Designing Nordic technology-enhanced learning

The latest developments of information and communication technologies (ICT) and its large penetration in different sectors of our society pose new challenges and demands in the field of education. This special issue entitled “Designing Nordic technology-enhanced learning (TEL)”, presents and discusses how researchers in the Nordic countries are currently framing and thinking about issues that are related to pedagogical design of learning spaces, digital literacies, educational professional development, design of tools engaging students in collaborative inquiry learning as well as design-oriented multimodal understandings of learning.The objective pursued with the special issue has been to reflect upon current problems that educational institutions, practitioners and TEL researchers are facing in the Nordic countries as regards the acknowledgment of young people's ICT practices within formal education. Such analytical work has led us to identify and elaborate on what we believe constitute forthcoming research challenges for learning and education in the Nordic countries.     

The Independence of Research—A Review of Disciplinary Perspectives and Outline of Interdisciplinary Prospects

Minerva - The independence of research is a key strategic issue of modern societies. Dealing with it appropriately poses legal, economic, political, social and cultural problems for society, which...     

Problem-based learning used in the context of cardiac rehabilitation: different scenes and different roles

Several studies show that how patients have difficulties in changing lifestyle even though such changes are essential because they are suffering from a life-threatening disease. Coronary artery disease (CAD) patients met 13 times during a year and used problem-based learning (PBL) to improve their empowerment and self-efficacy in making lifestyle changes. District nurses functioned as tutors, helping patients to formulate issues and to state self-care goals. To identify and describe the enactment of PBL, an ethnographic approach was used, including, for example, participant observations and interviews, all derived from six sessions of the education programme. Five different enactments were found, metaphorically expressed as: ‘The study circle’, ‘The classroom’, ‘The expert consultation’, ‘The therapy session’ and ‘The coffee party’. The education programme did not always function as it was supposed to according to the model, but perhaps this should not be seen as a failure of the pedagogical intervention since these enactments as a whole seem to be a way for the patients to be able to make healthy lifestyle changes. The metaphors can broaden the understanding of what can happen when implementing problem-based learning in health care practice.     

Consolidating Pre-service Physics Teachers’ Subject Matter Knowledge Using Didactical Reconstructions

In the Department of Physics, University of Helsinki, there are advanced physics courses designed for the needs of pre-service physics teachers. The starting point is that after introductory and intermediate physics courses, pre-service physics teachers know laws and definitions but the knowledge is quite fragmented and does not form coherent wholes. Graphical tools called didactical reconstructions were developed to help pre-service physics teachers to consolidate their physics knowledge. The idea behind the reconstructions is that “new” physics knowledge is always constructed based on previous knowledge (quantities, laws, theory). This means that every new concept is connected to previous concepts when it is formed; this is captured in the didactical reconstruction of processes. Then, when the knowledge is further constructed, the formed concept will be connected to other new concepts. This approach leads to the didactical reconstruction of structure: networks of quantities and laws, where the experiments and models construct the connections between quantities and laws. Here an overview and summary of the educational approach based on the didactical reconstruction is given for the first time. The results of the previously reported case studies show that the didactical reconstructions help students to connect the knowledge pieces into meaningful and more coherent wholes. These didactical reconstructions are now an integral part of our pre-service physics teacher education.     

Assessment of learning outcomes in Finnish vocational education and training

This article provides an outline and critical review of assessment, an evaluation of learning outcomes, in vocational education and training (VET) in Finland. Assessment of VET is formative, development-orientated and criteria-based. There are no national tests and information from vocational skills demonstrations is used instead. Assessment targets are individual and communal learning focusing on processes instead of reports. Interactive, multifaceted assessments and qualitative methods promote learning and are based on trust – not control. The developmental assessment of learning outcomes started as an experiment in 2002 and as a permanent system in 2007. The whole process has been included and still includes also many challenges of methods, which this article tries to open.     

