Browsing by Subject "teaching"

Purpose of this masters’s thesis is to find and describe pedagogical elements of the studio practices at the Faculty of Fashion, Clothing and Textile, at the Aalto University School of Art, Design and Architecture. The focus is on renewed textile design education, especially in The Woven Fabrics Studio practices. Another aim is to examine the pedagogical views behind the main findings. The studio pedagogy is theoretically approached by R. Keith Sawyer’s (2018) research and the studio model, which is a cultural model of teaching and learning at the schools of art and design. Another theoretical frame is conducted from the field of materiality and the theory of embodied cognition, which can explain the importance of material explorations. The studio pedagogy has indicated to have remarkable benefits in design education by mastering creativity, and it could offer potential ideas extended to other school levels as well. In present study, I also summon an overview about the requirements needed from the operational unit, as offering studio pedagogy needs special arrangements. The ethnographic data is collected from the semi-structured theme interviews of the five professionals, deeply involved in design pedagogy at the faculty. In addition, two short observation phases were conducted at the weave studio and at the fabric print studio. The qualitative content analysis is done as theory and data-driven analysis. According to the results, one of the most distinct pedagogical element are the design assignments, that are based on the students’ individual concept and visual research, before going further with the material explorations at the studios. Lots of time and effort is put on this very early phase of the design process, and it is seen to lead originality and innovative results. The assignments include always both the artistic and technical sides, which is found effective and convenient way of learning. Processes such as creative and learning processes are seen the most important learning outcome. Preparing students to become design professionals, project management skills are practiced with advanced courses including lots of independent work. The Woven Fabric Studio courses are often intensive few week modules, which are available also for students from other faculties. Studio masters’ role is crucial at daily studio work. In addition to proper learning environments and up-to-date facilities, studio pedagogy requires great amount of resources, scheduling, pedagogical visions, and engagement. Learner-centerness and social aspects of learning are strongly emphasized, and many voluntary multidisciplinary projects are offered.

Teaching English to Finnish-Spanish bilinguals: A case study The Finnish National Core curriculum has increasingly stressed the importance of learning and communicating in different languages, and many initiatives have been put in place to achieve this goal. In the past decades, English has gained an increased preference as the first compulsory language in Finland. According to Statistics Finland, eighty-three per cent of students in primary school study English, and the percentage of pupils studying English grew by nine points from the year 2019 to 2020. Additionally, nearly all students in lower secondary school studied English. This thesis investigates teachers’ opinions and experiences of teaching English to Finnish-Spanish bilingual pupils. For this study, bilingual pupils refer to the students that are selected to study in the Finnish-Spanish bilingual programme in a school in Finland. These pupils are of diverse bilingual backgrounds and hence fall under different definitions of “bilingual”. The subject of this study are three English teachers with similar work experience but teaching different grades at the same school. The research material was obtained through face-to-face semi-structured interviews in addition to written communication. The material included about four hours of audio and one email communication that was translated and transcribed, after which it was categorised and divided into themes. The resulting data were analysed using qualitative content analysis. The results show that teachers have witnessed pupils show an increased interest and openness in learning English, and that they perceive bilingual pupils to have linguistic advantages that facilitate language acquisition. Nevertheless, there are bilinguals that find studying a new language difficult. Considering the results, it can be argued that bilingual programmes offer a possibility for encouraging communication in different languages. However, it was brought to light that other languages have begun to suffer neglect, due to the prevalence of English as a preferred language among other reasons. In addition, the study offers proposals for diverse approaches to encouraging multilingualism and supporting heritage languages.