Browsing by Subject "opettajuus"

Tiivistelmä - Referat – Abstract The purpose of the research is to find out whether agency appears during the years of study of classroom teacher students, what kind of alternative education choices students have and how social relationships and the social environment appear in education-related choices. In addition to this, I examine limitations that slow down or prevent the realization of the student's agency. Previous studies have shown that strong initiative is an important necessary skill in a changing and uncertain society, both in the labor market and in other areas of an individual's life. Studies have also shown that the realization of agency in a teacher's work contributes to the development of one's own work, enjoyment at work and commitment to work, as well as active learning and stronger agency of students. The research is part of the University of Helsinki's BAT project (2017─2022), which aims to obtain research information on the functionality and effects of the 2017 degree reform and the relevance of the development process of student teachers. Student classroom teachers (N=12) from the University of Helsinki who started their studies in 2017 participated in the semi-structured thematic interviews. The interviews were analyzed using material-based content analysis. The interviewees' own growth and the development of future work, as well as agency and its practices, were strongly present throughout the interviews. Noticing one's own development was also strongly related to meaningful learning experiences. The interviewees' speech also revealed several factors that limit and slow down the agency, such as structural restrictions, problems related to course content and scheduling. Based on the results of the research, it can be stated that the agency of classroom teacher students should be supported even more by creating more spaces for opinions during classroom teacher training, the opportunity to implement their own style of teaching during internships, and to receive constructive feedback on their own actions and the opportunity for dialogic reflection with the teaching teacher. It is also important to recognize the limitations of agency that appear during the course of student teacher studies, so that students can be supported in a timely and affirming way.

The growth towards class teachership – what kind of a teacher one is as an individual and in relation to others and what one strives to achieve – continues throughout teachers’ whole career. Teaching practice and related supervision which are part of teachers' education have a significant effect on their growth. Cooperative teacher supports and advises the student teachers and prior studies have discovered that cooperative teacher's conceptions are easily transmitted to the students. The purpose of this thesis was to examine how cooperative teachers’ conceptions affect their supervision, what significance they perceive their supervision has towards students' growth towards teachership and what kind of challenges they experience in supporting the growth of their students. Data was collected by interviewing eight cooperative teachers from one official training school as well as municipal schools. The interviews where analysed using phenomenography with a data-driven approach. Answers to the research questions were explored by constructing categories from the conseptions of the cooperative teachers. Theoretical framework consisted of the concepts of teachership, teacher practice supervision and cooperative teacher. Cooperative teachers perceived that class teachership consists of diverse duties of a class teacher and that teachership is a profound phenomenon. The teachers' conceptions of class teachership were similar to their conceptions of a good class teacher. The cooperative teachers did not seek to transfer their conceptions of teachership to the students but they acknowledged that they transfer nevertheless. Teachers strove to improve their students and teach them that there is no one correct way to be a class teacher. There was variation in the cooperative teachers’ perceptions of the significance of their supervision in students' growth towards leadership. The cooperative teachers did, however, believe that they had several ways of supporting the students' growth. The experienced challenges in supervision were difficult students, problems in supervision relationships and challenges rising from the practice environment. Attention should be paid to the selection and further training of the cooperative teachers in order to guarantee equal and qualified supervision of the students in their growth towards teachership during their teacher training.

