Browsing by study line "Klasslärare (pedagogik)"

In 2011, Finnish comprehensive schools started using a three tiered support system. The aim of the new system was to answer students’ needs of support in a flexible way, as early as possible. For years the Finnish school system has attempted to move in more inclusive direction. Providing support is now the responsibility of all teachers. The research findings on the implementation of support are contradictory, and teachers, for example, have found resources and training inadequate to implement support. There is a need to further develop effective, inclusive education arrangements. The purpose of this study was to investigate teachers' conceptions of the implementation of three tiered support in their schools, and the factors contributing to and impairing the implementation. In addition, possible differences and similarities between different groups of teachers in the conception of support implementation were examined. The research material of this qualitative, phenomenographic study was part of secondary data collected by an electronic questionnaire from comprehensive school staff in a city. The answers of teachers in grades 1-9 (N = 847) to two open-ended questions was analyzed utilizing the phenomenographic method by categorizing the concepts first into meaning categories and later into higher categories. In addition, the data was quantified by examining the prevalence of conceptions across the answers and by teacher group. As a result of the conceptions of the factors contributing to and impairing the implementation of the support, vertical systems of categories of description were created. Factors contributing to the implementation of the three-tiered support consisted of four categories of descriptions: Collaboration, Teachers’ professional skills, Organization of school practices, and Resources. About one-third of teachers found that support had improved in their school during the last two years, while about one-third found it had weakened. Teachers’ conceptions of the reasons for the decline in support formed four descriptive categories: Lack of resources, Reasons related to students’ needs of support, Problems related to school structures and practices, and Reasons related to placement of students with special educational needs. The views of the teacher groups were mostly consistent, but there were small differences, especially related to importance of the teachers’ skills and school practices.

There are hardly any differences in mathematical competence between genders. Instead, differences arise in attitudes and interest towards mathematics. Yet according to previous studies, teachers’ beliefs about mathematical learning are gendered. Girls have been seen to succeed merely due to hard work, while boys have been seen as possessing a natural talent for mathematics, but lacking in effort (Soro, 2004; Walkerdine, 1998). The aim of this study is to research mathematics teachers’ beliefs concerning gender in school mathematics, and to compare the data with Soro’s thesis research, and thus gain information on whether teachers’ beliefs have changed in the past 20 years. Out of the 72 secondary education mathematics teachers participating in the study, one fourth were men. Participants were sought out through MAOL Ry, an association for STEM teachers. The study was conducted as a survey. The survey consisted of Likert questions and open-ended questions about the achievement levels and attitudes of boys and girls in mathematics education, about the educational choices students make, and about achieving gender equality in mathematics education. The survey form was an adapted version of Soro’s (2004) thesis study. As background information, teachers were asked about their age, gender, teaching experience, and location. The data was analyzed using both quantitative and qualitative research methods. In the structured section the most common answer was that there are no differences between genders in school mathematics. The teachers saw boys underachieving due to laziness, and girls as more willing to work to learn. Girls were more commonly perceived as hard-working and as avoiding using their intelligence. Boys were seen to dominate teaching situations, to have higher expectations of succeeding in mathematics, and to possess more ability. Teachers described girls and boys differently, but successful pupils were described as conscientious, regardless of gender. Teachers’ belief profiles had changed compared to Soro. Their views of gender equality in mathematics were largely gender neutral or close to gender conscious. The most important way of promoting gender equal mathematics education by teachers was by using diverse exercises and examples. A slightly smaller number of teachers answered that they were doing nothing to promote it.

