both are important. When people work individually they come up with ideas and later they show their ideas with the group where they improve the ideas together. Many most profitable corporations work like that so it shows that both individual and group work is important.
Paweł: And the last question: Do you think that this level of improvement is possible in the near future in Poland?
Piotr: It is possible to improve the level of education in Poland and we improve it all the time but many things depend on the government and ministry of education because teachers can’t drastically change the way of teaching without the change of curriculum. And if we changed the program drastically teachers would need some time to get used to the new system.
Paweł: So that was all. That you very much for the interview Goodbye.
Piotr: Thank you too. Goodbye.
A day later on 17th May, we connected with Anna Pławecka who is: Anna Pławecka – eTwinning ambassador, e-learning courses trainer, Aktywna tablica (Active Board 2020) Programme coordinator, former ELT teachers’ advisor, experienced active secondary school ELT teacher. Similar to the previous interview we asked her opinion on improving schooling in Poland this time we connected by MS Teams. You can listen to this interview below.
In conclusion, our school system is currently in need of improvement and is developed all the time. Some of our solutions such as school apps or learning sites are already in use for example Librus. Some of our notions like suspension railway are hard to implement right now but maybe in the future, it will be possible. We also learned that sometimes technology can be the opposite of help in learning because it can distract students. Individual work and group work are both very important and help develop different life skills. Also, we shouldn't focus purely on developing equipment in schools or curriculum because both are very important, and without improvement of both of them, education won't change for the better. We believe that schools and universities will continue to improve and our ideas may be a part of that development.