Browsing by study line "Class Teacher (in Swedish)"

In 2016, after the introduction of the new national core curriculum for basic education in Finland, open and flexible learning environments have been incorporated in new or thoroughly renovated schools, to some extent. The purpose of the new learning environments is to support the new curriculum goals that advocate phenomenon-based and versatile learning, student-centered learning, student autonomy and the use of technology. Previous research suggests that increased collaboration among teachers is required for a functioning everyday life in school. Furthermore, research also suggests that co-teaching has had a positive impact on teachers’ workload and well-being. This study examines how teachers in grades 1–6 experience the opportunities and challenges of co-teaching in open learning environments. In addition, the aim was to find out how teachers use the open learning environments in their co- teaching. The study was conducted in spring 2022 as a case study consisting of semi-structured interviews and observations. Four teachers from two different schools in Swedish-speaking regions in Finland participated in the interviews. The interviews were recorded for transcription and the data was analyzed thematically. The observations were used to support the interviews and played an important role in the interpretation of the results. The results state that the teachers used different co-teaching methods depending on goals, subject and content. Flexible furniture and creative floor plans provide an opportunity for teachers and students to modify the learning environments as needed. According to the teachers there were several opportunities with co-teaching such as shared planning and responsibilities and collegial support. The open learning environments gave the teachers an opportunity to be more flexible and mobile. Several adults in the learning environment made the teachers feel that they had more time for the students. Collaborative planning and open communication proved to be important, although this was considered time consuming. Likewise trust, personal chemistry and participation proved to be essential for a functional co- teaching. It was clear that it takes time for both teachers and students to adapt to the work in open learning environments. Similarly, co-teaching requires time for adaption.

Aim. The aim of the study was to examine teacher’s perceptions of a smooth transition from pre-school to school during the covid-19 pandemic. The aim was also to examine especially how the cooperation between the pre-school and school has been during the pandemic. Previous research has shown that the transition from pre-school to school is a very critical and vulnerable stage in a child’s life. At the same time we know that everyday life has been very different due to the pandemic. In addition, the ecological theory highlights that the surrounding environment is meaningful for the child’s experience of the transition. Previous research about cross-sectoral relationships in turn illustrate the importance of the cooperation and connections between pre-school and school. This study therefore examines teachers perceptions of working towards a smooth transition from pre-school to grade one during the covid-19 pandemic. In addition, the study examines teachers perceptions of the cooperation between the pre-school and school concerning the transition, during the covid-19 pandemic. Methods. The data has been collected with semi structured interviews with five teachers, two pre-school teachers and three classroom teachers. The interviews have been analyzed by a thematic model. Results and conclusions. The perceptions of the transition are many and varying. Some experience that the changes and challenges haven’t been so vast, when others express that the pandemic has had an impact. Five themes were identified as significant for the smoothness of the transition. It appears that the role of the school and the contact with the caregivers have suffered the most due to the pandemic. The teachers however seem to have a more similar view regarding perceptions about the cooperation. Four themes were identified as significant. There has been less cooperation and the physical restrictions have especially had an impact on the joint activities with the children. By using alternative working methods the teachers have tried to compensate the loss. The cooperation between the staff has been quite similar. The results confirms the ecological perspective on transitions. The fact that it is work on many levels that is required for a successful transition has perhaps become clearer during the pandemic, when these different structures have been restricted and challenged in different ways.

Aim. The purpose of this study is to investigate what preparedness secondary schools have to respond to stu-dents with mental illness due to COVID-19. The goal of the empirical study is to find out what kind of prevention strategies schools use when dealing with students with mental illness and what kind of resources they have available in student care, given a large increase in mental illness among students. There is some research on mental illness among students and how it affects students and how it gives rise to challenges. However, there is insufficient knowledge about what the situation after COVID-19 looks like when it comes to students' mental ill-ness and schools' resources to respond to students with mental illness. My research area is limited to second-ary school students in basic education, i.e., students aged 13–15. Methods. The data collection was conducted with semi-structured interviews with a student welfare team, which consisted of five people in a school in the Helsinki Metropolitan Area. The five interviews were conducted using semi-structured interview questions to ensure the purpose of the survey and that the research questions are answered. The interviews were transcribed before the analysis stage. The interviews were analyzed through qualitative content analysis. Results and conclusions. The results show that mental illness among high school students is clear. Secondary school students' mental illness has increased due to COVID-19 and societal restrictions in the form of distance learning. Mental illness in the form of, among other things: anxiety, problematic school absenteeism and social phobias is now relatively common among students in secondary school. The results of this survey show that the school's resources to respond to students with mental illness have not increased after COVID-19. In addition, the school compensates for inadequate care services (child welfare, child psychiatry, social services) outside the school that do not seem to reach students in need of support services. However, according to the results of this survey, schools do not have staff who have knowledge of these services (child welfare, child psychiatry, social services) and need to get students further in order for them to get the right help and for student welfare to have time for other than just emergency falls. The results also show that the care team that participated in the interviews does not continuously use prevention strategies to promote mental health due to lack of resources. Furthermore, the results show that the covid-19 pandemic and the doctors' strike have affected the health-promoting work with students in the academic year 2021-2022. The Covid-19 pandemic has also had a negative impact on student’s well-being elsewhere in the world (Gogoi et.al, 2022, (Shanbehzadeh et.al, 2021).

