Browsing by Subject "class teacher"

The purpose of this study is to describe, analyse and interpret what kind of role outdoor education has in elementary school education, as well as what kinds of opinions class teachers have about outdoor education. The aim of the study is to make outdoor education more visible and to highlight experiences from the perspective of class teachers. Considering previous research data, it has been established that teaching especially in the natural environment improves both well-being and enhances learning, which makes it important to study how Finnish class teachers themselves experience outdoor teaching. This study is a qualitative study in which data were collected through themed interviews. Individual interviews involved five class teachers from grades 1 to 4, who regularly used outdoor education at least twice a month. The data was analysed using data-driven content analysis. Theoretical research consists of outdoor teaching, teaching in urban learning environments and teaching in natural environments. I also researched effects of the natural environment on well-being and learning. The results show that the most popular out-of-school learning environments were forest, library, and learning environments for physical education. The most popular subjects were environmental studies, Finnish language and literature, physical education, and mathematics. Outdoor education consisted of action-based learning, like playing, games and inquiry-based learning. Teachers used outdoor education to improve well-being and teaching, to develop a relationship with nature and to increase action-based learning. Teachers’ own preferences were also one of the reasons to teach outside the school building. The need for pupils’ support did not increase in outdoor education. Instead, pupils benefited from studying particularly in nature. In outdoor education, the role of the teacher was most often as an instructor or a fellow learner. Benefits of outdoor education included improvements in well-being, in social relations, and in learning. There were more room for diversity in teaching and in pupils when learning outdoors. Pupils also had more responsibility outside of school building. Outdoor education also created a genuine interest to learn more. The challenges in outdoor education included advance preparation, challenges brought by students, unpredictability of teaching, lack of resources, difficulty in prioritizing, and changes brought by weather. Teachers felt that pupils liked outdoor teaching and the parents mostly supported teaching outdoors. Emotional support was usually provided from the working community, although other teachers did not always share same values. Teachers needed support for outdoor education, for example extra adults, equipment, planning time, money, a more functional local environment, and community support and assistance. By identifying the challenges in outdoor education, we can better support teachers’ work in out-of-school learning environments.

Objectives. During the past ten years, there has been some studies about the Finns’ language proficiency and how they perceive English language (EF EPI, 2019; Eurobarometer, 2012; Grasz & Schlabach, 2011; Leppänen ym., 2009; Niemi & Ruuskanen, 2018; Virtanen, 2019). However, these studies have not studied these topics from one occupation’s point of view. The research aims to describe, analyse and interpret the class teachers’ perceptions of their language proficiency and of English language. In addition, the results of the study were compared to the previous studies (Leppänen ym., 2009; Niemi & Ruuskanen, 2018; Virtanen, 2019), and the answers of the less experienced class teachers and the more experienced teachers were compared to each other. Methods. The study was carried out as a qualitative survey research. The data was collected from the questionnaire, in which 32 class teachers answered. Other studies’ indicators were adapted in the questionnaire, and it had both open-ended and close-ended questions. A classification was used as the method of the data analysis. The data was sorted adequately depending on the question type, and in a way that it was comparable to the results of the previous studies. Results. The class teachers told that they know many foreign languages. The class teachers’ most proficient language was English, as almost everyone rated their proficiency as good or excellent. The less experienced class teachers rated their level of English and Spanish higher than the more experienced teachers, whereas the more experienced teachers rated their level of Swedish and German higher than the less experienced teachers. According to the answers, the class teachers perceived English language mainly positively and thought that the knowledge of English is an important skill to have. There were some differences found between the less experienced class teachers and the more experienced ones. It seemed that the more experienced teachers perceived English a little bit more negatively than the less experienced ones. The class teachers’ expectations of their own competence, in this case of their language proficiency, was at the high level. In addition, they thought that the knowledge of English and other foreign languages was an important skill to have. According to the expectancy-value theory (Eccles, 1983, as cited in Viljaranta, 2017, it can be said that the class teachers are committed to the ongoing or future task of early language teaching.