Browsing by Author "Nevalainen, Nina Bettina"

The objective of this thesis is to study practices of learning and development from the perspective of school visits. In particular I am interested how teachers learn during the visit and how they present their practices to the colleagues. Theoretical background for this study is comparative learning, method of benchmarking as well as change of school administration in Finland from centralized method to decentralized and trust-based. Changes in school administration have released teachers to develop, design and implement their own practices. With benchmarking and comparative learning it is possible to pick up others good practices and to develop their own practices by comparing. The data of this study consist of two school representatives' interviews, the material received from the schools and observation notes. I also interviewed one head of education that is responsible for teacher's continuing education. Two schools are selected as they have developed practices that have attracted interest and invite visitors. For support for interview material and to understand the approaches of the schools I also visited there one day to observe. The data is analyzed by content analysis which allows that the material could be to look for a school requests a phenomenon describing the factors, practices they have built as well as their transit through learning. New practices arise from a desire to develop. Interaction, openness and sharing of information enable that their own practices can be developed in collaboration with colleagues. School visits provide the mirror to help the development as the discussion and seeing the other activity by means of its own operations to reflect on and develop better. Comparative learning acts as an effective development and learning tool.