Browsing by Subject "Education"

Korkeat verensokerit ovat yleisiä leikkauspotilailla, ja ne lisäävät leikkauksen komplikaatioriskiä. Verensokereiden hoito ei ole kirurgien ja operatiivisten osastojen henkilökunnan ominta osaamisaluetta. Uusia hoitomuotoja ja lääkkeitä diabetekseen tulee jatkuvasti, joten muiden kuin alan asiantuntijoiden on vaikea pysyä kehityksessä mukana. Tässä tutkimuksessa tavoitteenamme oli selvittää, voiko henkilökuntaa kouluttamalla lisätä diabeteshoidon osaamista. Jos osaaminen paranisi, voisivat myös potilaiden verensokerit ja näin ollen leikkaustulokset parantua. Tulosten avulla voidaan saada tietoa, kannattaako tällaiseen opetukseen käyttää rajallisia resursseja. Osana diabeteshoitoa kehittävää AGS-projektia annettiin operatiivisten osastojen henkilökunnalle aiheeseen liittyvää koulutusta. Otos perioperatiiviseen työhön osallistuvia hoitajia ja lääkäreitä täytti koulutusjakson alussa ja lopussa anonyymisti projektia varten suunnitellut kyselylomakkeet. Koulutusjakso sisälsi luentoja ja konsultaatioapua. Kyselylomakkeissa kysyttiin tiedollisia, avoimia kysymyksiä sekä monivalintakysymyksiä oman osaamisen sekä nykyisen koulutuksen tasosta. Kyselyyn vastasi ensimmäisellä kierroksella 51 sairaanhoitajaa, 55 lääkäriä ja 14 muun ammattiryhmän edustajaa, pääosin lähi- tai perushoitajia. Toisella kierroksella kyselyyn vastasi 60 sairaanhoitajaa, 44 lääkäriä ja 12 muuta. Havaitsimme osaamisen kehityksessä positiivisen trendin, mutta tulos ei yltänyt tilastollisesti merkitseväksi. Hoitajien tyytyväisyys koulutuksen määrään ja laatuun sen sijaan parani tilastollisesti merkitsevästi koulutuksen myötä. Yllättävintä oli usean kirurgin ajatus siitä, että verensokereiden hoito kuuluu ainoastaan sisätautilääkäreille. Tämä, sekä erityisesti alkutilanteen huono tietämys verensokereista korostaa koulutuksen tarpeellisuutta sekä kirurgeille että hoitajille. Käymme läpi myös kehityskohteita, joiden avulla tutkimus ja ennen kaikkea tärkeä koulutus voitaisiin toistaa toisissa sairaaloissa vielä paremmalla menestyksellä.

In this research paper, I discuss a philosophy of teaching I refer to as “Applied Nonsense.” I highlight that this teaching philosophy is of great significance in the field of education and that is it one influential way to prepare modern students with the creativity and creative problem solving skills needed for an evolving world which holds many pressing and critical global challenges. Furthermore, I highlight the benefits it likely has for the student learning process. I developed Applied Nonsense (AN) teaching philosophy because I needed a way to better define my own teaching style as an educator. I needed a way to describe my method of interaction, engaging, and influencing students. As well, my ideas about effective pedagogy through the implementation of AN are backed by an endless amount of research in the fields of education and psychology. With my research, I give this teaching style an appropriate name, and I help define what I believe encompasses this teaching technique. Additionally, I have given some examples of how the teaching technique can be used to better teach English as a Second Language (ESL). Through a two part survey process, I collected data from both students and teachers on their thoughts and feelings about AN theory techniques used in the classroom environment. I aimed to find whether or not the average person is open to the style of AN teaching methods and whether they feel that AN is helpful to their learning process. Furthermore, my aim was to share my ideas with fellow educators and those unfamiliar with the teaching techniques to encourage them to implement this teaching technique as part of their teacher tool kit. In my opinion, AN is a teaching technique that is implemented by some of the most skillful, knowledgeable, and effective professionals in the field of education and my research finding greatly suggest that most teachers and students agree that AN is an effective aid for the teaching-studying-learning process.

