Browsing by Subject "opetussuunnitelmauudistus"

Changing school is a difficult task. Since classroom teachers are in such a significant role in bringing the change into practice, their experience in the change process is important. Previous studies show that school reforms usually either fail or don’t reach the goals set to them. The purpose of this Bachelor’s Thesis was to bring more understanding to challenges caused by school reforms. The research task is to depict what challenges classroom teachers articulate when talking about their experiences during the national curriculum reform in autumn 2016. The theoretical framework consists of studies about school change and previous school reforms and the typical challenges with them. Also personal challenges with change are addressed by theories about going beyond ones comfort zone and dealing with change. With these theories it is possible to understand more about the complexity and difficulty of school change and find reasons why school reforms fail so often. At the end of the theoretical framework there’s an introduction to the main characteristics of the national curriculum reform that became valid in autumn 2016. The data of this study was collected by interviewing two classroom teachers living in the Helsinki metropolitan area using the method of semi-structured interview. The interviewees were chosen by a pre-survey where they told that they felt like being outside their comfort zone during the curriculum reform. The interviews were transcribed and analyzed using content analysis and comparing the data to previous studies. The found challenges were divided into internal and external challenges. The major challenges were inadequacy of preparation, lack of resources, external demands, lack of realism, dealing with change and skepticism.

Aims. The aim of the research is to find out how multi-material crafts are viewed in primary school craft education from the point of view of the persons teaching crafts. In the National core curriculum for basic education 2014, craft teaching is defined as multi-material craft common to all. In the previous curriculum (POPS, 2004), craft was still divided into technical work and textile work. Multi-materiality is not defined in the curriculum (POPS, 2014) so precisely that every teacher in Finland would teach multi-material craft in the same way. The research explores how multi-materiality is interpreted from the point of view of primary education teachers. The study will also find out whether the distribution of lesson hours according to the Government Decree on the National Objectives for Education Referred to in the Basic Education Act and in the Distribution of Lesson Hours 422/2012 is effective in the teaching of multi-material crafts. Methods. The data collection method of the study was a survey carried out in a few educational discussion groups on Facebook. The questionnaire consisted of eight questions. A total of 75 craft teachers, class teachers and craft teacher students from 43 different locations responded to the survey. The research was mainly carried out using qualitative methods. Quantitative content analysis was used to classify the results. Results and conclusions. The concept of multi-materiality is interpreted from the point of view of craft teachers as an inherent characteristic of craft. According to the class teachers' point of view, craft teaching is not divided into technical work and textile work, but common craft is taught, which covers all materials and techniques. In the opinion of both classroom teachers and craft teachers, a craft product is multi-material when at least two different materials are used in it. The popularity of crafts is estimated to have decreased with the curriculum reform. Working methods of technical work are perceived to be more popular among students than working methods of textile work. 41 % of the respondents were of the opinion that multi-material craft teaching is not functional in elementary school. Problems are caused by the separation of textile work and technical workspaces, insufficient training of teachers and insufficient time spent on teaching. 56 % of respondents feel that the annual distribution of lesson hours of crafts is too small. The amount of craft content increased with the curriculum reform, but the number of hours did not increase in the same proportion.

Aims. On account of the curriculum reform (POPS, 2014) the subject of craft has become more coherent. The reform introduces the term multi-material crafts, which however, is not precisely defined. As research data on the teaching applying multi-material crafts does not excist at large yet, this research concentrates on defining the term based on official commandments and texts addressing them. This model of multi-material crafts is composed of those texts and commandments. The degree of motivation, in turn, is studied by means of various models specialized on teachers’ and students’ motivation. This research aims to examine what multi-material craft is by experiences and how motivational it is considered. The experiences are compared to the composed models. Methods. The data of the reserch was collected via online questionnaires. There were separate ones for teachers and students. The indicators were built for the research. There were teachers participating on the research from five cities (n=13) And students from four cities (n=88). The research data was collected both in quantitative and qualitative method. The quantitative data was analysed based on standard deviation and arithmetical mean. The differencies between the urban and rural area schools were studied with U-test. The qualitative data was analysed with the analysis of the content. Results and conclusions. It was perceived in the results that the experiences of multi-material crafts were distinct between teachers and students as well as different school districts. The main differences between urban and rural area schools were in the increase of self-direction. Teachers’ experiences were more positive than the ones of students’ in nearly all of the sections. The only exceptions were combining the methods of technical and textile crafts and utilising multiple workspaces. The main feature affecting students’ motivation on multi material crafts was atmosphere. The teachers were motivated by their work but the uncertainty of the continuance of the work and the challenges caused by changes possibly diluted their motivation. On ground of the results it can be said that multi-material crafts are taking shape in the schools. The change on its behalf is affecting the motivation.