In this Master’s thesis I researched teachers’ experiences on dog-assisted interventions. This thesis’ two research questions were: 1) How dog-assisted pedagogy supports teachers’ professional development and profession as a teacher? 2) What kind of positive effects dog-assisted pedagogy has to pupils’ studying? Frame of references includes inspection of teachers’ profession and inspection of what kind of effects animal-assisted interventions has to child’s mental, social and physical well-being. I explore teacher’s profession from concepts of teaching philosophy, professional development, professional identity and motivation. I interviewed four teachers, who use dog-assisted interventions in their teaching. Interviews were half-structured. All of the teachers were dealing with special needs in their work and trying to respond to the needs with dog-assisted pedagogy. Three of the teachers were special education teachers and one of them was class teacher. All of the teachers had completed self-motivated, official course about dog-assisted interventions (10 credits). I analyzed the interview data with phenomenography. I also reflected my own position as an interviewer, so I could make this thesis more reliable. I present research results in two different chapters. In first chapter I reported results of how dog-assisted pedagogy supported teachers’ professional development. Dog-assisted pedagogy was central part of the teachers’ teaching philosophy. With dog-assisted interventions, teachers could combine their hobby with dogs and work. There was five features that were typical to teachers’ who develop themselves professionally: positive orientation to risk taking, openness to change, willingness to do experiments in the classroom and openness to criticism. Dog-assisted pedagogy and feedback from pupils and parents motivated teachers at their work. It took time, money, planning and effort to use the dog-assisted interventions at their teaching work. In the second chapter I reported results of how the dog effected pupils’ studying. Teachers reported that the dog had positive effects on pupils’ emotions: dog’s presence calmed children, made class’ atmosphere better and contributes joy and happiness to studying. According to analyze the dog-assisted pedagogy motivated pupils to study, served pauses to classes and school day, effects on concentration and increases action-based teaching. The challenges of the dog-assisted teaching were related to colleagues and work community. Based on former large mass of international research and this thesis results, I propose that dog-assisted pedagogy could be motivational, action-based and effective intervention and tool to teachers. Dog-assisted pedagogy could also be a good tool with pupils with special needs.

The purpose of this study is to find out why adults with a profession change career into teaching. This study also aims to find participates motives to perceive a career in teaching, their perceptions about teacher's profession and the reasons behind the career change. The research approach of this study was qualitative. Ten subjects, teachers and teacher students, participated in this study. Three of them were primary school teachers, one secondary school teacher and one vocational teacher. Five of the participates were teacher students, four of whom studied to be a special education teacher and one a primary school teacher. Nine of the participates were women and one man. The data was collected between years 2014-2015 using open, electric questionnaire. Questionnaire included background information about participates and eleven open questions. The data was processed using content analysis. Results that came up from this study were processed in regard to theories and earlier studies. According to this study the most important motives to become a teacher were the participates strong respect for teacher's profession. They felt that teacher's profession is significant and important in the society. Important motives were also the desire to work with children and adolescent and the possibility as a teacher to influence positively in children and adolescent's future. In this study the inner motives to perceive teaching as a career were more significant than the outer motives. As outer motives the participants mentioned benefits of the profession such as a long summer vacation, regular, family friendly working hours and academic education. Much more positive aspects were linked to teachers profession than negative aspects. Teachers profession was seen as important and significant in the society. Humanity, variability, diversity, creativity and the possibility to work with children and adolescents were seen as positive sides in teachers profession. Negative aspects in teachers profession were the society's demands for teachers, hurry, intensity and lack of resources. Participants changed career for many reasons. Student teachers motives to become a teacher have been studied for many decades. This study brings new, positive aspects to why older career changers with more life experience perceive career in teaching.

This research aims to understand the motivational factors of the first year class teacher students to seek their way into the industry as well as their expectations towards the studies. The target is also to study the most meaningful experiences of the studies described by the third year class teacher students. Analyzing the motivational factors of the individuals entering the industry provides understanding why class teacher studies are so popular and what are the driving factors towards the industry. The class teacher studies are facing a variety of different types of expectations that are actively changing within the society and its diversified structure. Despite the fact that class teacher studies have been seen as practical academic education, during the past few years the relationship with theory and practicality has been questionalized. The research was conducted using qualitative research methods. The research material was collected using narrative thematic interviews. Eight first year students and four third year class teacher students were selected to the interviews. First group of interviews were conducted in the autumn of 2017 and the second group during the autumn of 2019. The interviews were recorded and transcribed after which they were analyzed following the principles of thematic analysis. The first year class teacher students had applied to the industry from many different back-grounds and driven by diverse set of motivational factors. The most significant motivational factors for entering the industry were social factors as well as own personality and values related to it. There were a vast set of expectations directed to the class teacher studies. The studies were desired to provide readiness to act in a practical manner and developing individuals professional identity towards the ideal profile of a teacher. Third year class teacher students felt that the studies had enhanced their professional identity as well as developed their pedagogic and academic skills. The teacher apprenticeship included in the studies had been experienced as the most meaningful part of the studies, which is the reason for desire of more practical content to be included in the class teacher studies.

