Browsing by Subject "positiivinen pedagogiikka"

Aims. This thesis strives to investigate how teachers perceive positive pedagogy and what practices teachers typically employ. In this master’s thesis the aim is to resolve how pre-school teachers understand positive pedagogy and what kind of perceptions they associate to it. I am also interested in knowing what kind of resources teachers must have to be able to practice positive pedagogy methods. In the light of previous studies, teachers associate many positive effects with the implementation of positive pedagogy methods and saw their role as a central for example, in creating positive and encouraging atmosphere. Methods. In this study six preschool teachers, four class teachers, special education teach-er, and resource teacher participated. Target groups were partly selected randomly trough a message via Facebook group called ‘’alakoulun aarreaitta’’. Part of the participants were al-ready familiar with the research project. The data was collected through theme interviews which were performed face to face or via Zoom. Interview data was analyzed using qualitative content analysis. Some answers from the interviews were included as citations withing the research results to enrich and illustrate the results. Results and conclusions. Teachers experienced and described that positive pedagogy methods have several positive benefits to individual’s and to the whole classroom. The results showed that the teachers highlighted how they were able to influence the classroom atmosphere, good interaction relationship with students, and also strengthen individual’s self-image and agency by using positive pedagogy methods.

Objectives. My study examines whether boys of primary school age are familiar with their own character strengths, whether they use their own character strengths to support their learning and whether positive pedagogy strengthens the mindset and self-esteem of these boys, as is its goal. Positive pedagogy is currently a very popular pedagogical trend in Finland. It is also well discussed in the Finnish basic education curriculum, which considers it important to take well-being and the strengths of character into account. Teaching and pedagogy are being carried out to teach children, which is why I wanted to study children in my study and to highlight their perspective in relation to a positive pedagogical and whether positive pedagogy works. Methods. This study is a qualitative long-term study and has been conducted as a half-structured theme interview. In the study, I interviewed one-class students from a school in the capital region twice. The first-time boys were in 2nd grade and the second time they were in 4th grade. The first time I interviewed seven (n=7) boys and the second time interviewed all the boys from the class (n=16). As an analysis method, I used themes. The results and conclusions. According to the results of my research, positive pedagogy has taught boys to know their own character strengths and made their self-concepts and self-esteem strong. Boys feel character strengths as individual character strengths, but they do not feel character strengths in a broad sense. These boys think it's important to give positive feedback and they like it at school. Compassion became an important strength of character in boys' answers. Self-concepts and self-esteem are strong for boys, because boys thought of themselves positively, they think they do many things well, and they believe that they have a good future ahead of them.

The purpose of this research was to find out the experiences of pre-school teachers in the use of digital service related to positive pedagogy in pre-school education. The theoretical framework of the study consisted of description of pre-school education and positive pedagogy. In addition, it examined what similarities can be found in the contents of the pre-school education curriculum and positive pedagogy. Character strengths and strength pedagogy, as well as positive feedback, were presented as more specific concepts. The framework was further specified by defining the concepts of well-being, pedagogical documentation, and digital services. The research is a qualitative interview survey based on phenomenological analysis. The interviews were executed as individual interviews remotely using Microsoft Teams. A total of three early childhood education teachers were interviewed. Interviewees participated in the City of Espoo Early Childhood Education and Positive Learning Oy joint development project. Among other things, the project aimed to teach children strengths in character through a digital service, as well as help them identify them. According to the research results, the teachers had mainly positive experiences to Huomaa hyvä! tool in pre-school education. They thought it worked well in supporting children's identification of strengths. Teachers themselves felt that they had learned to identify children's strengths differently than before and understood that something in children's activities that they had previously experienced as negative could be the child's strength in the right situation. In addition, they found that when they set a goal for some strength, it increased significantly in the group. According to the teachers, the tool also worked well as a tool for positive feedback. They felt that the positive feedback encouraged the children to reflect on their own strengths and thus they also learned to recognize them. According to teachers Huomaa hyvä! the tool served well as a tool for pedagogical documentation. They felt it was important to be able to return to the moments of success they experienced later and deal with them together with the children. The tool also supported their work and various pre-teaching processes such as action planning, implementation and evaluation. They felt that the introduction of the digital service affected their way of working as a whole.

