Browsing by study line "Class Teacher (in Swedish)"

Aim. Children’s early social-emotional maturation plays an important role in their development. A report in Finland has shown that daycare centers need tools in everyday life to support children's socio-emotional development. Thus, the SAGA intervention was created by Kalland, Linnavalli & Von Koskull (2022). In the intervention, the staff at the day care center were trained in mentalization theory. Over the course of twelve weeks, the staff at the daycare engaged in regular shared storybook reading sessions with children aged 3–5. The aim of the discussions was to support the children in reflecting on mental states and to get them interested in their own and others’ inner world. In this thesis, the discussions between teachers and children during shared storybook were analyzed. The aim of the study was to describe, interpret and analyze the way the staff at day care centers discuss with the children about the inner world. Additionally, the study aimed to examine how these discussions function as a basis for the children's mentalization. One goal was also to analyze how the staff use questions to encourage children’s reflection on the inner world. Methods. The research material was gathered by videotaping moments of shared storybook reading. Thirteen different groups of children were filmed, with a total of seven adults and 57 children featured in the 13 video clips. The video footage has been transcribed and analyzed through content analysis. Results and conclusions. The results showed that most of the teachers discussed the storybooks with the children in a way that encouraged reflection on the inner world. These discussions served as a basis for the children's mentalization. The majority of discussions about inner mental states focused on identifying and naming emotions, with less reflection on thoughts, wishes or underlying reasons. There were some reflections that required a higher level of mentalization in the children. Self-reflection and reflection based on the characters' perspective were evenly distributed in the children's reflections. The teachers asked more open than closed-ended questions about the inner world. Some groups had little or no discussion about the inner world. This seemed to be because the teachers had not mastered the content of the education, failed to get the children to participate in the discussion, or that the theme of the storybook was more abstractly connected to the inner world.

Aim. Earlier studies have shown that textbooks are a crucial tool in teaching. Some theories mean that textbooks create and reproduce a specific outlook on reality. The aim of this study was to review how social studies textbooks in comprehensiveschool in Finland written in Swedish represent different occupations and how workers, employees, employers and entrepreneurs are constructed. The goal was to present who is represented in the textbooks and what kind of a notion could be constructed of workers, employees, employers and entrepreneurs in the textbooks. The study is constructed to make visible underlying discourses in the working life that are presented in social studies textbooks, so that teachers are able to adequately discuss the topic of different roles inworking life. Methods.The study includes six (6) social studies textbooks written in Swedish from Finland. For grades 4 –6 it consisted of two publishers and two publishers for grades 7 –9.In grades 4 –6 there was two textbooks per publisher. The method was a combination of a quantitative survey and a critical discourse analysis.The quantitative survey portrayed which occupations occur in the textbooks.The critical discourse analysis examined how employees, workers, employers and entrepreneurs areconstructed in social studies textbooks. Results. Altogether there are 131 occupations in the data. In the social studies textbooks for grades 4 –6 the prevalent occupations represented there, where occupations students this age could recognize form their everyday lives. In grades 7–9 the occupationswhere much broader, comparing to grades 4 –6, were there was an emphasis on occupations in the judiciary and executive fields. Otherwise,both in grades 4 –6 and 7 –9 the entrepreneur was present in the data. The employer-discourse represented the employer as actor in working life that had to be restrained and had many obligations. The employer was often represented as an impersonal and occasionally also as discriminating. The worker, employee and the employer are very intertwined. The worker-discourse described the workers vast range of action in working life, through instructions and facts for the reader. The worker-discourse was also very prevalent with rights and obligations. The employee-discourse many times portrayed employees only as measurement entity to describe another phenomenon, like businesses. The employees are also described through the working life norms, but also trough rights and obligations. The entrepreneur-discourse described the entrepreneur with many nuances, where positive and negative aspects are shown. A lot of space was given to instructions and facts regarding being an entrepreneur. The conclusion is that the employers are presented as impersonal and in a somewhat negative light, whereworkers and employees are prepared for theworking life trough norms and rights. The entrepreneurs are presented as value-charged and contain vastdescriptions of the life of an entrepreneur.