Teachers’ job description changes along with the society, which creates pressure to update teacher knowledge and teaching. Indeed, teachership is a process that requires lifelong learning and not only systematic in-service training but also an understanding of teachers’ professional life cycles and meaningful learning. The purpose of this thesis was to survey the connection of in-service training in mathematics and work experience to the meaningful learning and teaching development of class teachers. The theoretical framework was based on models for teachers’ professional life cycles by Huberman, Leithwood, Lähteenmäki and Järvinen and theories of meaningful learning by Ausubel, Jonassen and Ruokamo and Pohjolainen. The aim was to increase the understanding of in-service training of teachers at different stages of their career cycles and to highlight the challenges associated with those cycles. Thus, this thesis seeks to support the need of the development- and evaluation work of educational continuum which became a topical issue at the beginning of the 21st century and has only become more and more relevant ever since. The data of this multi-method longitudinal study was gathered through surveys completed by classroom teachers who participated in the LUMATIKKA in-service training of mathematics teaching and learning in 2019 or 2020. Quantitative data, which measured meaningful learning consisted of preliminary and final surveys of classroom teachers (N=77). The connection of meaningful learning areas, formed on the basis of principal component analysis, and work experience was examined by using the Kruskal Wallis analysis of variance. The qualitative data, on the other hand, consisted of teachers’ open-ended responses (N=107) to the final survey’s questions on how they thought the in-service training experiences would influence teaching. Open-ended responses were analysed by means of content analysis and qualitative description. According to the results, the class teachers who completed the in-service training courses had the prior competence and expectations that supported learning well and learning during the courses was also found to be very meaningful. The most meaningful sections were the ones concretely related to the needs of working life, transfer of learning and the teaching of mathematics, although the training succeeded also in strengthening intentional learning. Experiences of reflectivity and cooperation, on the other hand, were slightly more moderately positive. Respondents’ work experience had a connection to their answers regarding learning, as teachers in the middle of their career cycles found their learning slightly less meaningful than teachers at the beginning or end of their career. Participants believed that their updated pedagogical con-tent, in particular, would change their own teaching. In addition, many of those more experienced than novice teachers pointed out the increase of specialized content knowledge, which is considered essential for teachers. Most teachers did not see obstacles to changing their teaching, although some novices regarded time as a problem. In the light of research, well-organized in-service training can be a very meaningful supporter of lifelong learning and a developer of teaching. However, the characteristics of various stages of career cycles and their typical challenges should be taken into consideration as an important factor in order to ensure the continuity of training for all teachers.

Objectives. The theoretical basis of this research is the concept of self-efficacy introduced by Albert Bandura. Self-efficacy means a person’s estimate of his or her capability to learn and to execute the courses of action required in a particular situation or task. Mastery experiences and social feedback have been shown to be important factors in the building of self-efficacy. Self-efficacy plays an important role in an individual’s development, and its impact on a person’s motivation, self-regulation and academic achievement has proved to be even stronger than the impact of one’s actual skills. Supporting individuals’ self-efficacy can make them capitalize their potential, and thus increase the equality of opportunity in society. School is an essential agent when it comes to the development of children’s self-efficacy, and the national core curriculum is the key document guiding teachers in their work. For this research, the national core curriculum of 2014 for the year groups 1-6 was examined from the viewpoint of the self-efficacy theory, and of how teachers can enhance self-efficacy in pupils. Methods. The analysis of the national core curriculum was conducted using Atlas.ti analysing program for qualitative research. Sentences referring to some component of self-efficacy, or to some means of supporting it, were collected from the curriculum. The incidences of the various components, and means of support, were qualified in order to get their total numbers. Furthermore, concepts close in meaning to self-efficacy were gathered. Results and conclusions. Although the concept of self-efficacy only comes up in the curriculum twice, concepts close in meaning appear fairly frequently. Sentences addressing the components of self-efficacy, or means of supporting it, cover 16.7 % of the curriculum text. Nevertheless, the sentences collected from the curriculum did not form a coherent theory of self-efficacy or means of supporting it. Interesting topics for further research would be to investigate to what extent teachers are familiar with the theory of self-efficacy, and what methods they use to enhance positive self-efficacy in their pupils.

Aims. The aim of this study was to examine the experience of principals in the metropolitan area about how partly integrated worldview education has been implemented and why schools have been transferred to it. In addition, in this thesis I’m interested in how schools have planned the partly integrated way of teaching in their school, how teachers, guardians and students responded when school started to teach it, is the integrated way of teaching successful and what are the principals’ future views in the teaching of religious education. The topic of this thesis is highly relevant, because religious education has been the subject of the debate in both media and research. Research on factors in the background have not been studied at least in Finland. However, some research has been done on principles, pupils and teachers in the objectives and success of integrated worldview education. In the theoretical part of the thesis, I used my bachelor’s thesis from 2020 and topical research in the field. This research aims to examine the subject from the perspective of principals. The research questions are: How schools have implemented and planned the teaching of partly integrative worldview education in their schools? And What were the biggest factors that schools have been transferred into partly integrated worldview education? Methods. This thesis was qualitative in nature which I conducted as an interview. Interviews with six principals took place between December 2020 and February 2021. I chose to interview principals from the metropolitan area who is working at schools that teach partly integrative worldview education. This thesis does not aim for generalizability and the aim of my research was to provide information about experiences of the principals. The material was analysed using content analysis and the interview method was theme interviews. Results and conclusions. Based on the results of the study the integrated worldview education will be implemented in three different ways: to one grade, to 2-4 grades or throughout the whole primary school. I created five factory categories for why schools transferred to partly integrative worldview education. These were: 1. ideological and essential elements of worldview education factors, 2. cultural diversity factors, 3. the opportunity to arrange a teaching in a new way, 4. economic factors, 5. teaching organization factors. None of these factors were the only reason behind the transfer, but many factors worked together with transfer. Partly integrated teaching based on the results, was well received by teachers, pupils and guardians. At the beginning most questioning of the new way of teaching came from the guardians. All principals felt that integrative worldview education was a successful way to teach. In the future principals hoped for more freedom at arranging worldview education at the school level and hoped that Finland would also be transmitted to teaching of common subject for all students in worldview education.