In Finland, the literacy issue is currently being hotly debated, partly due to the deteriorating PISA results. Literacy is the basis for all learning and a prerequisite for participatory citizenship. For example, The City of Helsinki wants to invest in early efforts to support literacy and has budgeted for this purpose. The Board of Education is launching the new Läsande skola model. The purpose is, among other things, to develop support for literacy. Dyslexia is about difficulty with words. According to the Basic Education Act, those who participate in education have the right to a safe study environment and to support or special education. According to the law, the student should receive sufficient support for learning and schooling as soon as the need arises. First, the existing working methods, teaching arrangements and learning environments are examined, as well as how they are suitable for the student. On the basis of this, it is decided whether it is a matter of finding better pedagogical solutions for the student. The purpose of the dissertation was to investigate which working methods the special needs teacher uses in his teaching for students in grades 3–6 to support learning in students with dyslexia. The research questions were thus formulated as follows: - What working methods does the special needs teacher use to support students in grades 3–6 with dyslexia? - How does the special needs teacher choose his working methods for students in grades 3–6 with dyslexia? The dissertation was a qualitative study and the material was collected with the help of semi-structured interviews. Five special needs teachers participated in the interviews. The thematic analysis with abductive approach was used to analyze the interview data. The results of the dissertation state that the special needs teachers used various individual solutions to support their students with dyslexia and that the starting point for choosing the most suitable forms of support was the individual student, the special needs teacher's professional knowledge and testing of different alternative solutions. The student, the home and the school are key participants and actors when it comes to finding the best solutions. The result shapes what the support can mean in practice and which factors can influence the choice of forms of support. A data base would systematize and ease special needs teachers´ access to researched knowledge. An interesting theme for further research could be to investigate dyslexia students' experiences of the support they receive from school.

The aim of this thesis is to establish an understanding of the support of learning students receive in primary schools in Finland today. The field of special education is a very hot topic in Finland, especially the three-tiered support system, a system that has been used since 2011. It is now tested and in need to be improved. Research shows that there are not enough resources to implement the system properly and vague instructions causes different interpretations which results in very different ways in how to proceed. There is a lot of research on how the three-tiered support system has been implemented and how it shows in statistics, there’s however not very much input on what kind of support these students on the different support levels get. Therefor it is of value to discover what kind of support the teachers offer for their students within the resources and guidelines they have today. By investigating the classrooms one can also find strengths and weaknesses in the working procedures which can give us a hint on what to preserve and what needs to change. The data was collected through semi-structured interviews whit class-, special education- and special education class teachers. Overall, there was seven teachers participating, three class teachers, three special teachers and one special class teacher. The thesis has a phenomenpgraphic research approach and is implemented as qualitative research. The single largest factor that affects the support for learning for the students is the adults around the student. It’s both teachers but also the adults in the home of the student that affects what kind of support the student needs and what kind of effects the different support interventions have. Therefore, one can argue that it’s naturally more support given by adults that is the most used way of supporting students in need of support for learning. In addition, teachers commonly use individualisation and different auxiliary equipment to support the students. To be able to better meet the needs of students in need of support for learning the biggest single wish is to get more special education teachers. Overall, the teachers had a quite similar student view and approach to what’s happening in the field at the moment. Despite that teachers’ procedures differed a lot sometimes, probably because of different conditions in resources, student records and experience and knowledge of the teacher.