Tutkielmassani tavoitteenani on selvittää, kuinka vuonna 2016 suomalaisissa peruskouluissa käyttöön otettu opetussuunnitelmauudistus on vaikuttanut suomenkielisten peruskoululaisten asenteisiin ja motivaatioon pakollisia ruotsin kielen opintoja kohtaan. Ruotsin opetussuunnitelmauudistuksen päätavoitteena on ollut ruotsin opiskelumotivaation kohottaminen. Tutkielmassa tutkitaan oppilaiden asenteiden ja motivaation muutosta aiempiin tutkimustuloksiin verrattuna. Lisäksi tarkastellaan, onko opetussuunnitelmauudistus tasoittanut asenteiden ja motivaation vaihtelua ikä- ja sukupuoliryhmien välillä. Tutkimus on luonteeltaan määrällinen ja se toteutettiin oppilaskyselyn muodossa yhdessä pääkaupunkiseudulla sijaitsevassa koulussa. Tutkimusaineisto koostuu yhteensä 89 kuudes- ja yhdeksäsluokkalaisen oppilaan vastauksista. Aineistossa tutkittavien ikä- ja sukupuolijakaumat ovat suhteellisen tasaisia. Tutkimuksen tulokset osoittavat, ettei opetussuunnitelmaan tehdyistä uudistuksista huolimatta peruskoululaisten asenteissa ja motivaatiossa ruotsin opintoja kohtaan ole tapahtunut suurtakaan muutosta. Erot ikä- ja sukupuoliryhmien välillä asenteissa ja motivaatiossa ruotsin opiskelua kohtaan ovat yhä suuria: iältään vanhemmat oppilaat, ja erityisesti poikaoppilaat, suhtautuvat ruotsin kieleen ja sen opintoihin edelleen huomattavasti negatiivisemmin. He ovat myös epämotivoituneempia opiskelemaan sitä koulussa.

Finnish schools will start using a new curriculum in the fall of 2016. The national core curriculum was published in 2014, municipalities and schools are renewing their local curricula as we speak. The curriculum is renewed in terms of its value basis, core contents and lesson-hour distribution. The curriculum reform also has an impact on teachers. They are expected to renew their teaching methods as well as their roles as teachers. This research examined how the curriculum reform affects teachers. Is teachership going to change due to the cur-riculum reform? This research was a qualitative research. I did theme interviews on four teachers and one headmaster for this research. I wanted to find out their thoughts about the curriculum reform and of their teachership as the new curriculum comes into effect in the fall. I interviewed two teachers and the headmaster singly and two teachers as a group interview. Those two teachers worked together as a teaching-pair so it was logical for them to answer the ques-tions together. After the interviews the data was analyzed by using inductive qualitative anal-ysis. All of the teachers I interviewed were familiar with the new curriculum at some level. Most of the teachers had even taken part in the curriculum reform process in their schools. Intervi-eewes 1, 2 and 3 thought that co-operation between teachers will increase, the pupils will get more responsibility, the pupil evaluation process is going to be renewed and there will be more projects with cross-subject topics. They believed that the change in teachership will happen slowly with time. Interviewees 4 and 5 already executed at lot of the themes of the new curriculum in their teaching. They didn’t presume that the new curriculum would bring any changes to their teaching. They saw that the themes presented as new innovations have already been used in schools for many years, so they didn’t expect any big change happen-ing next fall in terms of teachership. As there was such a big difference in the answers I got from different teachers, it was obvious that even though the curriculum is an important doc-ument and guide in teachers work, it also depends a lot on the teacher how the curriculum is interpreted and executed.

