Aini-Kristiina Jäppinen

Thinking and Content Learning of Mathematics and Science as Cognitional Development in Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL): Teaching Through a Foreign Language in Finland

This paper presents a study on thinking and learning processes of mathematics and science in teaching through a foreign language, in Finland. The entity of thinking and content learning processes is, in this study, considered as cognitional development. Teaching through a foreign language is here called Content and Language Integrated Learning or CLIL. CLIL refers to all those diverse programmes, including some forms of immersion and bilingual education, where a foreign language is a medium of instruction, affecting the entire learning process of the learner. Thinking and content learning in CLIL manifests itself as analogical CLIL reasoning systems, based on two languages, and is assumed to affect cognitional development. Cognitional development was studied with 669Finnish mainstream L1 learners aged 7–15 in the public comprehensive school. The experimental group, 335 learners, was taught through English, French or Swedish. The experimental group was compared with a control group of 334 learners, taught through the mother tongue, i.e. Finnish. Cognitional development was studied in terms of of individual concepts and conceptual structures that are here called meaning schemes. The results of four measurements in 2002–2003 are presented in which statistical differences were found between the experimental and the control group in cognitional development.

Organisational transition challenges in the Finnish vocational education–perspective of distributed pedagogical leadership

The article examines organisational challenges in the Finnish vocational education and training (VET) to support students’ lifelong learning pathways. Investigation of organizational challenges is done through the students’ transitions either within one school level or from one school level to another or to working life. For supporting the students’ learning pathways, it is argued here that specific attention has to be paid to collaborative practices of the personnel in order to guarantee the transitional fluency. This kind of collaboration is here called distributed pedagogical leadership. For examining the shared practices in the frame of distributed pedagogical leadership, the article introduces both quantitative results from a national survey and a Finnish VET case school and qualitative results from this particular school as several interviews of the leadership team and the teachers.

Distributed pedagogical leadership in support of student transitions

This article examines how, through uncovering collaborative leadership, the whole school staff is able to understand its common endeavours to support heterogeneous students’ fluent learning paths. For this, a notion of distributed pedagogical leadership (DPL) is drawn upon. DPL concerns everyone in the school community, not only leaders and management. It means abandoning role, instrumental or process centricity and moving towards leadership that is characterized as the innermost qualities of a professional learning community. This kind of leadership is best described with 10 ‘keys’ as 10 key attributes. To understand DPL in practice, quantitative data both from a nationwide Finnish survey and a case study school are analysed, with supporting qualitative data from interviews of the leadership team in this particular school. The article presents and compares leaders’ and the staff’s experiences of DPL with regard to transition practices in Finnish vocational education.

Preventing Early Leaving in VET: Distributed Pedagogical Leadership in Characterising Five Types of Successful Organisations

This paper presents 14 organisers of upper secondary education in Finland with exceptionally low dropout rates. As a case study in which common strengths were defined, five types of organisations with typical characteristics were found: Working life‐oriented, Networked and team‐based, Cosy and traditional, Guidance‐oriented, and Innovative. Distributed pedagogical leadership (DPL) was created as the theoretical basis from which organisational actions were examined. DPL implies that responsibility for students’ learning is shared by the whole personnel, through long‐term and systematic pedagogical practices. For this purpose, the management and leadership, curriculum, strategies, development work, study contents, and guidance were investigated through questionnaires, interviews, and documents. The phenomena were categorised and analysed multi‐methodically and rated on four quality levels. As a result, a number of strengths and five organisation types were defined.

Collaborativeness as the core of professional learning communities beyond culture and context: evidence from Canada, Finland, and Israel

ABSTRACT Professional learning communities (PLC) have been widely accepted as effective with respect to good atmosphere, adequate leadership practices, and functional working practices. However, the outcomes for school improvement depend on case-specific issues. To identify less culturally and contextually bound issues in 3 PLC settings in Canada, Finland, and Israel, we examined our cases through the notion of “collaborativeness”. It refers to a systematic and shared process consisting of efforts, ideas, and activities that aim at achieving synergy. By combining the 3 data sets and applying a special model, we were able to distinguish, through qualitative content analysis, ingredients of collaborativeness beyond culture and context that we consider particularly essential. The crucial factor proved to be a dynamic relationship between mutual and deep learning, realized through 5 different ways. We further believe that our results could serve other organizations striving for school improvement in other kinds of cultural and contextual settings.

Transitions in Individual Vocational Education Pathways: Challenges and Collaborative Solutions

This chapter draws upon some of the main results of two Finnish nationwide case studies on how common efforts of education providers and organizations’ personnel support VET (vocational education and training) students along their individual learning paths. The first study concerns best practices to prevent early leaving, and the second was a Finnish national pilot programme to assist uncertain students who have somewhat weak prerequisites to enter vocational education. Some excellent solutions are presented, but special challenges for the learner, organization and staff are also revealed. The solutions for excellence promote practices, strategies and structures that support students’ transitions from one educational level to another. Both the solutions and challenges are investigated through the idea of distributed pedagogical leadership, where special characteristics of a professional learning community constitute a productive pedagogical space wherein all stakeholders take multi-professional responsibility for the students’ learning and education. In such a space, learners have an essential influence over their own learning.

Indicators of improved learning contexts: a collaborative perspective on educational leadership

The aim of this paper is to illustrate indicators for improved learning contexts based on the notion of collaborative leadership. Collaborative leadership refers to synergetic educational leadership practices through co-performance and a continuous and shared learning process. We argue that the indicators could serve as a bridge between education and the complex and increasing change within the social life and world of work. For finding the indicators, we combined two intertwining dimensions: ‘leadership in education’ and ‘education for leadership’. They were studied by a tested model describing collaborative leadership by a set of attributes. We then applied these attributes to a curriculum reform in a global business school, which aims at educating future leaders. Our data consist of the curricular narrative and interviews with the expert group that designed the curriculum. As a result of a qualitative content analysis, we found altogether 31 indicators, of which we introduce the ones that were related to the most frequent attributes of collaborative leadership. However, we suggest that some or even all of the indicators could be adaptable to other learning contexts at other educational levels.

Analysis of leadership dynamics in educational settings during times of external and internal change

Abstract Background: The article concerns the tensions that can arise during demanding external, and consequential internal changes and considers how educational leadership is able to respond to them. Leadership is here understood as a collaborative endeavour, producing shared sense-making in situations of tension. Purpose: The main research question was: what kinds of leadership dynamics underlie situations of tension brought about by external and internal change? The sub-question was: what kind of micro-level sense-making processes, argued to be the true source of change, assist in revealing these dynamics? Programme: Educational organisations increasingly face demanding external changes, such as the two mergers described in this article. Tensions can easily be brought about during such external changes and the consequential internal changes, such as two pedagogical innovation projects in this article. Sample: The study was conducted with three leadership teams within two organisations. The first organisation was a vocational education organisation with around 4000–5000 students and 500 staff members. The leadership team that was studied was followed for almost two years. The other organisation was a business school which comprised of around 7000 students, 150–200 professors and 500 staff members. There, two leadership teams were investigated and followed for almost three years. Design and methods: The data for the sense-making process was selected by way of qualitative content analysis and an experimented model called TenKeys®. This data were analysed using a grounded theory approach to uncover the underlying leadership dynamics. Results: Ten micro-procedural leadership dynamics were identified. Actions related to the pedagogical projects were then interpreted by means of these dynamics. Conclusions: The findings suggest that understanding underlying leadership dynamics might help educational organisations respond to possible tensions brought about by external and internal change and, consequently, support learners’ learning processes, albeit indirectly.