Third graders' performance predictions: calibration deflections and academic success

This study focuses on third grade pupils' (9 to 10 years old) ability to predict their performance in a given task and on the correspondence between the accuracy and adequacy of the predictions on the one hand, and the academic achievement on the other. The study involved 713 pupils from 29 Estonian schools. The pupils' performance predictions about a short-term memory recognition task and their actual scores were used to specify differences in prediction errors and the correspondence of these errors with academic achievement. In line with earlier research, the results indicate that low performers often overestimated themselves and their predictions tended to be most inaccurate, whereas high performers were more accurate although they often underestimated their performance. Pupils with lower academic achievement often provided extensive overestimations of the memory task. Underestimations, together with better accuracy, characterised children with a higher achievement level. This can indicate a meaningful accord between specific prediction errors and broader achievement at school.     

Teacher Education Curricula after the Bologna Process – a Comparative Analysis of Written Curricula in Finland and Estonia

During the Bologna process, from 2003 to 2006, degree programmes, including teacher education curricula, were developed in line with the two-tier system – the European Credit Transfer and Accumulation System (ECTS) and modularization. The purpose of the present study is to contribute to the development of teacher education profiling measures by comparing the Finnish and Estonian curricula covering initial teacher education. The aim was to analyze and compare studies in the science of education as part of the class teacher education programs through the development of a sufficiently universal meta-structure. The written curricula were subjected to discipline-based content analysis, which covered the main elements of the curricula and the contents of the theoretical substance studies in the science of education. The resulting differences and similarities between the Finnish and the Estonian curricula are reported.     

Some Notes on Teaching in a Multicultural Environment: the Estonian Literature Project at the University of Tartu

Since 1993, a course in Estonian literature has been taught in a multicultural environment for foreign students as part of the Baltic Studies Project at the University of Tartu. This class provides to participants their first glimpse of Estonian culture as a whole. Culture studies can presumably help foreign students overcome whatever culture shock they may first experience in an unfamiliar country. The structure and the teaching strategies of the class are intended to further the aims of multicultural learning. Teaching strategies emphasize the importance of personalities, information about who is processed and affirmed by reducing the writers to certain archetypes. Because of limited time, micro‐teaching is expected to be a prospective strategy for seminars. Among other technical tools, a computer game, INTERESTICA, is of distinct importance for assisting students in gaining their first knowledge of Estonian culture in the context of a course in literature.