Browsing by Author "Okkonen, Aliisa"

The increase in knowledge and continuous changes in our world affect upbringing and education. In autumn 2016 came into effect the new curriculum of comprehensive school that obligated schools to promote integrated learning and multidisciplinarity by arranging multidisciplinary learning modules. The objective of this study is to find out class teachers’ experiences and views of multidisciplinary learning modules as a part of everyday school. The purpose of this study is to understand what kind of advantages and challenges class teachers see in multidisciplinary learning modules, how class teachers feel about their own competences to implement those modules, and what is the value of cooperation in class teachers’ opinion when implementing multidisciplinary learning modules. Forty class teachers responded to this study through an online survey. The online survey was shared to two social media groups. The groups consisted mostly of professionals of education and class teacher students. The study was based on tradition of phenomenology due to the study’s interest in class teachers’ experiences. According to phenomenology, experiences are human’s experiential relations to his/her own reality. Participants of this study experienced multidisciplinary learning modules mostly as a positive part of everyday school. The biggest advantages of the multidisciplinary learning modules were increased cooperation, communality, and pupils’ motivation for school. Class teachers considered communal planning of multidisciplinary learning modules laborious, however, they though that cooperation was an important part of successful multidisciplinary learning modules. This study was also interested in class teachers’ opinions about their own competences to implement multidisciplinary learning modules. Class teachers of this study experienced that they have enough competence to implement multidisciplinary learning modules.