Objectives. This thesis was made in cooperation with the Finnish National Board of Education (FNBE). The thesis aims to reply to the need for indepth information on the chapter of the concepts of learning in the outline of the general guidelines of the Finnish national core curriculum 2014 (POPS). Different concepts of learning have a significant effect on the everyday work of teachers. Therefore it is essential how the concepts of learning are presented in the core curriculum, which guides the teachers work. This study examined on which concepts of learning the POPS 2014 outline chapter of the concepts of learning is actually based on. In addition, this study discovered where education providers thought the above mentioned chapter had succeeded and where they considered it to be in need of improvement. The study is based on the literature of both didaktik and different concepts of learning. This way it is possible to stimulate discussion on the meaning of the concepts of learning in the everyday teaching-studying-learning process. Methods. The research data of this qualitative case study consists of the chapter of the concepts of learning in the outline of the general guidelines of the POPS 2014. The other part of the data consists of the feedback, given by 65 providers of education, on the above mentioned chapter. The feedback was gathered at the end of the year 2012 by the FNBE. The concepts of behavioristic, social, humanistic and constructivist learning were sought through theory-based content analysis from the chapter, which was subsequently grouped into themes. These themes were used in the analysis of the open-ended answers, which were given by the providers of education. Results and conclusions. The POPS 2014 outline chapter of the concepts of learning was found to be in part both constructivist (individual and social) and humanistic. The outline represents a learner-centered view, where the student's metacognitive skills, different learning strategies and the meaning of interaction play an important role in learning. The education providers saw success in the chapter's views of the active student and the meaning of interaction as well as social learning in the learning process. Need for improvement was seen in clarifying concepts (e.g. interaction, learning to learn, learning strategies) as well as the roles of the teacher, student and teaching. When developing the curriculum it is recommended to note the unclear concepts, the social learning theory and the theory of didaktik - what are the teacher's and student's roles in the teaching-studying-learning process?

Objectives. Curriculum reform is currently taking place in Finland and the new national core curriculum is to be put into operation in August 2016. In Finland local curriculums are drawn up on the grounds of the new national core curriculum. These local curriculums need to be approved by the beginning of August. The national core curriculum states the principles regarding local curriculum work but does not define the ways the process is to be organized. The objective of this study is to describe the local curriculum processes and teachers’ experiences of these processes. The study worked out how local curriculums are built, which factors affect the curriculum process and how teachers view local curriculum work. Methods. The nature of this study is a qualitative one and it aims to describe and understand the phenomenon in question. The research data was collected by using a semi-structured themed questionnaire. The themes arouse from the new national core curriculum and from its chapter concerning local curriculums. The questionnaire was conducted in an eletronic form and it was shared in three groups of education professionals on Facebook. The total of 29 answers was received. The informants came from different parts of Finland and most of them worked as a class teacher. The data was structured and analysed by theory-oriented content analysis with computer assistance. Results and conclusions. The study revealed that local curriculums in Finland are built with diverse methods but with very different practices. A variation between informants was definite regarding the time used in curriculum work, the recompense for the work and the optionality of the curriculum work. In addition, the agents and their chances to influence local curriculums varied a lot. The teachers’ views on local curriculum processes were twofolded – the curriculum work was mostly seen rewarding and at the same time regarded as a burden. The conclusion is that the curriculum work can be hindered by a lack of time and by poor management and leadership. When the local curriculum work is explicit from its beginning and the local curriculum is thought to have importance in one’s work, the teachers feel inspired and motivated in building a curriculum.

