Browsing by Author "Koivula, Katja"

Research deals with teachers’ agency experiences in a school located Helsinki, where the new digital learning environment, FUSE Studio, was introduced. The point of view of the re-search is based on the definition of temporal agency, which reflects the experiences from the past and is influenced by the future objectives, but always takes place in the present. The research introduces an interesting aspect to observe teachers’ agency experiences in a new learning environment and explains, what is the aim of the teachers’ professional agency. The research assists to understand how the teachers react to the change and their own progression in a professional context. The purpose of the research is to examine what kind of temporal agency experiences the teachers face in a new digital learning environment (FUSE Studio). In addition, the research examines what kind of possible agency forms appear from the teachers’ experiences and what kind of features the different agency forms comprehend in the FUSE-Studio. The material consisted of four semi-structured interviews of four different teachers. The teachers were interviewed for the first time in May of 2016 after the FUSE Studio introduction training and for the second time in January of 2017, when the FUSE Studio learning environment had been in use for one term. Qualitative content analysis was used for analysing the mate-rial. Three different forms of agency were found from the teachers’ experiences: 1) exploratory teacher’s agency, in which the teacher studied the phenomenon together with the students, guiding them to the adequate direction. 2) Supporting teacher’s agency, which was associated strongest with the teacher-student interaction relationship. 3) Adapting teacher’s agency, which enabled and supported students’ spiral learning, building and deepening new information beside the information learned before. Each agency form has its own features. They are not mutually exclusive, but they rather aim at the same result. All the agency forms found from the material have the same goal to achieve self-guiding students. This is related to the understanding how the teachers’ agency is structured, where resources, environment and circumstances are taken into account and where the agency is formed both through and within.