The research develops a teaching method to increase students' self-direction in handicraft education. The purpose is to determine whether regular exercise of mindfulness increases the self-direction of the students. Research has emerged from the need for practice. Previous studies have shown that mindfulness affects self-directedness. Mindfulness is associated with better performance-oriented self-direction (Howell & Buro, 2011). Mindful-ness exercises develop children's concentration, stress management, self-directedness and self-awareness. In addition to self-directedness, mindfulness promotes socio-emotional un-derstanding and positive attitude. (Schonert-Reichl & Lawlor, 2010.) The study was conducted as a qualitative desing-based research. Ten seventh grade students participated in the study. The study involved an 8-week conscious presence intervention in craft education. The data were collected by observing students during the interventi-on and by a self-direction questionnaire before and after the intervention. The analysis was carried out as a theory-based content analysis. The analysis used an observation diary and a self-directed questionnare based on Alanen's (2014) self-directed themes. These themes include mastering the language of the craft, taking responsibility for the craft process, courage in action, and working fluency. The intervention in the study had a positive impact on the students' work flow. According to the study, the mindfulness exercises had a positive effect on the start of the students' craft classes. Pupils began to work in a more self-directed way after practicing mindfulness exercises. Based on this, exercises can be used in craft teaching to streamline the beginning of lessons. This study could not reliably determine the effect of the exercises on the students' self-directedness other than on board the lessons.

Abstract The topic of this study is strength of character education applied to pre-school education. The purpose of this study was to examine, did understanding of the concepts perseverance, self-regulation and compassion increased during strength of character education intervention. Analysis and interpretation sought to clarify, whether these character strength concepts can be used as a tool in preschool everyday life. For example, the abstractness of character strength words, subjects young age and poor Finnish language skills can pose challenges to the use of character strength words. There were several Finnish speakers who spoke a second language and children with special developmental and learning characteristics. Children's age also influences linguistic development, the construction and understanding of concepts. Character strengths are based on positive psychology. Positive pedagogy is the application of positive psychology in practice. The goal is individual and meaningful teaching that supports the holistic development, personality and happiness of the individual. Character strengths are among many other qualities and abilities that have a positive impact on learning. They can be taught and learned just like any other skill. Studies show that positive psychology increases well-being and happiness. Most strength research, such as identifying strengths and influencing strengths on happiness and success, focuses on adults. In the work of fostering learning and well-being in kindergarten and school, the examination of strengths and resources are now limited. There is a clear need for positive education and pedagogy, but the debate about strengths, and especially the conscious and systematic teaching of these concepts, has been little. This study was conducted (executed) as a qualitative action study. The baseline for the three-week intervention was Uusitalo-Malmivaara´s and Vuorinen´s (2016) research and Huomaa hyvä! character strength teaching material, which they have developed for a Finnish school. The strength of character education intervention was used to test the teachability of Huomaa hyvä! character strengths in pre-school education. Efforts were made also to change the culture of the preschool group into a philosophy of positive pedagogy. The data was collected by interviewing six 6-year-old children. The research material collected in the semi-structured interview was analyzed by means of theory-based content analysis. The results showed that the understanding of each subject increased with each of the three concepts during the character education intervention, regardless of language and cultural background or learning challenges. The amount and quality of definitions and examples given by children vary to some extent. In practice, children learn to recognize strengths so well that they can be used as a tool in everyday life in preschool and systematically practiced. They identified strengths more in their everyday lives outside of preschool after the intervention. Thus, they were able to apply the new knowledge they learned in the preschool to different contexts in practice which indicates that understanding learning has happened. The concept of compassion was best adopted by children and self-regulation was the most challenging to adopt. Authentic learning environments and hands-on exercises positively influenced on learning.

The purpose of this thesis is to examine what aspects of their everyday life sixth-grade pupils find important. The second research question aims to find out what kind of experiences pupils have on a tool named Positive CV and the teaching of character strengths. The pupils have attended an intervention piloting Positive CV earlier the same academic year. The study was conducted as a case study. The data consists of five group interviews, where the interview method was a semi structured theme interview. The interviewees were pupils from a sixth grade class of a school in Southern Finland that took part in the Positive CV intervention earlier the same academic year. The data was analysed by applying Grounded theory method. The interviewees’ important aspects of everyday life were family, friends, free time, and school. According to the results of this research, the sixth graders considered teaching of character strengths and the Positive CV tool to be a welcomed addition to school. With the help of these, the pupils’ self-knowledge improved. The PCV tool also enabled the recognition of wide ranging knowledge. The results support the idea of the developmental ecosystem model of education, which suggests that the entire network of social interaction of pupils should be taken into consideration when planning on educational conventions. Teaching of character strengths and Positive CV could offer practical tools to promote well-being in schools as demanded in the curriculum and legislation. Learning happens in social interaction, and the recognition of the entire social network of pupils could support the well-being of pupils, both in and outside of school settings.