All learners should obtain knowledge about and be able to foster sustainable development, according to Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 4.7 (World Commission on Environment and Development, 1987). Consequently, teacher education should involve sustainable development so as to meet SDG 4.7. This study aims to identify the incorporation of sustainable development in Finland’s teacher education programmes in order to support the development needed to attain SDG 4.7. Agenda 2030 and the SDGs were created in 2015 to continue to work towards the goals which the Brundtland report (World Commission on Environment and Development, 1987) established; to guarantee that present and future generations can fulfil their needs without jeopardising planet Earth. Therefore, meeting the SDGs and Agenda 2030 are considered of the utmost importance. As such, the incorporation of sustainable development in teacher education worldwide, is considered significant (Stevenson et al., 2015). However, previous research concerning Finland has indicated that sustainable development in teacher education is advised but seldom practiced (Hofman, 2012). As such it is conceivable that large improvements have not yet been made. This study qualitatively examined the eight universities in Finland, which offer teacher education, using content analysis and document analysis. To determine whether each university’s strategy, teacher education programme and courses during 2019-2020, concerning sustainable development, were aligned with one another, Biggs’ theory of constructive alignment was used. The research material consisted of eight universities’ strategies, ten teacher education programme descriptions and 860 course descriptions. The results revealed the majority of teacher education institutions offer merely a handful of courses, which target sustainable development. The findings varied between universities but typically there were only a limited number of compulsory courses and marginally more electives. However, students could pick electives in other subjects which focused on sustainable development. Therefore, the conclusion is that sustainable development is insufficiently integrated into primary teacher education to be able to enable Finland to adequately respond to Agenda 2030 and SDG 4.7.

International research on collaboration between schools shows a number of positive effects for educational work. Previous research results also show that certain circumstances are necessary for collaboration to become effective and gain a depth. In Finnish research and debate co-located schools are highlighted as a strength, while it can be stated that it is a challenge to find and operate a collaborative model for two schools with different historical backgrounds and different operating cultures. The purpose of the thesis is to describe the collaboration of teachers and principals and the development of pedagogical work across the language boundary in co-located schools. The research questions focus on the teachers' experience of how brokering takes place in a co-located school as well as what positive effects, opportunities and challenges the teachers experience that the collaboration entails. This study utilises Wenger’s (1998) theory on communities of practice. This is a qualitative semi-structured interview study. All interviews were conducted in the spring of 2019. The informants consisted of 6 teachers who teach in Swedish co-located schools. 3 of the informants also serve as principals for a Swedish school. The interviews were transcribed and analyzed using qualitative content analysis. The results show that there is a great variation between schools and teachers in what extent brokering and exchange of knowledge and new ideas takes place. Willingness and interest, opportunities both to get to know each other and to draw up common guidelines are found to be factors that promote cross-language collaboration. A principal who supports collaboration turns out to be directly crucial for how cooperation is designed. The teachers felt that the main advantages of co-location and brokering were the opportunity for more colleagues and thus a broader perspective, a greater knowledge base and a greater exchange of each other's experiences and ideas.

A weak connection to school can have long-term consequences for the individual and for society. Therefore, it is important to find out what respondents who have experienced a weak connection to school consider to be the underlying reasons. The School Health Promotion study for example state that lack of school well-being and school affiliation is a problem in Finland. The purposes of this study are to explore the perceived causes of weak school affiliation and what kind of support people who have experienced weak school affiliation believe would have helped them. A support measure that Finland has taken 2021 is the renewed compulsory education law, according to which compulsory education has been extended to the age of 18. This study also finds out what respondents think about this support measure. This study adopted a qualitative approach with semi-structured interviews as a data collection method. Six respondents participated in the study, all of whom had a school background containing absences in comprehensive school and dropping out of comprehensive school or at an early stage of secondary education. The material was analyzed by a content analysis. The results show that respondents have experienced performance anxiety, weak relationships with teachers, a problematic circle of friends, lack of support from home, monotonous teaching, injustice in school and lack of future thoughts about educational paths as major causes of weak school affiliation, school dropouts and / or missed educational choices. All respondents felt that they did not know what their strengths were and that they did not have future dreams regarding a career path. All felt that support for finding their strengths, a community in the school, a good relationship with teachers and a positive view of learning had helped them in their schooling. All thought that the extended compulsory school age had mainly positive aspects, but some of the respondents considered that it would not have made a difference in their lives if the support resources in comprehensive school had not changed remarkably.

