Browsing by Subject "pedagoginen johtajuus"

In recent years, leadership in early childhood education (ECE) has been studied especially from the perspective of pedagogical leadership. More and more, however, it is seen that pedagogical leadership should be shared in order to attain the goals of early education. The goal of early childhood education is to ensure the child's overall growth and well-being. The purpose of this study is to find out the possible connection between distributed leadership and child well-being in ECE environment. There are no earlier studies of the effectiveness of distributed leadership in day care center. Studies in the school context, however, show that distributed leadership has an impact on both school achievement and employee motivation. The study was a quantitative one, because there was statistical orientation project material available. The material was collected in the spring 2015 in 13 municipalities in southern Finland with child observation (N = 2 838) and with questionnaires to ECE staff and the directors of the day care centers (N = 150). The material of the study was analyzed by calculating correlations between summed variable of distributed leadership and child observations, child and learning environment estimates, which were made by the ECE staff and leadership estimates, which were made by the directors in day care centers. The analysis was made by the SPSS program. According to the study, distributed leadership was linked to the child well-being in ECE context in different ways and levels. Well-being was emerged as a quality of physical and social learning environment. In addition, the peer relationships of children worked out and their positive feelings were emphasized. The children also participated in the planning, implementation and evaluation of the activities. On the other hand, the interaction between the staff and the children was less pronounced if leadership was shared in the day care center. Pedagogical thinking and positive feelings about work were emphasized in staff´s and director´s responses. Thus, it can be concluded that leadership is meaningful both child and staff well-being in ECE context.

The purpose of this study was to explore the problem of finding substitute teachers when needed. Through the research problems I wanted to find out what kind of experiences principals have acquiring substitute teachers. This study was affected by a motive building a new digital substitute teacher recruitment system. This idea come out from the principals’ lack of time to stand as a pedagogical leader. The theoretical background of this study is built around pedagogical leadership. This was a descriptive and charting survey research with qualitative research strategy. The data of this study was collected online with a survey questionnaire and 132 schools all across Finland answered it. The data was collected into an Excel-file, which was unravelled one answer at a time into different figures. When analysing the data, descriptive statistical methods were used. According to the results, principals are hoping for a solution to the subtitute teacher problem. This study shows that schools are forming their substitute teacher connections from student teachers, by internal arragements and network. Principals are also sharing contacts together. It was also found that substitute teachers actively contact schools. When in a need of a substitute teacher, schools contact them by text messages, WhatsApp-messages or calls. The first to respond fills the open spot. According to the respondents, name, phone number and education are the most wanted foreknowledges about a substitute teacher. Principals also value information about email, working experience and availability. All together 75% of the respondents would be interested in using a subtitute teacher recruitment system.

The purpose of this research was to find out what kind of views daycare managers have on the pedagogical team leadership of early childhood education teachers, In addition, the study examined how daycare managers support and enable early childhood education teachers in working as the pedagogical team leader and what kind of possibilities and challenges are related to it. The theoretical framework was formed around describing pedagogical leadership in the context of early childhood education. The framework became more precise by examining the concepts of coaching and multiprofessional team, and the job description and work assignments of early childhood education teachers. This research is a qualitative interview survey based on content analysis. The interviews were executed as group interviews. In total there were four groups and twelve interviewees. The interviewees were part of the research and evaluation unit of the EduLeaders project. The project aims at studying and evaluating the basic-level studies in leadership in education, and based on this information, developing the above-mentioned studies and advanced-level studies of teacher education. Based on the data of this research it seems that early childhood education teachers work as pedagogical team leaders, which shows among other things in their job description. Daycare managers supported pedagogical team leadership for example by methods of coaching. The shortage of teachers and especially the shortage of qualified early childhood education teachers and matters associated with the change of culture were seen as challenges by the interviewees.

Objectives The aim of this study was to find out how the daycare center leaders define the pedagogy of early childhood education. The aim was also to find out how they effectively contribute to the emphasis of pedagogy in the daycare centres they manage according to the Early Childhood Education Act. The research also sought information on how to implement multiprofessional work and kindergarten teachers job description. According to the Early Childhood Education Act, the pedagogical responsibility of the children's pedagogy belongs to the kindergarten teacher. The background theory of this research is the contextual leadership theory. The theoretical part also provides an overview of the Early Childhood Education Pedagogy and the Early Childhood Education Act. Methods The study combined a quantitative and qualitative approach. The material was collected via an e-questionnaire from November to December 2016. The survey was conducted for day-care leaders in Espoo, Helsinki and Vantaa municipal early education, with 58 participants. The study is part of the development work of the leadership of the Kindergarten Teacher Association. Findings The range of definitions of pedagogy in the earlychildhood education of the daycare leaders was wide. The results also showed that most of the respondents were familiar with the Early Childhood Education Act and wanted to develop pedagogy. They also evaluated that the level of pedagogy was good in their daycare centres. They wanted to develop the involvement of children and parents. They also wanted to increase kindergarten teacher's pedagogical responsibility, but there were also differences in opinion. It can be concluded that the daycare center leaders want to develop pedagogy, but they might need further training in pedagogy of early childhood education pedagogy as well as multiprofessional work. As a follow-up study, it would be interesting to know how kindergarten teachers would evaluate the pedagogical work of their daycare centres

