Browsing by Subject "Avoimet oppimisympäristöt"

Aims: This thesis examines open learning environments, which are a very recent and popular phenomenon in Finnish schools, although their suitability has not been studied enough. In this thesis, I present the definition of open learning environments, the reasons for building them and their designing process, as well as their functionality for students in terms of accessibility and sensory stimuli, as well as briefly teachers' experiences of open learning environments. The research problem of this thesis was to look at the public discussion about open learning environments in the newspaper Helsingin Sanomat. The following questions were selected as research questions: 1. How do news articles in Helsingin Sanomat view the open learning environments? And the second question is: 2. In what ways are open learning environments spoken about in letters to the editor? Which discourses arise from the material? Methods: The research material consisted of textual material retrieved from Helsingin Sanomat through a systematic literature review. The material consisted of 11 news articles and 11 letters to the editor, written in 2019-2020. The selected material addresses open learning environments in a primary school context. Content analysis for news articles and discourse analysis for opinion papers were used as the method of analysis. Results and conclusions: 14 different themes with a variety of perspectives towards open learning environments were found in the news. Four separate discourses were found in the letters to the editor, and the strongest of which was the discourse of concern. Based on the results, the public debate on open learning environments is very diverse, highlighting both desirable effects and changes, as well as numerous complaints.