Työyhteisöviestintä vaikuttaa kokonaisvaltaisesti työntekijän hyvinvointiin ja työmotivaatioon. Työyhteisöviestinnän rooli organisaatiossa korostuu etenkin organisaatiomuutoksen yhteydessä, jolloin työntekijän tarve kysyä ja keskustella saamastaan tiedosta kasvaa. Tässä pro gradu -tutkielmassa kartoitetaan peruskoulun työyhteisöviestinnän tilaa vuonna 2016 voimaan astuneen peruskoulun opetussuunnitelmauudistuksen yhteydessä. Kouluorganisaation työyhteisöviestintää ei juurikaan ole viestintätieteellisistä lähtökohdista Suomessa aiemmin tutkittu. Tämän tutkielman tärkeimpänä tavoitteena on peruskoulun viestinnän liittäminen osaksi viestintätieteellistä tutkimusperinnettä. Aikaisemmin peruskoulun työyhteisöviestintää on tutkittu lähinnä koulun johtamisen näkökulmasta sekä kasvatustieteellisen tutkimusperinteen lähtökohdista käsin. Peruskoulun työyhteisöviestinnän tilaa tutkitaan tässä työssä opettajan näkökulmasta, opettajan omien kokemusten kautta. Tutkimus toteutettiin verkkokyselyllä, joka lähetettiin valituille oululaisille peruskoulun vuosiluokkia 1–6 opettaville kouluille (N = 39). Kyselylomakkeen osioista muodostettiin tilastollisin menetelmin työyhteisöviestinnän eri osa-alueita kuvaavia summamuuttujia. Työyhteisöviestinnän osa-alueiksi määriteltiin aiemman tutkimuksen perusteella 1) asioiden vuorovaikutteista käsittely, 2) tiedon saatavuus, 3) tunnelman avoimuus, 4) osallistuminen ja vaikuttaminen, 5) yhdessä oppiminen sekä 6) työnantajamaine. Analyysin perusteella voidaan tulkita, että parhaiten koulussa toteutuvia työyhteisöviestinnän osa-alueita ovat avoin tunnelma (M = 4,1), työnantajamaine (M = 4,0) sekä asioiden vuorovaikutteinen käsittely (M = 4,0). Eniten kehitettävää työyhteisöviestinnän saralla on tutkimuksen perusteella tiedon saatavuudessa (M = 3,5). Työyhteisöviestinnän tilaa kuvaavia summamuuttujia verrattiin myös tutkittujen opettajien opetussuunnitelmauudistukseen suhtautumista kuvaavaan summamuuttujaan. Aineiston perusteella havaittiin, että opettajan suhtautumiseen opetussuunnitelmauudistusta kohtaan voidaan vaikuttaa työyhteisöviestinnän avulla: mitä parempana tutkittu opettaja koki työyhteisöviestinnän tilan, sitä positiivisemmin opettaja suhtautui opetussuunnitelmauudistukseen. Uudistukseen suhtautuminen korreloi kohtalaisesti kaikkien työyhteisöviestinnän osa-alueiden kanssa. Voimakkaimmin korreloivat asioiden vuorovaikutteinen käsittely (r = ,420), osallistuminen ja vaikuttaminen (r = ,410) sekä tiedon saaminen (r = ,404). Organisaatiomuutoksen aikana tiettyjä työyhteisöviestinnän osa-alueita ja prosesseja on suositeltavaa hioa paremmin muutoksen tarpeisiin sopiviksi. Tämän tutkimuksen perusteella kouluorganisaatiossa on kannattavaa keskittyä juuri näihin työyhteisöviestinnän osa-alueisiin, sillä ne vaikuttivat merkittävimmin opettajan positiiviseen suhtautumiseen muutosta kohtaan. Muutoksen aikana opettajan tiedontarve on normaalia suurempi ja asioiden vuorovaikutteisella käsittelyllä voidaan varmistaa, että jokainen työyhteisössä on ymmärtänyt käsiteltävän asian. Osallistuminen ja vaikuttaminen puolestaan kasvattavat opettajan motivaatiota ja sitoutumista muutokseen.