COVID-19 has had a large impact on education since schools around the world had to quickly move to distance learning. Consequently, this has possibly affected the equality of education. The main focus of this study is to find out how equality is constructed in Finnish teachers’ survey replies about their experiences during the state of emergency and to find out how these teachers in basic education have taken pupils from lower social classes into account according to their experiences when they have been distance teaching. This study was executed as a qualitative study. The research approach of this study was phenomenological. The study was conducted as a part of the project DISKO, digitalisation and distance education in Swedish-speaking school. The data collection was conducted through the E-lomake e-form. 17 teachers from basic education participated in the study from both Swedish-speaking and Finnish-speaking schools in Finland. The analysis in this study was conducted as a thematic analysis. The majority of teachers in basic education have experienced that schools have not been equal during the Corona spring of 2020. However, this study shows that there are teachers that have experienced this period as equal. The way distance education has been organised has varied between schools. Support measures have also not been organised according to guidelines. Living circumstances and digital equipment in relation to equality were also highlighted during this period. Teachers in basic education have taken pupils from lower social classes into account by lending computers and calling the pupils. Distance education has also been planned out so that pupils who do not get any support from their homes are able to do the exercises by themselves. However, it emerged that there were teachers and schools that had not taken pupils’ socioeconomic status into account. Results in this study indicate that education has not been equal for all children during the state of emergency in the spring of 2020 according to teachers’ experiences. The future holds, how severe the effects of COVID-19 have been on children from socially disadvantaged backgrounds.

Tiedekunta - Fakultet - Faculty Educational Sciences Tekijä - Författare - Author Anna-Lena Bertell Työn nimi - Arbetets titel En kvalitativ studie kring klasslärares beskrivningar av öppen lärmiljö Title A qualitative study of class teachers`descriptions of open learning environment Oppiaine - Ämne - Subject Class teacher Työn laji/ Ohjaaja - Arbetets art/Handledare - Level/Instructor Master’s Thesis / Supervisor’s Name Aika - Datum - Month and year March 2022 Sivumäärä - Sidantal - Number of pages 48 pp. + 2 appendices Tiivistelmä - Referat - Abstract Previous research has described that open learning environments have become increasingly common in schools. It is an open space with access to a smaller group room. Open learning environment should be able to be shielded using different types of acoustic walls, curtains or bellows because several student groups are taught there at the same time. The aim of an open learning environment has been to provide more flexibility in teaching as flexibility is required for student-centered learning. The role of the teacher has also changed in an open learning environment, the teacher should be more like a tutor and the students will have more freedom to choose and decide how and where they work. The open learning environment should be adapted so that students have the opportunity to work individually, in pairs or in groups. The study's material consisted of semi-structured interviews with class teachers who had experience of working in an open learning environment. The interviews were conducted in spring 2021. The research participants were ten (10) from three different schools from two different municipalities in southern Finland. The interviews were then analyzed using qualitative content analysis as a method. The research participants described the open learning environment according to their own experiences as to how the spaces looked and worked, what flexible furniture was used, and what opportunities and challenges there were in an open learning environment. Finally, the research participants also described some suggestions on how the open learning environment can be developed.

The digital communication between home and school has developed for a longer period besides the digitalization in our society. Studies have shown that the perception of digital communication related to school context varies and there is also an ongoing discussion about it in the media. The purpose of this study is to discover how caregivers experience the digital communication with the class teacher, and which tools are working well and not so well depending on different parts of the everyday school day. This study was executed as a qualitative study and the data was collected through an electronic form. The form was answered by 19 caregivers with children in grades 1-6 in basic education. The analysis in this study was conducted as a thematic analysis. Wilma and social media were used for digital communication between caregivers and class teachers. The digital communication tools were experienced as well functioning in informative occasions but not as well in situations that required a dialog. Lack of guidelines in the usage of digital communication tools were experienced to cause misunderstandings. Results in this study shows that awareness among caregivers and class teachers of how digital communication tools are used can conduct to a development of the digital communication to at best become an effective and smooth way to communicate. This benefits all partners. A well-reasoned usage of digital communication tools increases a feeling of participation and conducts to a feeling of welcomed in the school as a caregiver.

