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

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.

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.

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.

Purpose. Effect of the method “Grej of the Day” (GOTD) and sustainability pedagogics about Agenda 2030 is analyzed. The purpose is to support teaching of facts about Agenda 2030, raise the pupils’ motivation for environmental education and improve their attitudes. This study aims to see if pupils get more knowledge and better environmental attitudes after GOTD- microlessons about goals in Agenda 2030. The pupils’ feelings after the GOTD were analyzed. A swedish study shows that teachers think that their pupils get more knowledge and better motivation when teaching SO-subjects (society subjects) with GOTD. Methods. 22 pupils in grades 5–6 participated in this study. This was an action research and the pupils had 4 microlessons about 4 goals (12–15) from Agenda 2030. After the two first lessons a school project was analyzed using content analysis to see if something should be improved. Knowledge and attitudes related to Agenda 2030 were studied with a survey before and after the intervention. The survey also had two open questions about feelings before and after a GOTD-microlesson. Questions about the knowledge were based on Grön Flagg- surveys and results are presented by percentages of right and wrong. The survey about attitudes included statements to take a stand on on a Likert-scale. Results were analyzed using SPSS and presented statistically. The open questions were analyzed using content analysis. Results and conclusions. Knowledge before the intervention was very good and all the pupils gave the right answer to 7 of the 24 questions both before and after the intervention. In some questions about Goal 12 Sustainable consumtion and production the pupils lacked some knowledge and the intervention improved their knowledge a little. Attitudes about the environmental goals in Agenda 2030 were good and only a little improvement could be detected after the intervention. The improvement was not statistically significant. Content analysis of the answers to the open questions show that GOTD creates inner motivation for learning. The method “Grej of the Day” appears to be useful as a complement while teaching environmental issues in elementary schools.

The purpose of this thesis is to find out the experiences of lower secondary school teachers on how interdisciplinary teaching at the elementary school level affects students' work skills at the lower secondary school level. The background for the thesis is an elementary school in eastern Uusimaa, which has transformed its entire school day into interdisciplinary teaching and thus almost completely abolished subject divisions. With a few exceptions, all pupils from the elementary school in question go on to the same secondary school. Previous studies on interdisciplinary teaching have shown that interdisciplinary teaching promotes, among other things, students' problem-solving skills, collaboration skills and the ability to see the big picture and combine information and knowledge from different school subjects and scientific areas. This thesis analyzes whether secondary school teachers feel that these work skills are distinguished in secondary school students. In this thesis, qualitative interviews with a phenomenological approach have been used. Four informants were chosen for the interviews, all subject teachers from the same lower secondary school. The interviews were conducted via Microsoft Teams. The interviews were recorded and transcribed, after which the transcripts have been analyzed thematically. The central themes that emerged from the interviews were the informants' perceptions of how interdisciplinary teaching relates to students' work skills, the informants' views on interdisciplinary teaching and what interdisciplinary teaching looks like in lower secondary schools today. These themes were analyzed and presented separately in the results chapter. Three out of four informants felt that they did not notice differences in the working skills of pupils who worked interdisciplinary in elementary school and pupils who worked traditionally with separeted subjects in elementary school. All informants felt that there are mostly positive aspects of interdisciplinary teaching at the theory level, but that this approach is not used at the lower secondary level. Therefore, the informants felt that the work skills that pupils may have learned with the help of interdisciplinary teaching in elemantary school do not emerge in lower secondary school. Thus, the conclusions of the research are that lower secondary school teachers mostly feel that there are no differences in pupils' working skills regardless of the working methods they used in elementary school.

Goal. The aim of this thesis is to study multilingualism and the role of linguistic diversity in teaching in a Finnish-Swedish school context. Previous research has emphasized that multilingualism should be considered as the normal starting point in teaching and seen as a resource. In order to achieve the purpose of the thesis, I have formulated the following research questions. What influences classroom teachers' perception of multilingualism in school? What is the perception of multilingualism as part of teaching by teachers? Methods. The thesis used a qualitative research method with a phenomenographic approach. As a material collection method, semi-structured interviews were used. Five class teachers from three different Swedish-language schools, in two different medium-sized municipalities in southern Finland, participated in the research. During the interviews, the informants worked with grades one to two and five to six. The material was analyzed using qualitative analysis. With the help of the qualitative analysis, the class teachers' voice was highlighted on how multilingualism is perceived in today's school and as part of the teaching. Results and conclusions. The teachers who participated in the thesis perceived multilingualism in school, as something that is influenced by society and the operating culture. Multilingualism was perceived as a positive resource, which increases openness between different actors in the school, and which increases tolerance for differences and diversity. That multilingualism was perceived as a positive resource reduced prejudice in school. Multilingualism as part of teaching was perceived to be related to teacher identity, learning and language awareness. The teachers described that multilingualism can be a source of knowledge and function as a support for learning. The results showed that it is important to support students' multilingual background in order to strengthen students' self-esteem and cultural identity. The teachers' language awareness was described as a relevant factor, which influenced how multilingualism is perceived in connection with teaching. This shows a broad phenomenon that needs to be examined and made more aware of in the future.