Search results for "ta516"
showing 10 items of 614 documents
Identity, agency and community: reconsidering the pedagogic responsibilities of teacher education
2014
This article presents a model for teacher education based on an ongoing action research project at a Finnish university. This model draws on the educational theory of Dewey and the pedagogical sensibility of Bakhtin to critically consider the concepts of teacher identity and agency and to highlight the role of community in teacher development. Our aim is to propose a model that supports the development of new directions in teacher education that would better prepare teachers to face the challenges in their future work by engaging with the educational community in the present. peerReviewed
Transforming Finnish Higher Education : Institutional Mergers and Conflicting Academic Identities
2017
<p style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"> </p><p class="RESUMENCURSIVA">As in many other European countries also Finnish higher education system has witnessed several reforms over the past decade many of which originate in efforts to make more competitive and affordable higher education system. The aim of this paper is to describe the changes and institutional mergers in particular that have taken place in Finnish higher education and explore what kind of academic identities are constructed amid changes in Finnish higher education. The paper shows that the mergers followed the objectives set by the Finnish Ministry of Education and Culture for the structural development of the hig…
Higher Education Reforms in Finland
2019
Finland has implemented several higher education (HE) reforms over the past decades in order to make its HE system more competitive in the global educational markets. These reforms are in line with the developments in other Western higher education systems in which the transposition of principles and philosophy from the private sector into the public sector has become more common or even a norm thus reinterpreting the economic, social and cultural basis of higher education (e.g. Exworthy & Halford 1999). Furthermore, the implementation of the reforms is a response to the rapidly changing needs of the labour markets. In Finland, Bologna process was partly incorporated to be part of the react…
ICT – the new frontier? Pushing the boundaries of careers practice
2014
Much progress has been made in integrating information and communications technology ICT into careers practice, but there is still room for improvement. An international lens is adopted to examine some key elements that contribute to the successful integration of information communications technology (ICT) into careers practice. We start by exploring the role of policy, using the UK as a case study. Next, the perceptions that Finnish career practitioners have of ICT are reviewed using research findings into the different ways they think about social media and its purpose in career services. Finally, lessons learned from the design and integration of online services within career development…
Exploring global responsibility in higher education students’ cross-cultural dialogues
2019
This study engages with current debate around global education and internationalization of higher education(HE). There is an identified need to critically reflect on how global education commitments are introduced to HE students, and how the debates are brought to individual as well as institutional levels. The study explores how students in a Finnish university develop their understanding of global education, citizenship and potential dispositions towards global responsibility. The students participated in an international seminar on the global Education for All (EFA) process, with purposefully planned participatory activities and cross-cultural dialogues, and reflected on their learning a…
Student teams’ development over time: tracing the relationship between the quality of communication and teams’ performance
2016
Current discussions in higher education and alumni training acknowledge the challenges training programs face in responding to the authentic needs of the labor market. In addition to academic knowledge, higher education institutions are expected to provide general twenty-first-century skills, such as problem-solving, critical thinking, collaboration, and interpersonal skills. To meet these challenges, many institutions utilize collaborative pedagogies such as learning in teams. However, teamwork in higher education tends to focus primarily on the task aspects of performance at the expense of the team aspects, and for educators, there may be no feasible way to assess whether the students are…
Teacher beliefs regarding learning, pedagogy, and the use of technology in higher education
2017
This study examines university teachers’ beliefs about the role of technology in achieving the pedagogical aims of learning within teaching development initiatives at a Finnish university. The initiatives targeted technology adoption in teaching and learning and were enhanced within teacher groups, with support from a university level network program. Thematic interviews were conducted with the members of 11 initiative groups, covering 18 teachers from various disciplines. The qualitative content analysis revealed diverse belief groups. Technology was perceived as a tool for: the promotion of self-paced studying without explicit learning aims; active and interactive learning; integrative le…
Career practitioners' conceptions of social media in career services
2013
This article reports the outcomes of a study, undertaken from a phenomenographic perspective, of career practitioners' conceptions of social media usage in career services. Fifteen Finnish career practitioners – representing comprehensive, secondary and higher education as well as public employment services – were interviewed in focus groups. The analysis of the interview data revealed five distinct descriptive categories reflecting the career practitioners' conceptions of social media's use in career services. Social media in career services was conceived as (1) unnecessary, (2) dispensable, (3) a possibility, (4) desirable and (5) indispensable. The results indicated associations between …
Higher education teachers' descriptions of their own learning : large scale study of Finnish Universities of Applied Sciences
2016
In this large-scale study, higher education teachers’ descriptions of their own learning were examined with qualitative analysis involving application of principles of phenomenographic research. This study is unique: it is unusual to use large-scale data in qualitative studies. The data were collected through an e-mail survey sent to 5960 teachers at universities of applied sciences in Finland. The number of respondents was 1622. Four hierarchically structured categories of learning were found: individual learning, collegial learning, team learning and innovative partnership learning. The role of teachers in higher education demands innovative partnership learning: being active at the socie…