Meaningful Learning Experiences in the Finnish Teacher Education

2017

During the last few years the change of the school and how the school should change in the first place to meet the challenges of the future have been discussed a great deal. The talk has begun of the cross-disciplinary competences, referred to also as transversal (generic) competences in the curriculum, and of developing teaching towards the integrated modules called multidisciplinary learning modules in the reformed curriculum of the basic education. The multidisciplinary learning modules promote the reaching of the objectives set for the basic education and in particular, the development of the cross-disciplinary competences.This research was carried out in a Finnish class teachers' adult…

Adult Pre-Service Teachers Applying 21st Century Skills in the Practice

2014

In this research we present how a group of Finnish adult pre - service teachers (n=21) incorporated 21 st CS through their methods of working instructional methods in the final practicum in autumn 2013. The research material consists of pre - service teacher’s practicum plans, taped lessons and written practicum synthesis. The nature of teaching has changed significantly during the past decades, as a result of which teaching has never been more difficult or more important. This is a challenge also for teacher education programs. The adult teacher education program at Kokkola University Consortium Chydenius focuses on developing 21 st century skills (21 st CS) to enhance the use of technolog…

A Small Special Needs Class or a Smaller Class at the Beginning of the Educational Path?

2016

<p>This article is based on the case study which focuses on the small class (in this article used to describe a small special needs class) operation of one medium-sized Finnish town. In the study an attempt was made to clarify what kind of alternative the small class is to the first grade of general education at the beginning of the child's educational path, what kind of experiences the teachers had of the pupils of the small class, of multi-vocational cooperation and of pupils' integration and success in general education. The results of the study showed that a large part of the pupils who come to the small classes had learning difficulties, and attention and behavioural disorders. I…

Creating a questionnaire for a scientific study

2016

Using questionnaires has become a permanent part of collecting data in scientific studies within the sphere of human sciences as well as other disciplines. It has been utilized already for nearly a century in collecting data. The first questionnaires were carried out on paper but nowadays there are e-questionnaires alongside it which can be carried out through e-mail or published on a social media platform (for example, Facebook). An often used method is also a survey which is carried out with a research project's own web page, association or company etc. A questionnaire has been considered as an actual scientific method of data collection since 1930s. However, it was already used a little …

The development of children's language and ethical media competences and media skills

2015

The children's developing media competences and media skills are evaluated in this article on the basis of the evaluation indicator developed by Hautaviita (2012). The indicator has been developed for measuring the 6–9-year-old children's (the preschoolers and the pupils in grades 1-2) media competences. In it, the children's developing media skills are divided into practical, social, language and ethical media competences, of which this article concentrates on the last two, language and ethical media competences. The research material has been collected by observing sixteen Finnish children closely for a year. In this article, we aim to describe the development of these media competences a…

Teachers of the Future in Digital Learning Environments

2016

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 …

Ungdomar och alkohol - hur förhålla sig till saken

2002