The purpose of this study was to explore the importance of director's pedagogical leadership in everyday early childhood education. Through the research problems I wanted to find out how pedagogical leadership affects in the quality of interaction, learning environments and pedagogical atmosphere in early childhood unit. The theoretical background of this study is based on Finnish and international research of early childhood education and leadership. According to the earlier research pedagogical leadership plays an essential role in high-quality early childhood education. I believe that this study supports earlier research and by this research I want to highlight the relevance of the pedagogical leadership in children's everyday life in early childhood education. This was a quantitative research. The data used in this study was part of research and development project called Orientaation lähteillä which wants to find out what really happens in early childhood education. Project is implemented in co-operation between Teacher Education in Helsinki University and day cares in Uusimaa and Hämeenlinna. The data used in this study was collected using the questionnaires about learning environments answered by 766 units from 10 municipalities. The data included also responses of 143 child minders but in this research the data is limited to responses of the day care center workers. This study is based on the claim the pedagogical leadership and the educational culture should be strengthened in our unit. The SPSS-software was used for the analysis of the results. In the context of interaction, the lack of pedagogical leadership was reflected strongest in the emotional climate and atmosphere of the unit. When pedagogical leadership was strong, interaction between the unit seemed to be more positive and pleasure and well-being were more often present in everyday life. Pedagogical leadership seemed to play an important role in diversity of the learning environment and in the quality of physical learning environment and playing environment. What came to unit's pedagogical atmosphere, the lack of time and resources was the most significant variable that correlated with the pedagogical leadership. According to the results, director's pedagogical leadership affects many different ways in everyday early childhood education and that's why it should be acknowledged.

Several studies have been carried out in Finland on the leadership of early childhood education and care centres, which have highlighted problems, challenges and shortcomings in leadership. In this thesis, two sub-studies were used to address this issue. First, the literature review collected the studies published between 2013 and 2023 and found in a Finnish database, and the problems and challenges they presented. The problems were classified into five categories: ambiguity and lack of definition of tasks and job descriptions, leadership of self, leadership of others, structural problems of leadership, and organizational problems. The second part of the thesis looked at the ways in which discussion between actors at different levels of the organization (the 'organizational council') can contribute to finding solutions to previously identified problems. Based on the results of the literature review, three thematic platforms were put together to facilitate the discussion. Employees, officials and a representative of the political decision-making level of a large Finnish city's early childhood education and care organization were invited as discussants. Within the framework of the action research, the interest was in the suggestions for development that were put forward in the discussion. Most of the suggestions for improvement were made by the political level. A discursive analysis of the data traced the paths along which the conversation followed after the development proposals were made. The analysis looked at both the discourses that enabled development work and those that stabilized problems. Four different discourses emerged, which were called the path open to the proposal, the path closed to the proposal, the crossroads and the by-path. From a development perspective, the crossroads emerged as the most important path, as it contained a reflection on one's own agency and the need for development in general. In this way, the concept of the crossroads develops existing theory on the nature of development discourse in organizations. The thesis also provides further insight into the barriers to development discourse. One of the most interesting suggestions for development in the data was the desire for more interaction between policy makers and professionals working at different levels of the early childhood education and care organization, so that at the main stage the Board has a more complete picture of the everyday life of the day-care centres and the regions and the situations which have influence on them. However, efforts to increase the impact of the interaction between the two sides of the table mostly led to a closed path in the discussion. Despite the obstacles to development talk, the organizational board proved to be a good way to promote interaction between different levels of the organization and to provide opportunities to influence decision-making, according to the data in this thesis. It also served as a good way to increase the knowledge of the discussants about the research-based knowledge of leadership in early childhood education and care.

Objectives. The purpose of this study was to examine how ECE teachers pedagogical leadership was understood in ECE personnel and ECE centre directors speech, how ECE teachers implement their pedagogical leadership and what kind of things belong to ECE teachers’ pedagogical leadership in ECE teachers and directors views. Also the purpose of this study was to examine what kind of things were affecting to ECE teachers pedagogical leadership in early childhood education. This subject is very current because lately in Finnish ECE there has been many reformations in a social level that have impacted to ECE teachers work and position. Methods. This study was implemented as part of “Discourse of leadership in the diverse field of early childhood education” research project. The data of this study consists of six focus group interviews which were collected in three cities of Finland. Interview lengths varied from 34 minutes to two hours and 26 minutes. This study was a qualitative research and content analysis was used as a method of this study. Analysing method also has features about discourse analysis. In this study the philosophy of science were based on social constructivism. Results. In this study ECE teacher pedagogical leadership was acknowledged and pedagogical leadership was important in participants’ views. ECE teachers were implementing pedagogical leadership in three levels: child group, team and centre levels. Things that affected to ECE teachers pedagogical leadership were teacher own responsibility, support of the director and the staff, social situation, idea about the basic tasks, structures of the organisation and the maintenance of pedagogical competence. Results of this study are meaningful for ECE teacher’s implementation of work and also help supporting ECE teachers in their work.