The study focuses on the Nepalese 8 grade Mathematics, Nepali language and Social study teachers' confidence to teach their own subject. Every skill, such as teaching skills, brings with uncertainty and insecurity creates a need for security. The aim of the master's thesis is to research how substance knowledge, the teacher's personality, pedagogical knowledge and classroom management, and their components are connected to each other. In addition, has been researched how much personality, pedagogical knowledge and classroom management, explain the teacher's self-perceived competence assurance to teach. Altogether, 1224 of Nepalese teachers responded to the survey. The survey sample was stratified. The questionnaire, teachers were asked to assess their teaching confidence in their teaching subject and its sections, on a scale of 1 to 4. Many studies have been done about teaching and the teacher's impact on learning outcomes. That has been considered as a possible cause of Finnish students' good learning achievements. Since the schools have small differences between them, it is easier to study the teachers and the teaching effect of the student's achievements in a country, where the school differences are considerable bigger. According to Hattie (2003, 2), the teacher effect is 30% of the student learning achievements, in Nepal the corresponding figure is 68% (Acharya, Metsämuuronen and Metsämuuronen 2013, 281 316). The study examined by tree-analysis how personality, pedagogical knowledge and classroom management elements are linked to educational confidence and by regression analysis how much these independent variables explain together the effect of the phenomenon. According to regression analysis, there are age, teaching years, assessment, professional development over the last two years, and the curriculum understanding and using, as well as the school equipment shortages. The study found that the most confident were those teachers who were under the age of 30 teachers; who had teaching experience five years or less; who used the project work as assessment; who experienced that they understood the objectives of the school curriculum, and in addition they experienced to implement it successfully. This study was empirical and explorative work and the results obtained on the regression model shows that the model explains 9.5% of teacher's confidence to teach their own subjects. As regression model explains less than 10% certainty, is the teacher's teaching confidence and competence a good follow-up research object. Another good object would be to compare the self-perceived reliability and the validity of the comparison of the measured whether teachers' own experience of the same qualifications as a measurable skill.