This study aims to clarify comprehencive school teachers’ view on genderqueer and how to teach and support non-binary children at school. Previous research indicates that non-binary pupils are still at risk of getting bullied at school and some of them feel like school nor the teachers can support them. Finnish school system has committed to obey the law of equality and along with the National Curriculum, it’s mandatory to prevent discrimination against non-binary pupils and to give education about gender diversity. The results of this study presents current data of how teachers can support non-binary pupils, transmit fact-based knowledge of gender diversity and how they can be a part of taking down the heteronormativity and gender binary. This qualitative study was conducted by interviewing five primary school teachers whom have had non-binary pupil in their class. The interviews were carried out by theme interview and was analyzed in content analysis. The results of this study shows that teachers took seriously of supporting the non-binary pupils in school and saw the importance of educating about gender diversity. The teachers also felt like that other pupils were positive about and accepted the non-binary pupils but they also reported having noticed some bullying and degrading speech. The support that non-binary pupil gets was seen as dependent on the teacher, child’s family and the child themself. Teacher can bring gender diversity into education and give it visibility in school. They can also transfer the information to work colleagues and bring the attention disadvantages that’s in school towards the non-binary pupils.

This study examined teachers’ narratives of teacher sensitivity. The purpose was to find out what kind of situations requiring sensitivity teachers have encountered and what kind of sensitive ways of working teachers had. Situations and practices are highlighted to support student well-being, as previous research literature has shown that every act or omission of a teacher has an impact on the student. Pedagogical sensitivity is also seen as the heart of teaching. The study was based on narrative research. The data collection method was a semi-structured thematic interview. The study group was eight classroom teachers working in the area of Jyväskylä. The research data was analyzed through narrative methods. The division into analysis of narratives and narrative analysis served as a guideline in this study. Analysis of narratives was used to thematize and classify situations and practices that require sensitivity. The narrative analysis served as a tool when creating a new narrative of the data, the widest possible type of narrative on situations requiring the teachers’ sensitivity and the procedures they use in these situations. Teachers described a wide variety of situations that required sensitivity on the part of the teacher. Out-of-school issues were given more emphasis and included, most importantly, students’ personal matters and backgrounds, which were often subject to confidentiality or otherwise sensitive matters. The teacher had to be able to act sensitively when students behaved differently or experienced large and often negative emotions due to either conflicts between students or tangles in students’ personal lives. Issues related to schoolwork were primarily the emergence of students’ different skills in learning situations and the challenges they face in schoolwork. Listening and discussing things with the students was one of the most important sensitive ways of doing things. This provided background information about the situation, which allowed teachers to take the necessary action. Teachers had to able to stop at critical moments and change their own lesson plan to deal with the situation. Depending on the seriousness if the situation, parents or other authorities were contacted. The events of the student’s personal life had to be able to be taken into account as factors influencing the student’s activities and behavior. Situations that require sensitivity are often very sensitive by nature and a teacher’s sensitive activities require good student knowledge. A sensitive teacher is able to assess how to act in the best interests of the student in each situation.

