Browsing by Author "Manninen, Kirsikka"

This is a qualitative research that focuses on the views of five preliminary teachers' opinions on learning games as a part of preliminary teaching in primary schools. The goal of this research is to figure out what kinds of learning games teachers have used during their preliminary lessons during the autumn period of 2016, what are the most suitable learning abstracts to learn with learning games and what kinds of consequences there have been after the pupils have started playing these learning games. The study discusses how often learning games are used in the classroom and what kind of beliefs do these teachers hold concerning learning games' cognitive, informative, social and technical aspects. How can a teacher evaluate immigrant children's learning process through a game play? For the purposes of this research, preliminary teaching means separated education that lasts max one year and which is offered to an immigrant pupil whose Finnish language skills are not developed enough for them to be studying in a same classroom with the Finnish age-mates. The access to get preliminary teaching is legislated in Finnish education law (§ 628/1998). Usually a preliminary pupil is a child, who has just moved to Finland. The inspiration behind this research is personal. I used to be a preliminary teacher for the immigrant children in one primary school in Helsinki. There I noticed how much using learning games boosted the pupils' motivation to learn Finnish language and how they gave a new rhythm to our preliminary classes. I also researched class teachers' opinions about learning games in my Bachelor's Thesis so this felt like the natural next step. Methods. This is a qualitative case study. The research material is collected and combined from the questionnaire answers given by five preliminary teachers. The teachers answered to a digital questionnaire where there were different statements and claims considering learning games and questions about preliminary teaching as well as the most played leaning games and the time used with the learning games. In the questionnaire form there were also open answer areas where the teachers could answer to the questions in their own words. The main theory in this research is a model of (learning) game pedagogy (Krokfors, Kangas & Kopisto, 2016, 214; Krokfors, 2006; Kangas 2010; Lakkala, 2010) which focuses on the cognitive, informative, social and technical sides of a learning game and the evaluation process on game playing and learning. The other source of background influence on this research is the newest national curriculum for primary schools (2016) where learning games are mainly discussed as a learning method and a tool for digital development. Conclusions. Most of the teachers used learning games as a part of their teaching many times during the school week. Learning games were clearly most used for teaching Finnish language (alphabets, reading, writing, listening and learning singular Finnish words). Also mathematics and natural science was taught with a learning game. Learning games were seen as a good tool for individualizing education. The teachers told in their answers that not only do the learning games develop pupils' skills step by step but a pedagogically good learning game also saves teachers time resources enabling them to focus on each pupil at a time. The most used games were all digital. The Finnish language learning games, Ekapeli and Ekapeli Maahanmuuttaja were the most played games. Also digital Ville -learning environment and Kahoot -the quizzing game environment were mentioned.