Objective: The aim of the study is to investigate the factors underlying effective pedagogical leadership in the classroom. The guiding framework for the study is Steinberg's (2018) theory, which identifies seven success factors - values, learning, influence, future, classroom culture, love, and structure - to achieve effective pedagogical leadership. The insights of Finnish researcher Karlberg-Granlund (2021) on teacher professional development share similar themes or perspectives, making them relevant to my study. A key aspect of this leadership is creating an environment where students feel safe and focused, thereby enhancing learning. The study is pertinent as we know from PISA results in 2022 that Finnish students have shown declining performance in mathematics. Results from 2018 also demonstrate a worsening trend in students' reading abilities (Ministry of Education and Culture, 2023). This study can support teachers in understanding their role in students' lifelong learning. The primary focus of the study is to highlight methods that are effective and considered beneficial for students. Method: The study adopts a qualitative interview approach, wherein I interviewed four qualified classroom teachers to explore their thoughts and experiences. To gain diverse perspectives, I chose teachers from three different schools within the same city. All collected data was transcribed and underwent meticulous analysis. A qualitative content analysis was employed as the analytical method to systematically interpret and understand the patterns and themes emerging from the interviews. Results: analyzed data was structured into four main themes: firstly, effective pedagogical leadership and the various methods employed to achieve it; secondly, focus on lifelong learning; and finally, lesson planning. Each main theme had its own subheadings providing a clear structure for the results section. Within each subheading, the thoughts of classroom teachers on the specific theme were presented. It is evident that teachers strive to create a conducive learning environment. It is crucial for teachers to consistently work on maintaining clear expectations, building relationships with students, and promoting a sense of belonging and fairness in the classroom. In effective pedagogical leadership, safety and mutual respect are fundamental starting points.

Previous studies have shown that teachers' job satisfaction has decreased in recent years and that teachers at the beginning of their careers are at great risk of leaving the profession at an early stage. Satisfaction with work and career has shown several positive consequences, including well-being, willingness to stay in the profession and work engagement. The purpose of this study is therefore to examine how satisfied Finnish newly qualified class teachers are with their careers, and to identify their career success criteria. The purpose is also to investigate whether the class teachers feel that their degree has been adequate and if it has prepared them for working life, and to investigate what a class teacher earns. The relationships between career satisfaction, teacher education adequacy and salary are examined. The research problems are examined regarding gender, additional education, and employment relation. The study involved 137 alumni from the University of Helsinki's class teacher education who gradu-ated between 2012 and 2015. The informants responded electronically to Aarresaari's national career follow-up questionnaire. The research design for the study was triangulation with the aim of analyzing quantitative and qualitative data parallelly. The material was analyzed quantitatively with the statisti-cal program SPSS, while open answers were analyzed with thematic content analysis. The class teachers were fairly satisfied with their careers, they deemed that the teacher education was adequate and that it provided them with the necessary skills. Important career success criteria were type of employment relation, career advancement, professional agent, nature of work, school, and social relations. Although the quantitative results showed that the class teachers considered the education to be adequate, the thematic content analysis revealed that there were several shortcom-ings including student relations, cooperation, and teacher role. The correlation test showed that ca-reer satisfaction had weak but positive correlations with salary and adequacy of the education. Class teachers earn on average 3002 euros a month, and men earn more than women. Newly qualified class teachers' career success criteria should be important assets for promoting career satisfaction and retaining class teachers in the profession. Class teacher education needs to be sensitive to changes in society, while newly qualified class teachers should be offered appropriate support in adapting to the practical work.