The purpose of this study is to describe, analyze and interpret the experiences of Finnish as a second language students about interaction situations in Finnish. As multiculturalism increases, so does the need to research and develop the teaching of Finnish as a second language. This study has sought to address this need by mapping the interaction situations experienced by adult students with peer, native adults, and native children. Previous research has shown that different interaction situations are an important part of language learning, and language learning is increasingly being explored as a process that happens through interaction. The research questions in this study are as follows: 1. What kind of Finnish-language interaction situations does a Finnish as a second language student encounter in his or her daily life? 2. How does a Finnish as a second language student experience speaking Finnish in different interaction situations? A total of 14 people were interviewed for the study, and the interviews were conducted mainly in pairs. The interviewees were adult practical nurse students who completed their degrees using Finnish as a second language students. The interviews were semi-structured thematic interviews. The data were categorized and analyzed by using the method of qualitative content analysis. Three main themes were found from the data, as a result of classification in interaction situations. These three themes were 1) interaction with a peer, 2) interaction with a native adult, and 3) interaction with a native child. Most of the interaction situations that took place in Finnish happened with a peer. The main result was that the interviewees had almost no native friends or acquaintances, and almost all interaction situations with the native Finnish speakers were occasional encounters, for example when shopping at the checkout. Interactions with native children also emerged from the data, as the adult students interviewed were practical nurse students that worked with children. Interaction situations with children were found to be mainly challenging. Most of the language learning took place in interaction with peers and native adults, and the interaction situations with peers were perceived as having a relaxed atmosphere, and thus also the best for language learning.

This research focuses on 4th–6th graders pupils from southern Finland and their own opinions on their own happiness, factors that would increase their happiness and does global happiness explain school-related happiness. Research was executed with #uuttakoulua-project. Happiness has been wondered through the ages and people has tried to find answers to achieve happiness. Western thoughts on happiness roots in ancient Greek and to Christian views of happiness. According to positive psychology happiness has been risen to be one of the scientifical research subject, even though it has been research quite little in Finland. Positive psychology has reached also school world where meaning of happiness has also been researched. One of the researchers in Finland is Lotta Uusitalo-Malmivaara who’s research has shown that pupils are generally happy. For example, success in school and positive relationships has been proved to be key factors that increase happiness. 543 pupils took part on this study of which 47,1% were boys, 49,0% were girls and 3,9% were other genders. Study was made as survey where questions were related to pupil’s well-being, school satisfaction and character strengths. For my own study I chose three questions about happiness which were: “How do you usually feel?”, “What have you been thinking about school?” and “My happiness would increase”. My research questions are: 1. How happy 4th–6th graders from southern Finland feel themselves? 2. What factors 4th–6th graders define to increase their happiness? and 3. Does global happiness explain school-related happiness? First two questions were analyzed by means and standard deviation. Third research question was analyzed by regression analyze. Global happiness explains 28,4% of school-related happiness was the most important outcome of this study. Pupils who took park to this study felt themselves generally happy. Intervene to climate change, improvement of animal rights and fulfilment of equality had the highest means within the answers as a factor to increase one’s happiness. As a conclusion if one is happy globally is one most likely happy also in school. Results cannot be generalized to whole population but gives an idea of how participants view their own happiness and the factors that could increase it.

Children are typically divided into different groups based on their age. At school children in the same class are mostly born within twelve months of each other. Based on their date of birth older children have a developmental advantage on younger children. In previous studies this has been named as the relative age effect. The purpose of this study is to discover whether the relative age effect is seen in the physical education grades of sixth grade students. The second interest of the study is to gather information from physical education teachers regarding grading criteria, and to debate whether the teachers beliefs about assessment account for the appearance of the relative age effect. Earlier studies indicate that older students of a class get better physical education grades than younger students This study used quantitative and qualitative research methods. Using quantitative methods the physical education grades of students from three schools in Helsinki were gathered. A discretionary sample was made up of 249 students, of which 127 were females and 122 males. The participating students had their average physical education grades and deviation calculated using the SPSS-statistics program. In addition the statistical probability of birth quarter and gender group was calculated using average physical education grades. An analysis of variance (Anova) was used here. In the qualitative portion five physical education teachers gave an insight into grading physical education. The methods used here were a phenomenographic approach and the material was gathered using an open thematic interview. The results of the study show that the relative age effect can be observed in the physical education grades of the sample group. Children born between October and December had lower grades in both gender and statistically their averages deviated significantly or very significantly compared to older children. From interviews conducted with physical education teachers some conclusions can be made that grading methods and criteria favour physically more developed students and those with better exercise skills. The results of the study show that the relative age effect needs wider studying so that the effects can be mitigated in the future.