The Art-Based Methods in Developing Transversal Competence

This article describes a project called “The art based methods in developing transversal competence” funded by The Finnish National Board of Education. The article is based on the hermeneutic phenomenological approach in action research. The project developed learning environments as well as project-based learning with emphasis on the art-based methods and transversal competence approach to learning. The aim was to develop unique and communal well-being in learning. The project offered tools to strengthen teachers’ professional skills to use expressive, art-based methods in different curriculum-based projects. The professional in-service training project included five contact days in six we…

From everyman's right to everyman's possibility

This article describes a blended learning study module that was carried out in class teachers’ adult education. The goal of the planning of this module was to create a learning environment that would give a student an optimal learning experience in versatile, authentic, e-learning environments. In the study, the ubiquitous learning model was based on the principles of transformational pedagogy (OED). The module was carried out in flexible and versatile learning environments based on transformational pedagogy, where knowledge also included command of the 21st century teaching skills 21. The theoretical framework of the study module followed the model of contextual-pedagogical model [18]. The…

Teaching Is a Story Whose First Page Matters : Teacher Counselling as Part of Teacher Growth

The starting point of the study is the work counselling process taking place in the induction phase of the students’ teaching career. The work counselling process consists of activities that support and strengthen the students’ teacher hood and their primary function as teachers by helping them to analyse their work and to attach to working life as newly graduated teachers. In this study, we use contextualisation and storytelling in the frameworks of positive pedagogy and systems theory to reflect on the students’ growth process as teachers. We also acknowledge the importance of Vygotsky’s zone of proximal development and, related to that, timely learning support (scaffolding) and a solutio…

Towards new challenges in Finnish pre-service teacher training

Teacher training in Finland is facing a situation in which it is necessary to develop new ways to organize education according to the needs of the students and society. There is an increasing demand for a more flexible teacher study program that would make it possible for students to face the future challenges in more versatile ways. This qualitative study investigates pre-service teachers’ professional development during the 6 ECTS credits learning period in multiple authentic 21st Century learning environments in Primary school teacher training. This article provides an opportunity to discuss and develop primary school teacher training to help pre-service teachers to adapt themselves to f…

Good learning environment perceptions of good quality in comprehensive schools by pupils, parents and teachers

Live-roleplay as a tool – using real world operation cultures as tools for learning

Anyone, who has ever been at school, has some kind of an idea how does a good learning environment look like. It is an everyday environment for those who attend to school themselves, or it comes close through their children. For some, it is just a distant memory. In any case, most people have an opinion about it. Imagine: straight lines of desks, people sitting alone in a row, daily program split into four to five different lessons, etc. When we think of today´s students - as Tapscott (2009) highlights – they are more open, more active, more broad-minded and less prejudiced than early generations – nonetheless our schools still look similar to those hundred years ago. This article examines …

Teachers of the Future in Digital Learning Environments

The iPad-education, or tablet education generally, is perhaps the most talked-about phenomenon in education at the moment. However, there are still only a few concrete researches on how the iPad is used in pre-service teacher training generally to re-new learning processes and environments in primary school environments. This article focuses on pre-service teachers´ manners of approach to use iPads in the beginning of Primary School Teacher studies in January 2015 in Adult Teacher Education in Kokkola University Consortium Chydenius. The first inquiry of the research project was carried out in January 2014 when the students had just received their personal iPads for their use. This article …

Oppimisen kontekstit ja pedagogiikka oppimisen mahdollistajina

Jokamiehen oikeudesta jokamiehen mahdollisuudeksi

Uudenlaisten pedagogisten mallien pohjalle suunnitellut opintokokonaisuudet lisäävät yliopistojen opintotarjonnan saavutettavuutta ja antavat yksilöille paremmat mahdollisuudet elinikäiseen oppimiseen. Luokanopettajien aikuiskoulutuksessa on käynnissä laaja oppimisympäristöjen kehittymistyö, jossa e-oppimisella on näkyvä sija. Aikuisopiskelijoiden elämäntilanne luo haasteita täysipäiväiselle läsnäololle ja siitä noussut tarve on nähty Luokanopettajien aikuiskoulutuksessa myös mahdollisuutena laajentaa henkilökunnan pedagogista osaamista uudistavien e-oppimiskäytänteiden ja pedagogisten mallien suunnittelijoina, kehittäjinä ja toteuttajina. Luokanopettajien aikuiskoulutuksen 25-vuotinen taiv…

Live, Laugh and Love to Learn Turning Learning from Traditional to Transformational

In recent years, educators and policy makers have been focusing on student achievement and well-being. After the great Pisa -success and glory, Finnish researchers have risen up discussion about future skills, school activity and motivation – fields where Finnish students haven’t indicated so well. Quickly changing 21st century challenges teachers to see life outside the school and recognize not only the core subjects but also the key skills needed outside there. When transferring from traditional to transformational education, one has to imagine new ways to think about teaching and learning. The research project, introduced in this article, focuses on transformational pedagogic and the que…

The Early Bird Gets The Word Games and Play: Creating a Context For Authentic Language Learning

Early foreign language teaching has recently been made compulsory in Finland, making this an area open to development and innovation where policy - makers and teachers play a significant role in creating new kinds of learning environments, operating cultures, and pedagogy for foreign language learning. This article discusses the early foreign language learning landscape in the context of early foreign language learning theory, initial education pedagogy as well as functional foreign language learning. The cornerstone of this study is the Contextual Pedagogical approach to Learning, which creates a bridge between the theory and practice of early foreign language learning, creating an inspiri…