Tutkimus käsittelee millä tavoin opettajan toiminta ja osaaminen näyttäytyy kahdessa eri varhaiskasvatussuunnitelman perusteissa. Analyysissa pohditaan asiakirjoissa esiintyvää kuvaa opettajan piirteistä ja ominaisuuksista. Tarkastelen asiakirjoja ajan tuoman muutoksen näkökulmasta. Varhaiskasvatuksen opettajuus on ollut valtakunnallisesti puheenaiheena uuden varhaiskasvatuslain myötä. Varhaiskasvatus nähdään osana yhtenäistä kasvatus- ja koulutusjärjestelmää ja uusi varhaiskasvatussuunnitelman perusteet painottaa pedagogiikkaa ja korostaa varhaiskasvatuksen opettajan pedagogista vastuuta. Mielenkiintoni kohdistuu siihen, kuinka se näyttäytyy toimintaa ohjaavissa asiakirjoissa. Aineistona käytin varhaiskasvatussuunnitelman perusteita 2005 ja 2018, joista uudempi on velvoittava normiasiakirja, ja pohdin niistä nousevien teemojen merkitystä opettajuuden näkökulmasta. Asiakirjojen välillä oli yli kymmenen vuotta, joka toi tutkimukseen ajan näkökulman varhaiskasvatuksen suunnitelman sekä opettajan osaamisen kehittymisessä. Tutkimuksen tarkoituksena ei ollut vertailla asiakirjoja toisiinsa, vaan ne muodostavat aikalinjan, jonka avulla voidaan pohtia samankaltaisuuksia ja mahdollisia muutoksia. Tutkimus toteutettiin kvalitatiivisen sisällönanalyysin keinoin aineistolähtöisesti. Asiakirjojen tekstistä välittyi tietty kuva opettajuuden normeista, joita ei suoraan ilmaista. Yleinen teksti listaa opetusta suuntaavat arvot ja tavoitteet, mutta vaatimusta tietyistä kasvatushenkilökunnan piirteistä, ominaisuuksista tai tavasta toimia ei esitetä, vaikka ne ovat välttämättömiä, jotta asetetut tavoitteet toteutuvat. Varhaiskasvatussuunnitelmista nousi selkeästi laadullisia määritteitä opettajan toiminnalle, jotka tulivat välillisesti esiin oppimissisältöjä kuvaavissa tekstikappaleissa. Vaikka varhaiskasvatussuunnitelman perusteet 2005 ja 2018 ovat luonteeltaan erilaisia ja ne ovat tuotettu eri lähtökohdista, voidaan silti havaita tietty suunta, johon varhaiskasvatuksen opettajan työnkuvaa johdetaan. Opettajalta työ vaatii laajaalaista osaamista ja työn toteuttamiseksi edellytetään yhä enemmän ammattitaitoa ja asiantuntijuutta, jopa poikkitieteellisesti. Tämän lisäksi opettajalla täytyy olla sensitiivisiä ominaisuuksia toimiessaan varhaiskasvatusikäisten kanssa, joka korostuu uudessa varhaiskasvatussuunnitelman perusteissa.

In this study, the actions of teachers are examined in the light of attachment theory. Attachment theory explains individual behavior based on early childhood caregiving experiences, leading to the formation of either a secure or insecure attachment model that influences an individual's behavior in close relationships throughout their lifespan. In attachment theory, the teacher-student relationship is seen as an attachment relationship closely resembling the bond between a child and a parent. The focus of this study is on the role of the teacher, aiming to investigate how the teacher's insecure attachment model affects the teacher-student relationship and whether it influ- ences the use of specific disciplinary methods in the classroom. Discipline is categorized into five common methods, as identified in previous research: angrily shouting at students, sarcasm, humiliation, collective punishment, and removing students from the classroom. The study employs a quantitative research approach, gathering data through an online survey from 134 teachers. The survey includes the use of ECR-R, STRS, and Discipline Scale instru- ments to examine teachers' attachment patterns, the quality of the teacher-student relationship, and the use of five different disciplinary methods. Data analysis involves analysis of variance and correlation testing. Respondents are categorized based on their attachment patterns, resulting in 101 secure and 33 insecure individuals, including 12 with avoidant attachment, 10 with ambivalent attachment, and 11 with fearful attachment. The results of the analysis of variance indicate that there is a statistically significant or nearly significant difference between teachers with secure and insecure attachment models in three var- iables measuring the quality of the teacher-student relationship. In the closeness variable, a nearly significant difference is observed between securely and ambivalently attached individuals (p = .040). In the conflict variable, a nearly significant difference is observed between avoidantly and ambivalently attached individuals (p = .024). In the dependence variable, statistical signifi- cance is found between securely and ambivalently attached individuals (p = .008) and between avoidantly and ambivalently attached individuals (p = .002). According to the correlation test, in- secure attachment has a statistically nearly significant correlation with angrily shouting at students (r=.35) and collective punishment (r=.377). Additionally, it is observed that secure attachment has a statistically significant correlation with the use of sarcasm (r=.311) and humiliation (r=.308), and a nearly significant correlation with angrily shouting at students (r=.229), collective punishment (r=.225), and removing a student from the classroom (r=.215). The findings indicate that teachers with secure and insecure attachment models impact the teacher-student relationship both positively and negatively in terms of conflict, closeness, and dependence. Securely attached teachers use disciplinary methods in a more diverse manner, while insecurely attached teachers primarily use yelling and collective punishment as effective means. The research emphasizes the importance of considering the teacher's attachment model in educational research, as its role in teaching is significant.