The Finnish language might even feel foreign to many Swedish-speaking people in Ostrobothnia as they seldom get to use their Finnish language skills in daily life. Due to this, it might turn out to be challenging to motivate pupils to learn Finnish in school. In this study I have analysed the problem to see whether there is a recalcitrance against learning Finnish among the Swedish-speaking pupils in Ostrobothnia. Do these pupils find the Finnish language unnecessary in their lives? If so – what are the underlying causes? In what way is this problem handled by the teachers? The main purpose for this study is two-pieced: I want to learn how pupils think about the language teaching they get – are they motivated to learn Finnish in school, and do they have negative attitudes against learning the language? I also want to know what kind of teaching solutions the teachers have for motivating their pupils. Do the teachers recall motivation-loss among the pupils? I have used The Self Determination Theory by Deci and Ryan (2002) and The Expectancy Value Theory by Eccles and Wigfield (2000) as my theoretical background. I have also used some of the extensive research among bilingualism of Slotte-Lüttge and Forsman (2013) in this study.This is a qualitative research and the data is collected through interviews with four Finnish-teachers in both 2005 and 2018 and eight eight-graders in 2019. I have found out what the motivation for learning Finnish looks like amongst pupils in Swedish-speaking schools in Ostrobothnia. And I have also got to learn how the teachers take notice to these aspects in their planning of the language-teaching in the classroom. The Finnish-teachers witness great difficulties with the Finnish language among the pupils as the teachers often are the only representatives of the language. The pupils almost never get to use their Finnish language skills outside of school. There has been a progress in language teaching and the digitalization has resulted in a more versatile language education during the years 2005 and 2019. The pupils expect more opportunities for communicative language skills and there is a great need of authentic Finnish language environments in the Swedish-speaking parts of Ostrobothnia.

Aim. According to the law, every finish child has the right to a safe school environment. Research indicates that schools play a vital role in preventing cyberbullying. For efficient prevention of cyberbullying in schools, schools need for example a carefully planned anti-bullying policies with correct definitions of both bullying and cyberbullying. The plans should also contain methods for prevention and intervention. The supply of research on cyberbullying in elementary schools is limited, and thus this study will examine the guidelines elementary schools have against cyberbullying, how schools actively are preventing cyberbullying and how school personnel perceive the current work done against cyberbullying. Methods. The data for this study was collected qualitatively, through semi-structured interviews with a phenomenographic research approach. The seven interviewees who participated consisted of principals, school counsellors and class teachers in two Swedish speaking schools. The data was analysed using a thematic analysis in the program Atlas.ti 8. Results and conclusions. The results of this study shows that the schools do not have an extensive definition of cyberbullying nor have they included preventive measures against cyberbullying in their anti-bullying policies. The schools do however prevent cyberbullying for example through scheduled discussions with the pupils. According to the participants the schools work against cyberbullying works relatively well. The majority of the participants thought that the schools could have clearer and more comprehensive guidelines against cyberbullying in their policies. The schools anti-bullying policies do not include how the schools will act in case cyberbullying occurs outside school but among the schools pupils. Based on the results the schools could review their policies and clarify the responsibility among school personnel. This would lead to a more consistent approach and have long-lasting effects.

Aim: The aim of the study is to find out how primary school teachers understand the concept of formative assessment, how they apply assessments in teaching and what kind of support and resources that are needed to implement assessments in practice. This is to make any misconceptions visible and to gain insights into how much support teachers need to practice formative assessment in teaching. Studies show that formative assessment is a complex phenomenon, difficult to implement in practice. Misconceptions occur among primary school teachers and there seems to be a great need for support measures in the form of time, education and resources from the school. Method: The survey was conducted using semi-structured interviews. The participants in the survey consisted of seven Finnish-Swedish primary school teachers in grades 1-6, from three different schools. The results of the study were recorded, transcribed and analyzed using thematic analysis. Results and conclusions: The result of the study shows that primary school teachers have a wide perception and understanding of the concept of formative assessment. Despite this, class teachers tend to use formative assessment for summative purposes, which indicates that there is a limited understanding of formative assessment. The class teachers need to increase their understanding of formative assessment specifically in relation to the summative assessment. The results also shows that the primary school teachers are familiar with several different strategies for the formative assessment, but at the same time they need more practical knowledge about some formative strategies. The descriptions of the strategies did not always correspond to the basic ideas behind the formative assessment, which in turn shows that it isn’t that easy to implement formative assessments in practice. The study also shows that primary school teachers have a need for support and resources for formative assessment, especially primary school teachers with less experience. The primary school teachers especially experienced a lack of time and space to discuss the assessment with other colleagues in the school. The class teachers also wanted more courses and further training in the subject to get more practical tips on how to work with formative assessment. This in turn shows that the school is an important platform for the professional development of primary school teachers, especially in matters concerning assessment.