Recently one can see the increased interest in Finnish society in what appears to be the newest technology and its implementation efforts into education. Although tablets and SMART boards have rapidly become more commonly used tools in education, one must wonder if this is the best that science and technology can offer for learning. This current paper serves as an informative paper on the latest scientific knowledge available on augmented reality’s uses in education and attempts to identify those uses most valuable for shared learning practices in communities of practice. To achieve this, it asks How has augmented reality been used in education as described by recently published studies and What kind of value could the uses identified in the first question have for an educational community of practice. Initially 34 studies went through several layers of screening, results of which are attached to this review. Final research literature consisted of seven evidence-based studies, that featured educational uses for AR and collected user experiences. This research is a systematized literature review. It includes a broader descriptive background section for the core knowledge on AR and communities of practice, followed by interpretation of results for the more specific questions on the topic. Lastly, it suggests further progressive research considerations for future studies on the topic. It appears that the uses for AR in education are very diverse, AR research and application creation is progressively finding novel educational topics, and that mobile-AR has successfully enabled the implementation of AR in education. On the other hand, studies’ sample sizes remain small, the appliance of AR as a broad concept still escapes researchers, the results of AR’s effectiveness in these reviewed studies might only apply in their unique settings, and none of them studied AR’s educational uses on established communities of practice. For all those reasons, I call for more progressive studies and literature reviews with larger sample sizes, comparative results and study settings incorporating shared learning aspects.

As in many countries, education in Chile has been a huge problem for authorities and researchers. Over time, there have been many attempts to improve quality, but with little to no success. It is difficult to find the main reason why Chilean education faces many problems. One reason could be the way teachers understand the policy instruments; the national curriculum, and how clear it is. However, it also could be related to the way of using skills related to communication in general, and teacher-student interaction in particular. My assumption is they have been ignored or under considered as part of the teaching process. Some experts have recognized the relevance of communication and teacher- student interaction, because of the significance of reciprocity. It has a very crucial role for effective teaching and learning to take place (Arthur, Gordon, & Butterfield, 2003). This is an in-depth research into both systems of education, a comparative and qualitative investigation that aim to analyse guidelines for teachers and principals. This research will collect data through the analysis of both national curriculums, to see how these terms are mentioned and described in them as part of the guidelines of every taught subject, and how many of these teaching methods include teacher-student interaction. For this reason, the purpose of my thesis is to analyse how the elements of communication and teacher-student interaction are presented in the official curriculums of Chile and Finland. Although the analysis of documents is the main source of data, this investigation considers also the observation to understand the dynamics in the classroom, despite being only an illustration.

Objective: Mindfulness-based programs are increasingly used with adolescents in school environment. Many preliminary studies have shown that training mindfulness can be helpful for enhancing students’ mental health and psychological well-being. The current evidence base on the effectiveness, however, is still quite narrow and most studies have been limited due to methodological weaknesses. The aim of this study was to investigate how mindfulness training impacts on adolescents’ psychological well-being in secondary school. Methods: The study is a cluster randomized controlled trial, and a part of the Finnish school-based mindfulness research project Healthy Learning Mind (N=3519). Adolescents (age: 12-15 years) either participated in a 9-week mindfulness program, a standardized relaxation program, or followed usual school curriculum. Students’ emotional and behavioural problems, and prosocial behaviour were measured at baseline, post-intervention, and after six-month follow-up, using self- and parent-rated Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ). Linear mixed effects modelling (LMM) was used to compare differences between groups in the change from baseline to post-intervention and follow-up in the SDQ-scales. Results: There weren’t any statistically significant differences in change in any SDQ -outcome variables between the three groups at post-intervention or follow-up. However, during mindfulness program, students’ self-rated emotional symptoms and hyperactivity problems decreased and prosocial behaviour increased. Findings in the parent-rated results paralleled these results, and students’ conduct and emotional problems and hyperactivity were significantly decreased. Conclusions: Despite positive changes in the psychological well-being of the adolescents in the mindfulness group, no differences between the groups were found. Further research is still required to identify psychological well-being benefits of mindfulness training in school environment, using multiple measurement methods and longitudinal designs.

Finland’s highly egalitarian educational system lacks official definitions and policies regarding gifted students. The Finnish National Core Curriculum proposes differentiation as the method by which to meet the diverse needs of students in the inclusive Finnish classroom. Previous research indicates that many Finnish teachers lack adequate knowledge about how to support and differentiate instruction for the gifted. This thesis focuses on gifted students’ experiences of differentiation in mixed-ability public schools in Finland. Four gifted students in grades 5 and 6 participated in one semi-structured interview where they were asked questions about assignments in school. The transcripts from the interviews were analyzed with a thematic analysis method and a hermeneutic-phenomenological research approach. Through the thematic analysis, six themes were generated from the material: Acceleration and ability grouping, lack of differentiation, finishing assignments early, inaction and unawareness in teachers, support from teachers, and dealing with peers. The results show that while all students had acceleration measures in place, the students did not seem to receive sufficiently differentiated instruction in school. They found assignments unchallenging, and finished their work early, leading to a lot of idle time in class spent doing things unrelated to the current lesson. Furthermore, the students described their teachers as passive and even unaware of the fact that assignments are too easy. Frustration and boredom seemed to be common feelings in the lived experiences of gifted students in the mixed-ability classroom, which further points toward the need for effective differentiation for gifted students.

