Browsing by Subject "noviisiopettaja"

Aim of the study. The aim of the study is to find out what kind of tools novice teachers have to support students with ADHD symptoms. This study aims to find out how much novice teachers know about ADHD and the challenges it brings to the students with ADHD. The research examines the tools, that novice teachers use to support students with ADHD symptoms and the solutions they have found out to be the most useful in supporting students with ADHD. The study also focuses on the co-operation between school staff and student’s parents, and evaluates the key aspects behind succesful co-operation, that provides the best possible help for the student with ADHD symptoms. Methods. This research is conducted as a qualitative interview research. The interviews were conducted as half-structured theme interviews. The interviews were transcribed and the findings from the interviews was compared to previous studies. Five primary school teachers with less than five years of experience participated in the interviews. Results and conclusions. This research found out, that good co-operation between school and student’s home supports students with ADHD symptoms. The key to good co-operation is active communication between the different stakeholders. According to this research, novice teachers have a good acknowledge of ADHD and the challenges it brings, but the novice teachers believe, that they don’t have enough knowhow on how to provide the best possible support. Good knowledge about the students was considered important and the most important factor in supporting students was to provide clear written instructions and to have a good structure when providing the assignments and when planning the studies.

This study focuses on new teachers’ experiences during the first working years. The aim of this study was to examine the challenges of new teachers, what helps them have strength during the first teaching years and what kind of support they would have needed during the first teaching years. Teacher job strain and job wellbeing has been studied quite a lot and it has been on the media lately. The beginning of the working years has been found to be difficult for new teachers. This study focuses on the beginning of the teaching career. Michael Huberman (1989) has developed a model of teacher career cycle which was also used on this study. This study was an interview study, where seven newly graduated class teachers where interviewed. They had maximum of three years of experience working as teachers. The interviews were transcribed, and content analysed. The results were divided by the research questions. The results showed that new teachers experience the first working years ruff. The challenges they experienced were challenges caused by the parents and pupils and the part of the job that happens outside the teaching part. The job community, positive interaction with the pupils and having a strict division between working and free time helped the new teachers have strength with their job. Novice teachers hoped for more support from colleagues and suggested that practicing the concrete tasks as part of teacher studies at the university would have been helpful. They also wished for mentoring to be a part of starting a new job as a teacher.

Aims. The aim of this research was to study the reasons why novice teachers decide to leave the teaching profession only a few years after graduation. Previous studies have shown the difficulties of teacher induction and the importance of support during the induction phase. Teachers' career changing has become a common issue, and has raised a conversation about the sufficiency of qualified teachers in the future. This demonstrates the importance of support during the induction phase. The purpose of this research is to increase to knowledge about the forbidding factors present in teachers' work and thus give tools to successful commitment of novice teachers. Methods. This study is a qualitative case study and phenomenological in approach. The data were collected by a semi-structured theme interview on a quitting novice teacher. The teacher's thoughts about her decision and the reasons to quit teaching were discussed during the interview. The person had worked as a teacher for a year and a half when the interview was conducted. Gathered data was analysed by using a theory-driven thematic analysis. Results and conclusions. The reasons for the teacher's quitting were influenced by the workplace, working time, amount of work and the lack of support. Due to these factors the novice teacher's image and the reality about teaching were not corresponding and giving her satisfaction from the work. The joy of teaching and the pupils were seen as a reason to not quit teaching. The teacher also had personal development targets and was too conscientious to quit teaching immediately. The call to teach and interest in education and school resisted the quitting decision. The novice teachers' decision to quit seems to have arisen from various crucial factors, both internal and external. In all, this research gave some empirical and intimate knowledge about the phenomena that have been studied very little before in Finland. The study also demonstrated current issues and important themes for further studies and development.

The aim of this study is to find out, describe and interpret the novice classroom teachers' perceptions of the challenges they encounter in their job in the elementary school and how they cope with them. The main research question is: what kind of professional challenges and coping methods novice classroom teachers have at the beginning of their career. To help answer this question there were two subquestions: which factors are challenging at the beginning of the career according to novice teachers and which factors help coping with the challenges and, therefore, help the novice teachers at their job. The gap between the university studies and the actual work, the induction phase of a novice teacher and the challenging nature of the profession from a novice teacher's perspective have all been previously studied and the studies have proven that the induction is hard and strenuous on the novice. The previous studies as well as my own experience as a novice teacher formed the theoretical context and basis for this study. The material for this study was gathered from seven novice classroom teachers who worked in the Helsinki region and who had experience in teaching no less than one and no more than three years. I interviewed each novice teacher individually. I analyzed the interviews with the help of content analysis based on previous theories. I looked for themes in the interviews: what kinds of challenges and coping methods were mentioned. The interviews provided information on which factors are considered challenging and which support the novices' work and how. Novice teachers mentioned multiple challenges at the beginning of their career. Some of the challenges overlapped with each other and they concerned the number of different tasks and roles a teacher has, the pupils, the work community and the difficulties in collaboration, the everyday aspects of being a teacher, the school practices, teaching, the community outside the school, and the collaboration with parents. The coping methods and factors supporting the work concerned a well-functioning work community, peer support, pupils and their parents, the balance between work and free time, the novice's own attitude, and feeling that the work is meaningful. A few factors, for example the work community and the pupils, were in some cases a challenge and in other cases something that supported the novices in their work. The results of my study could be utilized in the induction phase, making it easier, and at the final stage of the university studies, when the teacher students are being prepared to start their teaching careers.

According to studies, an increasing number of primary school teachers are experiencing burnout in their work and considering a career change. The well-being and resilience of teachers in their profession have been the subject of research for a long time. Specifically, newly graduated teachers in Finland lack adequate support. There is a gap between teacher education and the reality of the school world, which is causing difficulties when teachers transition into the working life. The first years of a novice teacher’s career have often been described as years of survival. The aim of this thesis was to find out the experiences of novice teachers regarding the job demands and resources. Eight class teachers participated in this thesis, all of whom were at the beginning of their careers. The data consists of semi-structured thematic interviews. The interviewees had worked as teachers for a maximum of three years after graduation. The interviews were transcribed, and the textual material was analysed using theory-guided content analysis. The research revealed that the first years of novice teachers are typically very stressful. Work demands include a heavy workload, lack of human resources, challenging students, and parents, as well as insecurity of the employment relationship. On the other hand, the strengths of teachers’ work include student interactions, support from the work community, the meaningfulness of the work, delineation of work and self-compassion. The burden of the workload and the experiences with challenging students and parents are primarily explained by the lack of work experience and the incompetence resulting from it. Support from the work community is a particularly valuable resource for novice teachers. Setting boundaries for work and self-compassion, on the other hand, are resources that are typically lacking in newly graduated teachers. The findings in this thesis regarding novice teachers’ workload are in line with previous studies. Novice teachers hoped that teacher education would better meet the practical requirements of the job than it currently does. Based on the results, proactive measures should be taken to address teacher well-being. Teacher workloads should be responded to more energetically than they are presently, and assistance should be provided in classrooms. Additionally, valuing the work of teachers and making it visible are also crucial for work well-being.