Search results for "Educational Leadership"
showing 10 items of 39 documents
Qualitative study of social and healthcare educators’ perceptions of their competence in education
2019
Competent educators are needed to ensure that social and healthcare professionals are effective and highly competent. However, there is too little evidence-based knowledge of current and required enhancements of educators' competences in this field. The aim of this study was to describe social and healthcare educators' perceptions of their competence in education. The study had a qualitative design, based on interviews with educators and rooted in critical realism. Forty-eight participants were recruited from seven universities of applied sciences and two vocational colleges in Finland, with the assistance of contact persons nominated by the institutions. The inclusion criterion for partici…
Distributed pedagogical leadership and generative dialogue in educational nodes
2012
The article presents practices of distributed pedagogical leadership and generative dialogue as a tool with which management and personnel can better operate in the increasingly turbulent world of education. Distributed pedagogical leadership includes common characteristics of a professional learning community when the educational actors intentionally share a common mission. There, all stakeholders take collective responsibility for students' learning. Generative dialogue is a way to negotiate in this realm in generating new knowledge and understanding. To introduce this process in practice, the article describes two Finnish learning environments where the stakeholders define, first, the c…
The Role of Instructional Activities for Collaboration in Simulation-Based Games
2021
Tiina Lamsa (Ph.D.) has a Ph.D. of education and she is a qualified early childhood education and care (ECEC) teacher. She has been focusing on the questions of arts based research, visual and digital methodologies in childhood studies and cultural research, pedagogy and curriculum development, sustainable learning and educational leadership in the past several years. She is currently working as a university teacher at the Open University of the University of Jyvaskyla. Since the year 2006, she has been involved in several research projects that produced and developed electronic diary methods for use in research focusing on family life and children’s wellbeing. Her ongoing post-doctoral res…
Directors' stress in day care centers : related factors and coping strategies
2020
PurposeThis study aims to explore what causes stress to day care center directors and what their coping strategies are. In addition, the study examined the extent to which directors experience work-related stress and burnout, and the factors associated with their work-related stress, engagement and recovery from work.Design/methodology/approachA mixed method approach was used.FindingsThe results showed that the main sources of directors' stress were connected to leading oneself, leading others, managing change and lack of social support. Moreover, the main coping strategies with stress were leading oneself, social support and leading others. In addition, both pre- and in-service leadership …
Perspectives on Leadership in Early Childhood Education and Care Centers Through Community of Practice
2021
This article investigates early childhood education and care (ECEC) leadership through the concept of community of practice (COP). The focus is on ECEC leaders’ perceptions regarding their leadership during the educational changes taking place in the context of Finnish ECEC. The purpose is to increase understanding of how leaders see themselves in relation to the ECEC multi professional working community and practices of distributed leadership. The data are five focus group interviews of ECEC leaders analyzed with directed content analysis within the theoretical frame of domain, practice, and community forming the core of COP in Lave and Wenger. The results show how all three COP component…
Perceptions of early childhood education professionals on teacher leadership in Finland
2016
This study investigated perceptions of early childhood education (ECE) professionals employed at three ECE centres on teacher leadership enactment in Finland. These professionals comprised childcare nurses, teachers and ECE centre directors. Theoretically, the study was anchored on an analysis of teacher leadership and distributed leadership literature comprising research based in early childhood and school education contexts. Findings based on focus groups and interviews with participants suggest that teacher leadership was perceived as a responsibility of ECE pedagogy in Finland. Centre directors were considered remote from daily practice and leadership for pedagogy within the centres was…
THE IMPACT OF HEADMASTER’S LEADERSHIP PRACTICE ON THE FORMATION OF A PROFESSIONAL LEARNING COMMUNITY AT SCHOOL
2019
In the context of general education content reform initiated in Latvia, which also provides change of teaching approach, the issue of the role of headmaster has raised. The introduction and implementation of competence approach requires strengthening and development of cooperation between teachers in professional learning communities (PLCs) at school, in order to address didactic issues, regularly analyze pupils` learning outcomes and find best ways to increase the learning outcomes of each pupil, and give an opportunity for teachers to improve their teaching by sharing good pedagogical practice. The change of teaching approach prompts a revision of school management practices as well. In o…
IDENTIFYING FACTORS INFLUENCING SCHOOL LEADERSHIP PRACTICES: CASE STUDY OF LATVIA
2020
Based on the analysis of research literature and empirical data, the study aims to identify significant factors affecting school leadership practices in Latvia. In addition to studies of scientific literature, the authors used qualitative research methods – in-depth interviews with 7 school leadership teams of the same municipality and expert focus group discussion to describe the influencing factors that are relevenat in the context of Latvia. As a result of the study, the authors identified that school leaders’ work experience, beliefs and mental models, social skills and impact of the external parties have an influence on their practices.
Finland: Finnish Principal
2016
The presentation of principalship in Finland begins by giving an overall description of the Finnish education system and of the formal position of principals in Finland. The more detailed examination of the Finnish principal comprises two main sources. Both sources are reviews on research on principals in Finland in 2000–2010. The first one was conducted for the Swedish Research Council by Risku and Kanervio (Doctoral and regular research on principals in Finland 2000–2010. In: Johansson O (ed) Rektor – en forskningsoversikt 2000–2010 [Principal – a research report]. Vetenskapsradets rapportserie 4:161–186, 2011). The second one is a report by Alava et al. (Changing school management. Statu…
Globalization and leadership and management: a comparative analysis of primary schools in England and Finland
2006
This article analyses the impact of processes of globalization on both policy and practice in relation to primary school leadership and management in England and Finland. Data are drawn from case study research carried out from 1994–1996 in six schools in Finland and six schools in England and a follow‐up study on teacher professionalism (2001–2002) that involved 37 of the original participants being re‐interviewed. The article contributes to the ongoing debate concerning the extent to which global trends lead to homogeneity in educational systems or a ‘glocalized’ response. Such a glocalized response is derived not only from different cultural mediations at the national policy level but al…