Browsing by Subject "curriculum reform"
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(2014)The Finnish national core curriculum for basic education is currently being renewed at the National Board of Education and the new curriculum will be implemented in August 2016. A curriculum defines the value basis and aims of teaching as well as the core contents to be taught. A curriculum is closely bound to its surrounding society reflecting its prevailing values, customs and traditions. Therefore, in order to renew the curriculum, it is essential to understand the societal changes and values recognized as important in the society. The drafts of the new curriculum were posted for the first time on the website of the National Board of Education for public commentary. This research examined what the feedback of the new curriculum draft was like; what themes did the commentators hold important concerning the curriculum and education in present and in the future? The research data consisted of 963 comments that were posted on the webpage of the National Board of Education regarding the draft of the general part of the new curriculum. The feedback form was open for 17 days in November and December 2012. The qualitative data analysis was done by coding with the help of Atlas.ti software. The comments discussed several issues regarding the Finnish school, its mission and the appreciations of the commentators. As a result, four major themes were found: 1) equality in education; 2) the use of authentic learning environments and multi-professional collaboration with surrounding community; 3) the role of Finnish cultural heritage and religious education and 4) sustainable development and global citizenship. These results reflect the values and topics the commentators held important for the future in terms of developing the Finnish school and society.
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(2014)Objectives. This thesis was made in cooperation with the Finnish National Board of Education (FNBE). The thesis aims to reply to the need for indepth information on the chapter of the concepts of learning in the outline of the general guidelines of the Finnish national core curriculum 2014 (POPS). Different concepts of learning have a significant effect on the everyday work of teachers. Therefore it is essential how the concepts of learning are presented in the core curriculum, which guides the teachers work. This study examined on which concepts of learning the POPS 2014 outline chapter of the concepts of learning is actually based on. In addition, this study discovered where education providers thought the above mentioned chapter had succeeded and where they considered it to be in need of improvement. The study is based on the literature of both didaktik and different concepts of learning. This way it is possible to stimulate discussion on the meaning of the concepts of learning in the everyday teaching-studying-learning process. Methods. The research data of this qualitative case study consists of the chapter of the concepts of learning in the outline of the general guidelines of the POPS 2014. The other part of the data consists of the feedback, given by 65 providers of education, on the above mentioned chapter. The feedback was gathered at the end of the year 2012 by the FNBE. The concepts of behavioristic, social, humanistic and constructivist learning were sought through theory-based content analysis from the chapter, which was subsequently grouped into themes. These themes were used in the analysis of the open-ended answers, which were given by the providers of education. Results and conclusions. The POPS 2014 outline chapter of the concepts of learning was found to be in part both constructivist (individual and social) and humanistic. The outline represents a learner-centered view, where the student's metacognitive skills, different learning strategies and the meaning of interaction play an important role in learning. The education providers saw success in the chapter's views of the active student and the meaning of interaction as well as social learning in the learning process. Need for improvement was seen in clarifying concepts (e.g. interaction, learning to learn, learning strategies) as well as the roles of the teacher, student and teaching. When developing the curriculum it is recommended to note the unclear concepts, the social learning theory and the theory of didaktik - what are the teacher's and student's roles in the teaching-studying-learning process?
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(2022)Previous research indicates that teachers have a crucial role in the success of a curriculum reform. Teachers can be considered to be on the frontlines of curriculum reform in Finland, where a participatory strategy of reform implementation is employed. To respond to the challenges and changes within the reform, teachers can achieve agency within the professional community. Agency is defined as an object of teacher learning and is characterized by a teachers will, skills and efficacy beliefs for learning. Agency is considered contextual and relational, and it is continuously constructed and evolving. This study aims to examine variation of Finnish teachers’ agency in the professional community within the context of large-scale national curriculum reform. Furthermore, this study aims to explore the relation between the experience of agency in the professional community and views towards curriculum reform and school development. This quantitative study examines a dataset collected from a representative sample of Finnish comprehensive school teachers. Data was collected in 2016 as part of a research project from 74 schools in Finland, representing urban and rural schools, smaller and larger schools as well as schools with a different socioeconomic index. The total number of respondents was 1531. The survey used two validated measures for professional agency and reform school impact in addition to background information on the teachers. Variation in experienced agency and the interrelations of agency and reform were examined using cluster analysis, discriminant function analysis, ANOVAs and Chi-square tests. Results indicate that the teachers could be grouped into high, medium and low agency clusters. Teachers in the low cluster were a pronounced minority. The experience of agency was similar through all clusters even if levels differed. Background variables did not contribute to the variation, but male teachers were found to be more likely to experience low agency. The teachers’ agency also displayed a similar level of low collective efficacy across all clusters. Teachers with high levels of agency had a more positive view on the reform’s impact. These results deepen the concept of teacher professional agency and offer new conceptual understanding into research on Finnish teachers as professionals.
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