The purpose of this pro gradu thesis is to find out what kinds of value and power discourses are constructed in teacher discourse. According to previous research, teachers' unity, exemplarity and teachership as a profession have been emphasized in Finnish teacher discourse. The theoretical framework of this thesis draws from critical pedagogy, Foucault's analysis of power, critical discourse analysis (CDA), as well as the tradition of social constructionism, according to which language is seen as social action. The research was qualitative and data-driven, utilizing approaches associated with CDA. The data consisted of 250 opinionated texts containing teacher discourse in Opettaja (The Teacher) magazine published by OAJ, the Trade Union of Education in Finland. The texts were collected from magazines published in 1994, 2014, and 2015. In the analysis, the power relations between and within discourses, as well as the transformation between the different years and various contexts, were examined. Four power discourses emerged from the data. The discourses were comprised of discoursive units that construct the power relations of teachership. These discourses belong to two metadiscourses, which were named the renewing discourse and the preserving discourse. Furthermore, four value discourses concerning teachership were distinguished from the data. From these four value discourses, a synthesis of the ideal teacher was constructed. The ideal teacher is versatile, professional, and collegial, and has adopted an ethical and research-based working method. According to the results of the study, The Teacher magazine defines teachership as the kind of idealized teachership that is mainly traditional, strives for consensus, and positions the teacher as a passive subject. Thus, as a significant political agency, OAJ should problematize the traditional and ideal image of the teacher. Moreover, the teacher discourse of OAJ ought to give prominence to the multivoicedness of teachership, as well as teachership as an ideological activity.

Aims. Recently, the interactional side of teaching has been emphasized in the school environment. At the same time, the aspect of knowledge continues to exist. Combining the dimension of knowledge and the dimension of humane presence, from the point of view of teaching, has not been the topic of the recent discussion in the field of pedagogy. There is still unclarity how these two dimensions merge in practice in teaching. The focus of this research is the dialogue between the dimension of knowledge and the interactional dimension of being a teacher. The aim of this re-search was to find ways how teachers can balance between these dimensions. The framework of this study builds upon a theory of a teacher profession by Malinen (2003) which provides tools for theoretical scrutinizing. There does not exist any further empirical research utilizing on Malinen’s (2003) theory. In the framework of this research, I place the scrutinizing the different dimensions of being a teacher into the context of dialectic. This way I deepen the conceptual understanding of the dialogue between the teacher dimensions. Methods. This research is a qualitative research and the data has been collected with theme inter-views. The subjects of the study were five class teachers who all had different work experience in education and they were from different age groups. All the subjects were in different phases of their careers and they worked in different schools. The interviews were transcribed and analyzed using content analysis and Malinen’s (2003) theory. The interviews focused on the teachers’ own exper-iments of their professional role. The analysis of this research was a theoretically oriented empirical analysis that used both data-driven analysis and theory-driven analysis. Results and conclusions. The results offer an empirical model of how Malinen’s (2003) theory’s epistemic and existential dimensions manifest in the context of class teacher’s work. Furthermore, the results provide a theoretical model which develops further the theoretical parse of epistemic and existential aspects on the basis of Malinen’s (2003) theory. These results provide concrete tools for teachers to use in practice and how teachers can balance between the different aspects of being a teacher. On the other hand, the results also offer an improvement on the theory a teacher profession in the theoretical research field of pedagogy. The results display and classifies empirically how epistemic and existential dynamics play out in teacher’s profession.