Context and Pedagogy as Signpoints to Authentic Learning Paths

In the Finnish National Core Curriculum for Basic Education (2014), the conception of language is based on the communal and functional linguistics model of language. From the perspectives of teaching and learning, this requires that learning contexts and pedagogies enable learning in such learning environments, roles, and processes where the pupil can think and act authentically, according to his or her age (OPS 2014, 287). Thus, in this article we examine the integration of subject teaching with topic teaching in the frameworks of sociocultural learning, functional linguistics, and authentic learning, in the contextual-pedagogical learning landscape, where the individuality of learners as …

Vertaistyönohjauksen käsikirja

Opettajuus on tarina, jonka ensi lehdillä on merkitystä -eikä ainoastaan opettajuus, sillä induktiovaiheeseen panostaminen voidaan tutkimusten valossa nähdä merkityksellisenä sekä yksilön ammatillisen kehittymisen että yhteiskunnan näkökulmista. Tässä työelämään siirtymiseen liittyvässä ohjauksen käsikirjassa esittelemme edukatiivisen vertaistyönohjauksellisen prosessimallin. Malli on kehitetetty osana Jyväskylän yliopiston rahoittamaa hanketta, jossa tarkastelimme tutkimusinterventioiden kautta opiskelijoiden siirtymistä työelämään ratkaisukeskeisen, edukatiivisen vertaistyönohjauksen tukemana (Meriläinen & Piispanen 2022). Edukatiivisen työnohjauksellisen menetelmän tavoitteena on tukea t…

Cultivating a Language of Compassion in Higher Education

Uusi lukio - uskalla kokeilla! : pedagoginen ikkuna koulumaailmaan

The Early Bird gets the Word

Success in an increasingly globalized world sets requirements for versatile communication skills and understanding about other cultures. One of the keys to success is versatile language skills, on which the European Commission spoke out as early as in 1995, recommending that every European citizen should learn two foreign languages in addition to their mother tongue. Now, more than twenty years later, the launch of early A1 language teaching that is to begin in the first grade in Finland, in January 2020, is a significant step towards this goal. Studies show that early foreign language learning needs to be carefully carried out in order to achieve positive effects and the effects that have …

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Ubiquitous Learning in Appropriate Learning Environments

This article concentrates on blended learning study module that was carried out in class teachers’ adult education. It offered the students versatile, unique, individual and communal possibilities to fully study in authentic contextual environments, exploiting virtual tools. The goal of the planning of this module was to create a learning environment that would give a student an optimal learning experience in versatile, authentic, e-learning environments. In the study, the ubiquitous learning model was tried out in a 6 credits’ study module for class teachers’ adult education that was based on the principles of transformational pedagogy (OED). The module was carried out in flexible and vers…

Life's Learning Path Towards Cross-disciplinary Competencies : An Assessment

At the moment, the changes affecting school and education are topics of discussion more than ever before. The new core curriculum for basic education (2014) and digitalization of learning tools serve as major ignitors of discussion: nowadays information and communication technology reach the teacher and the pupil elsewhere, not just in the ICT class of the school - it moves wirelessly everywhere, backpacks and pockets too. The change in school and in education is not only the new introduction of premises, places or tools but also above all the updating of the teachers' professionality to correspond with today's ideas of good learning and of realizing the curriculum as a part of the pupil's …

Assessment as a Possibility for Individual Learning and Success in Contextual Pedagogical Learning Environment

One of the most significant current discussions in the field of education is the rapidly changing world around us. So far, however, there has been little discussion about teacher education and its role in this changing process. We are slowly moving from constructivist learning theory towards to sociocultural theory of learning where learning is according to Kumpulainen, Krokfors, Lipponen, Tissari, Hilppio and Rajala [1] viewed as a holistic and dynamic process, in which the individual grows into the culture of the community, its values, practices, and artifacts. The research project, introduced in this paper, focuses on transformational pedagogic and the questions of assessment in the lear…

Hyvä oppimisympäristö : oppilaiden, vanhempien ja opettajien hyvyyskäsitysten kohtaaminen peruskoulussa

Teaching is a Story Whose First Pages Matters – Four Type Narratives From The Beginning of a Teaching Career.

From a broad perspective, the entire time spent in teacher training can be characterized as a period of professional growth. Specific professional growth and development are realized when the students enter the advanced stage of master's studies to independently practise their profession in their own class of pupils. The uncertainty of a novice teacher and, on the other hand, the ‘burden of competence’ gained from teacher training make this induction phase very sensitive and critical, as all the competencies they have obtained during teacher training should culminate in this specific phase. The development of a student into an independent teacher is a growth story in which each person's ide…

Creative Work Flows for Learning : kontekstuaalis-pedagoginen oppimaisema oppimismotivaation herättäjänä

Play as Part of Learning - Learning as Part of Play

Flexible and individual learning and teaching have repeatedly been a topic of conversation in the last few years. Teachers and parents as well as pupils hope that a child would be seen as an individual in school, in such a pedagogical environment where a child's daily life and his inherent way to play and learn form a coherent whole. This research article is based on a pedagogical development project of learning environments. The research target is a school in a mid- sized town in western Finland. The school has a pre- school group and three joint 1st and 2nd grade classes. The focus of this research article is the school's way to take into account individual and flexible learning and teach…

Opettaja oppimaiseman arkkitehtina

Assessment as a Possibility for Individual Learning and Success in Contextual Pedagogical Learning Environment

One of the most significant current discussions in the field of education is the rapidly changing world around us. So far, however, there has been little discussion about teacher education and its role in this changing process. We are slowly moving from constructivist learning theory towards to sociocultural theory of learning where learning is according to Kumpulainen, Krokfors, Lipponen, Tissari, Hilppiö and Rajala [1] viewed as a holistic and dynamic process, in which the individual grows into the culture of the community, its values, practices, and artifacts. The research project, introduced in this paper, focuses on transformational pedagogic and the questions of assessment in the lear…