A pilot scale trickling filter with pebble gravel as media and its performance to remove chemical oxygen demand from synthetic brewery wastewater

Evaluating the performance of a biotrickling filter for the treatment of wastewaters produced by a company manufacturing beer was the aim of this study. A pilot scale trickling filter filled with gravel was used as the experimental biofilter. Pilot scale plant experiments were made to evaluate the performance of the trickling filter aerobic and anaerobic biofilm systems for removal of chemical oxygen demand (COD) and nutrients from synthetic brewery wastewater. Performance evaluation data of the trickling filter were generated under different experimental conditions. The trickling filter had an average efficiency of (86.81±6.95)% as the hydraulic loading rate increased from 4.0 to 6.4 m³/(m²·d). Various COD concentrations were used to adjust organic loading rates from 1.5 to 4.5 kg COD/(m³·d). An average COD removal efficiency of (85.10±6.40)% was achieved in all wastewater concentrations at a hydraulic loading of 6.4 m³/(m²·d). The results lead to a design organic load of 1.5 kg COD/(m³·d) to reach an effluent COD in the range of 50–120 mg/L. As can be concluded from the results of this study, organic substances in brewery wastewater can be handled in a cost-effective and environmentally friendly manner using the gravel-filled trickling filter.     

Making learning whole: an instructional approach for mediating the practices of authentic science inquiries

This design experiment aimed to answer the question of how to mediate the practices of authentic science inquiries in primary education. An instructional approach based on activity theory was designed and carried out with multi-age students in a small village school. An open-ended learning task was offered to the older students. Their task was to design and implement instruction about the Ice Age to their younger fellows. The objective was collaborative learning among students, the teacher, and outside domain experts. Mobile phones and GPS technologies were applied as the main technological mediators in the learning process. Technology provided an opportunity to expand the learning environment outside the classroom, including the natural environment. Empirically, the goal was to answer the following questions: What kind of learning project emerged? How did the students’ knowledge develop? What kinds of science learning processes, activities, and practices were represented? Multiple and parallel data were collected to achieve this aim. The data analysis revealed that the learning project both challenged the students to develop explanations for the phenomena and generated high quality conceptual and physical models in question. During the learning project, the roles of the community members were shaped, mixed, and integrated. The teacher also repeatedly evaluated and adjusted her behavior. The confidence of the learners in their abilities raised the quality of their learning outcomes. The findings showed that this instructional approach can not only mediate the kind of authentic practices that scientists apply but also make learning more holistic than it has been. Thus, it can be concluded that nature of the task, the tool-integrated collaborative inquiries in the natural environment, and the multiage setting can make learning whole.     

Mothers’ trust toward teachers in relation to teaching practices

This study examined the extent to which mothers’ trust toward the classroom teacher of their child in first grade is related to observed teaching practices in Finland and Estonia. Sixty-six teachers (32 in Finland, 34 in Estonia) were observed using the Early Childhood Classroom Observation Measure (ECCOM; Stipek & Byler, 2004). Mothers in Finland (n = 266) and in Estonia (n = 348) filled in questionnaires measuring their trust in their child's first grade teacher. The connection between mothers’ education, child gender, and classroom size in relation to mothers’ trust was also investigated. The results of multilevel modeling showed that mothers in both countries trusted more in teachers who were characterized by a higher level of child-centered teaching practices than teacher-directed teaching practices. Furthermore, Estonian mothers showed greater trust in more experienced teachers. The results emphasize the importance of teaching practices in promoting mothers’ trust in their child's teacher.     

Mathematical thinking intervention programmes for preschool children with normal and low number sense

This study investigated the possibility of enhancing the level of preschoolers’ number sense by introducing two intervention programmes, Let’s think! and Young children with special educational needs count, too! .Forty‐five preschoolers, mean age 66.4 months, were randomly assigned to the experimental and control groups. The experimental group received instruction twice a week, for half an hour, and for a period of nine months. Pretest–postest comparison revealed that the experimental group showed enhanced number‐sense performance immediately after the instruction ended, but the between‐group difference faded after six months. There were no statistically significant differences between the groups in general mathematical thinking abilities (transfer tasks) after the intervention.