Objective. The aim of this study was to carry out a survey on the guardians’ views on nurturing in primary schools. The focus was on three dimensions: guardians' views on nurturing in general, nurturing in primary school and co-operation, and the need for cooperation in primary school nurturing. The secondary aim was to investigate whether there were statistically significant differences between the guardians’ background variables, regarding their views on nurturing within these three dimensions, and whether correlations/relations could be identified. Research on nurturing in our primary schools was considered important because the curriculum for basic education in Finland describes the school as an nurturing arena, which is visible especially in the lower grades of primary school where nurturing is constantly present in both teaching and interaction, and emphasises individual national goals for nurturing. However, studies conducted in Sweden showed that teachers do not always agree, or are unsure, on how to approach the nurturing task.In Finland, guardians perceive the general co-operation between the school and home to relate specifically to the child's learning and success, but not to the child's overall well-being. The child's closest adults, in this case carers and teachers, play a major role in the child's learning, development and growth. Cooperation between home and school, including in nurturing, therefore plays a significant role in children's well-being and makes the theme important. The views of parents and carers were considered extremely important in order to get an overall picture of the situation regarding the theme. The studies and theories of Joyce L. Epstein on partnership serve as a theoretical frame of reference for this study. Methods. The research approach was mainly quantitative, with an electronic questionnaire as the primary data collection tool. The response options regarding education consisted of 5-point Likert scales. Most of the questions/statements also included an optional open comment field, which enabled the collection of qualitative data. Therefore, the study could also be seen as a mixed methods study. The voluntary comments were analysed phenomenographically to visualize the variety of views on nurturing in primary schools. A total of 144 respondents, carers, answered the questionnaire. Results and conclusions. According to the quantitative data, guardians' views on the nurturing role of schools were on average relatively positive. Guardians were somewhat satisfied with the nurturing in the school and were comfortable or somewhat comfortable with the nurturing role of the school in the specified themes. The need for closer co-operation regarding nurturing was moderately perceived. However, the qualitative data showed that a large proportion of the parents did not really know how the school worked regarding nurturing and therefore found it difficult to answer the questionnaire. A few carers also felt that nurturing is not really part of the school's mission, while a large proportion were very satisfied with the school's efforts in this area. On average, they seemed to have confidence in the nurturing role of the school and felt that it was a good support for the nurturing role of the home. On the whole, lack of time and insufficient communication were perceived as obstacles to cooperation. A statistically significant difference was found between school sizes and how comfortable guardians were regarding the nurturing theme: behaviour and etiquette. Carers with children in a small school were more comfortable with the nurturing role of the school in the stated theme than carers with children in a large school. The following correlations were identified: The better the child did in primary school, both academically but also socially and behaviourally, the more satisfied the parent was with the nurturing in the school, more comfortable with the stated nurturing themes and perceived the quality of nurturing in the school to be higher. The more positive the carer's attitude towards the curriculum's nurturing objectives, the more satisfied they were with the nurturing in primary school. The higher the guardian's perception of the quality of co-operation, the lower the need for co-operation and the more satisfied they were with primary school nurturing. Thus, the problem remained a lack of clarity about the school's approach to nurturing and mutual exchange between school and home. Improved dialogue and common guidelines could be crucial to strengthen cooperation, which in turn can have a positive impact on the holistic development of children.

The aim of this study was to examine elementary school teachers’ opinions on education in religion and ethics. How teachers perceive the education in religion and ethics today and how they perceive the thought of a common subject for all religions and ethics. Earlier studies shows that Finland is going more and more towards a multicultural society (Odiah, 2007; Mäkelä et al. 2017). Researchers have found out that the education in religion is not equal and that it is categorizing people into different groups (Salmenkivi & Åhs, 2022). In this master’s thesis I’m going to examine the teachers specific perceives and opinions about the education of religion and ethics today and how they perceive the education in the future. This master’s thesis is a qualitative study with a phenomena graphic approach. Six elementary school teachers from Uusimaa are the study’s informants. The material was collected by conducting semi-structured interviews with the class teachers. The interviews were transcribed and analyzed using thematic analysis. The results of the study showed that there are mainly two different perceptions about the teaching of religion and ethics today. These perceives correlates with how the elementary school teachers perceive the idea of ​​a common subject for all religions and ethics. Five out of six teachers felt that the current model should be changed and perceived a common subject positively, while one out of six teachers was satisfied with the current model and did not consider a need for a common subject. The study resulted in the following themes being highlighted: equality, practical arrangements, overlapping teaching, fear of marginalized religious teaching and community, understanding and world view. These themes were perceived by the majority of teachers as problematic in the current model and as themes that could be improved through a common teaching subject for all viewpoints.