Objectives. The development of a strong ethnic identity is crucial for minority students throughout their school years. A sense of invisibility and stereotype threat may develop in the absence of a strong identity. Therefore, a rich representation of ethnicity is essential to the development of ethnic identity. This study aims to determine how minority representation is reflected in Finnish school textbooks, particularly how minorities racialized as non-white are depicted through the images found in textbooks. As earlier reports and research show that students from immigrant backgrounds perform lower than students from non-immigrant backgrounds and meaningful representation is important to avoid stereotype threat, it becomes important to examine how minorities are represented in Finnish textbooks used by all students. Methods. A content analysis was conducted to gain a greater comprehension of how minorities are portrayed in Finnish middle school textbooks which affects the development of ethnic identity. To gain insight into how students may perceive the presence of minorities in their textbooks, I examined 227 images found in several textbooks from the two main Finnish textbook publishers. Based on the variables set out, representation was categorized into categories of social hierarchy between the majority racialized as white and minority racialized as non-white found in the textbooks. Results and conclusions. Overall, the representation was 76 % for the majority racialized as white and 23.4% for the minority racialized as non-white. The greatest disparity in representation between majority and minority backgrounds was observed among professionals and academics, with the majority background appearing 80% more than the minority. On the other end of the social ladder, 'peasants' from minority backgrounds were represented more than those from majority backgrounds. The research indicates that textbooks do not give a full account of the varied backgrounds of minority students, which can have a detrimental effect on their ethnic identity and result in a sense of invisibility and stereotype threat.

Tiivistelmä - Referat - Abstract The purpose of this study is to gain a better understanding of sustainability education in Chinese primary education. Society has attained unprecedented level of development as a result of science and technology, while simultaneously there is a growing call for a sustainable future. Due to the huge population and lack of awareness of sustainability in the Chinese context, education plays an important role in facilitating the knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors that are needed to address the current sustainability challenges. More importantly, in China, sustainability education has not been popularized in primary and secondary schools, and various obstacles and barriers remain to the implementation of sustainability education in primary schools. The study focuses on analysing the connections between the newly published national curriculum standard in 2022 and 12 science textbooks currently used in Chinese primary schools. Throughout the research, the sequence of science textbook contents relevant to sustainability education is analysed to identify the specific teaching and learning contents, within textbooks. Qualitative content analysis and descriptive analysis are conducted to systematically describe the national curriculum standard and textbook contents related to sustainability education. Meanwhile, Python will also be used as a tool to deal with word frequency. The research will result in a theory-based model to show how sustainability education is integrated and worked in Chinese primary science education textbooks. The model is represented as a Chinese knot, representing relations of 13 elements of the learning contents and 4 core competencies. Chinese knots are traditionally believed to indicate a promising future, which also coincides the concept of sustainable development. Additionally, research-based suggestions will be discussed regarding sustainability education in Chinese primary education.

I utredningen utreds behovet av svenskspråkiga tandläkare i Finland nu och i framtiden och likaså möjligheterna att grunda en svenskspråkig utbildningslinje för tandläkare vid Helsingfors universitet. Omfattande utredningar om ämnet har inte tidigare gjorts och för att underlätta ett eventuellt grundande av en svensk linje behövs en utredning. Material har samlats från olika källor, bearbetats och kombinerats för att få en heltäckande bild. En enkätundersökning riktad till övertandläkare och hälsovårdscentraltandläkare i svensk- och tvåspråkiga kommuner har verkställts. Om antalet svenskspråkiga tandläkarstuderande hålls på nuvarande nivå kommer antalet svenskspråkiga tandläkare i Finland att sjunka märkbart. Svenskspråkiga tandläkare behövs och en möjlig lösning på problemet skulle vara att erbjuda utbildning på svenska.

This thesis provides information of the unjust geographies of girls and assesses empirical data on girls’ access to and through secondary education in Tanzania by using a case study approach. This study focuses on girls’ education in rural Mtwara because of its utmost importance. First, an internationally accepted human rights-based perceptive on girls’ education is present. Second, gender equality in and through secondary education has a direct and indirect effect on the reduction of overall poverty: employment and increased decision-making capabilities modify family opinions that further advance girls’ education and future asset accumulation that indirectly benefits the wider society. Rural Mtwara was chosen as a case study since it is characterized by particularly low secondary-school attendance and poor academic performance of girls. A number of variables affect access to education, including family and social factors as well as those related to the learning environment itself. Outside donors and governments can also affect the outcome. This study investigates the role of families in structuring the secondary school access of girls in low-income rural households, and it examines the individual, cultural, environmental, and economic factors that shape girls’ access to education in the rapidly changing environment of rural Mtwara. This study qualitatively explores how girls’ graduation from secondary school has benefitted both their lives and their families’ lives, especially in economic terms, and increased girls’ access to other spaces such as employment in a segregated society. Gender equal access remains a core issue of this study.