Browsing by Author "Tiilikainen, Vera"

Majority of experts working in the educational sector share the view that in the future, there is an increasing need to integrate knowledge from different disciplines. At the same time, importance of knowledge processing skills is highlighted. In the Finnish National Core Curriculum for Basic Education the answer to these future demands is multidisciplinary learning modules. The purpose of this study is to examine how multidisciplinary learning modules are carried out in different schools. With this study I also want to find out which parties have the greatest impact on planning the multidisciplinary learning modules, what kind of goals, contents and practices are being chosen for the module and how students are involved in the process. This study was qualitative research. The data was collected by thematic interviews. The interviews were attended by three primary school teachers and three primary school student teachers. Collected data was analyzed by using data driven content analysis. The results show that the guidelines for multidisciplinary learning modules came often for the teachers from the local curriculum and for the student teachers from the training teacher. The contents of environmental studies were emphasized significantly in multidisciplinary learning modules. The interviewees used mainly phenomenon-based integration in their teaching but the main goal for the learning modules was to improve student’s collaboration skills rather than to integrate different subjects. The students didn’t really have a chance to participate in the planning of multidisciplinary learning modules and their role in the decision making regarding the execution was minor. However the students had a significant role in the assessment of the multidisciplinary learning module. On the other hand the interviewees did not necessarily give any feedback to students at the end of the multidisciplinary learning module. In the future it would be interesting to interview students regarding their experiences of multidisciplinary learning modules.