Search results for "ta516"
showing 10 items of 614 documents
Physiotherapy students’ conceptions of skill at the beginning of their Bachelor studies
2015
Skills have recently received widespread attention in education policy documents and discussions. This article reports the results of research on Bachelor’s degree physiotherapy students’ conceptions of skill at the beginning of their studies. The aim of the present study was to examine how beginning students understand skill, and the focus was on conceptions of skill in general rather than on any particular skills. The participants of the study were 35 physiotherapy students. The data were gathered within the first two weeks of their university studies. Specifically, requested essays written by the students were analyzed using the phenomenographic approach. The data-driven analysis yielded…
Research lives of physical education teacher educators
2017
This paper aims to provide insights into the research worlds of an international group of mid- and late-career physical education teacher educators. Specifically, it explores participants’ motives for research engagement and choices, and investigates what challenges and facilitates their research efforts. Two rounds of individual in-depth semi-structured interviews were conducted with 14 physical education teacher educators across 7 countries. Findings point to a distinction between research motives. Embarking on formal theses or specific funded projects was often motivated by practical and contextual drivers, such as job requirements or a wish for promotion, and was associated with feeling…
Mentoring of new teachers as a contested practice: Supervision, support and collaborative self-development
2014
Abstract This article examines contested practices of mentoring of newly qualified teachers within and between Australia (New South Wales), Finland and Sweden. Drawing on empirical evidence from a variety of studies, we demonstrate three archetypes of mentoring: supervision, support and collaborative self-development. Using the theory of practice architectures, we show that (1) these three forms of mentoring represent three different projects: (a) assisting new teachers to pass through probation, (b) traditional mentoring as support, and (c) peer-group mentoring; and (2) these different projects involve and imply quite different practice architectures in the form of different material-econo…
How can i be a Better Teacher? Development of Finnish Adult Pre- service Teachers’ Pedagogical Thinking
2013
Abstract Adult students with experiences of teaching have often certain views about good teaching and a teacher. One of the most important roles in teacher education is to support future teachers to develop their pedagogical thinking systematically. Teacher's pedagogical thinking comes up in her/his actions and reflections on the teaching and learning situations. This article is based on research project which aims at to find out pre-service teachers’ progress in pedagogical thinking during three different practicums in Adult Teacher Education Program. The article will describe this thinking process during the first practicum which is carried out after three months studying.
Finnish interpretations of Creative Physical Education
2016
ABSTRACTWhen physical education (PE) teachers change their programs to incorporate something new, the process always involves some effort at interpretation and adaptation. The perceived benefits must outweigh the labour required to think through the possibilities and to then manage the political and logistical challenges that go hand in hand with achieving change of this magnitude. This paper tells the story of one such change process, which involved the interpretation by a small group of teachers in Finland of a set of pedagogical ideas and practices developed in Australia known as Creative Physical Education. The story involves a range of characters (including the authors) and conveys the…
Co-teaching as a context for teachers' professional learning and joint knowledge construction
2012
Abstract The study examined two primary teachers' professional learning and joint knowledge construction in the context of co-teaching. The teachers narrated their learning as a collaborative process with serendipitous origins. Shared knowledge construction was crucial in the learning process, as was implementing the resulting new ideas in practice. It is concluded that experiences of co-teaching may support teachers in meeting their professional responsibilities effectively. Professional development programmes need to be sensitive to teachers' individual and collaborative learning experiences to be able better to support them in the natural context of those experiences in particular local …
Teacher competencies in game-based pedagogy
2018
This study examines what kind of competencies teachers need in using game-based pedagogy (GBP). In our conceptual framework, GBP entails four approaches: using educational games or entertainment games, learning by making games, and using gamification in learning. Our data, consisting of teachers’ documentation, thematic interviews and questionnaires, were analysed using qualitative content analysis. Four main competence areas were identified: pedagogical, technological, collaborative and creative. The results are applicable for developing teacher education and in-service training, as teacher competencies in game-based learning will be more integral to teachers’ professional knowledge and sk…
Doctoral education reform in Finland : institutionalized and individualized doctoral studies within European framework
2017
In Europe, doctoral education systems have been systematically reformed. These reforms are aimed at improving the quality of research and the competitiveness of European countries. In Finland, the reform project of doctoral education started vigorously in the mid-1990s which has contributed significantly to the emergence of more structured doctoral training. The starting point for this article was a recent national follow-up evaluation of doctoral education in Finland. The results are based on qualitative analysis of a survey and interview data collected in the evaluation. The results showed that Finnish universities are launching the university-wide graduate school model. Each university i…
Longitudinal research on emotional and behavioural difficulties
2011
Longitudinal studies have a long history in social sciences (e.g., Phelps, Furstenberg and Colby 2002). The advantages of these kinds of approaches have often been named: we can investigate real de...
Assessing agency of university students: validation of the AUS Scale
2016
Fostering agency as a core component of professionalism is seen as a critical task of higher education. However, the tools for assessing university students’ agency, and the pedagogical and relational resources needed for its development, are lacking. The present study describes the theoretical foundations and factor structure of the newly developed Agency of University Students (AUS) Scale, which assesses students’ course-specific agency. In the factor analysis, ten factors emerged. Four of these – Interest and motivation, Self-efficacy, Competence beliefs and Participation activity – are seen to represent individual resources of agency. The other four factors – Equal treatment, Teacher su…