Anneli Eteläpelto

Seeking New Perspectives on the Development of Teacher Education: A Study of the Finnish Context

Studies show that changes in teacher education around the world occur slowly and are difficult to implement. This study aims to contribute to the discussion on the major resources for and obstacles to developing teacher education and finding novel solutions to overcome the obstacles. Resources and obstacles were investigated in the context of academic and university-based teacher education in Finland. Findings revealed three major challenges: (a) obstacles in renegotiating professional identity, (b) internal competition between subject-matter groups within the department, and (c) discrepancies between individual agency and organizational development. Based on the findings, this study argues that teacher educators’ individual and collective agency must be supported to enhance their continuous professional learning and organizational change. This goal can be achieved by developing teacher education concurrently at multiple levels, including the individual, work community, and organizational levels. In addition, there is a need to construct multiple couplings between these levels.

Metacognition and the Expertise of Computer Program Comprehension.

Abstract This study focuses on different components of metacognition and their role in the expertise of computer program comprehension. After the elaboration of the concepts of expertise and metacognition, expert and novice computer programmers are compared in terms of their metacognitive knowledge and the task‐specific awareness. Subject ( N = 24) with two different competence levels, novices and experts, were individually presented an updating program, written in COBOL language. The data about metacognition was mainly derived from subjects’ interviews and thinking‐aloud protocols. Results showed that experts were superior to the novices in their metacognitive knowledge of the program task and of the working strategies. Experts had a definite conception about an ideal working strategy, and they also seemed to work in accordance with this. Furthermore, experts had more adequate awareness of their working than novices. It is concluded that experts have a close interaction between metacognitive knowledge, t...

The Acquisition of Professional Expertise—a challenge for educational research

This article examines the acquisition of professional expertise from the educational viewpoint and outlines emerging approaches to research on expertise. The starting points are the need to reflect the nature and content of expertise in the changing world and the aim to understand the preconditions for integrating the viewpoints of working life and education in developing prerequisities for expertise in educational contexts. The section after the Introduction briefly reviews how expertise has been conceptualized in recent research. The next section deals with the role of higher education in developing expertise from the viewpoint of constructivist approaches in research on learning. Then current challenges and alternatives for educational research on the acquisition of future expertise are outlined.

Factors promoting vocational students’ learning at work: study on student experiences

In order to promote effective pedagogical practices for students’ work-based learning, we need to understand better how students’ learning at work can be supported. This paper examines the factors explaining students’ workplace learning (WPL) outcomes, addressing three aspects: (1) student-related individual factors, (2) social and structural features of workplace and (3) educational practices related to the organising of WPL periods. The data were collected from final-year vocational students (N = 3106, n = 1603) via an Internet questionnaire. The findings from regression analysis showed that students’ WPL outcomes cannot be seen merely as consequences of student-related individual factors such as motivation, as has often been suggested; even more important for the success of students’ WPL were the social features of the workplace and the pedagogical arrangements for WPL periods. A further finding was that the learning environments of different vocational fields at the interface of school and working life seem to differ significantly from each other, and to offer students different settings for learning at work. This implies that when studies on WPL and professional development are conducted on a single employee group, they should not be directly generalised across different domains.

Vocational teachers in the face of a major educational reform: individual ways of negotiating professional identities

This paper examines how vocational teachers negotiate their professional identity in the context of a major externally imposed curriculum reform. The focus is on the teachers’ orientations towards the reform in its initial stage. Sixteen Finnish vocational teachers were interviewed using open‐ended narrative interviews. The data were analysed in accordance with data‐driven qualitative analysis methods. From the teachers’ accounts, three main orientations towards the reform were identified: a resistant orientation, an inconsistent orientation and an approving orientation, each based on the teachers’ individual self‐positioning towards the reform. Each orientation is illustrated using two narratives. The findings demonstrated that the teachers’ orientations were shaped by their individual backgrounds, including their actual sense of their professional selves, their prior working experiences and their expectations of their professional future. In addition, the teachers’ orientations were shaped by their social affordances, and first and foremost by the practices and traditions of the vocational study programmes.

Collaborative processes during report writing of a science learning project: The nature of discourse as a function of task requirements

The aim of this article is to specify how different aspects of task assignments are related to different types of student discourse during the report writing phase of a science learning project. A group of four ninth-grade students of the Finnish comprehensive school (about 15-year-olds) participated in a project work involving laboratory experiments, reading literature, and analysing and reporting research findings. The empirical data were collected through videotaping and interviews in authentic classroom settings. The results indicated that construction of shared, high-level understanding was quite rare in this case of small group interaction. As one of the main reasons for this, we suggest that the learning tasks were defined in a way that did not encourage shared reflection and high-level discourse. The students’ task was mostly to answer fact-seeking questions made by their teacher to guide the report writing, which promoted recollection rather than reasoning. In order to facilitate high-level discourse and learning, more attention should be paid to the kind of processes that task assignment triggers. The findings are discussed in the framework of how teachers could formulate their task assignments to promote high-level discourse.

Social Processes and Knowledge Building During Small Group Interaction in a School Science Project

The aim of this study was to investigate the meaning of symmetry of knowledge-based roles for knowledge construction and sharing in social interaction during the report writing phase of an experimental science learning project. A group of four 9th grade students in a Finnish comprehensive school (15-16-year-olds) participated in a project involving laboratory experiments, reading literature and analysing and reporting research findings. The empirical data were collected through videotaping and interviews in authentic classroom settings. In the data four patterns of interaction were identified, which differed in terms of their symmetry of knowledge-based roles and nature of the talk. The context of high level collaboration was realized in the framework of joint critical knowledge building, where students had equal knowledge-based roles and close relationships. The discussion was, however, mostly uncritical in its nature, partly due to the evident social inconvenience between some group members.

The professional agency of teacher educators amid academic discourses

Agency has been seen as fundamental in the renegotiation of professional identities. However, it is unclear how teacher educators exercise their professional agency in their work, and how multiple discourses frame and restrict the practice of their professional agency. This study examines how teacher educators practise agency in negotiating their professional identities amid the multiple discourses emerging from the academic context of their work. The aim was to investigate educators’ locally expressed professional agency in the context of the more global discourses that may construct teacher educator identities. The analysis made use of applied thematic discursive analysis to address patterns of talk relating to teacher educators’ manifestations of agency within their work as teachers and researchers. Professional agency was found to be strong in the construction of their teacher identity. By contrast, the construction of their researcher identity was subjugated, complex and characterised by a lack of resources. Furthermore, teaching and researching were mainly described as two separate functions. In discussion these findings are analysed to show what they imply for the renegotiation of teacher educators’ professional identities and for the development of teacher education in an academic institution.

Constructing Knowledge through a Role-Play in a Web-Based Learning Environment

This study aimed to find out how and on what level the students of two separate secondary schools shared and constructed knowledge on imperialism by interacting through historical role characters in a Web-based environment. Furthermore, the study aimed to find out how social and contextual features affected the nature of knowledge sharing and construction. The data about the history project were gathered by various means in order to validate the findings of the case study. The results demonstrated that the level of the Web-based messages remained quite low. Also the use of the Web-based environment in terms of shared knowledge construction was rather weak. In comparison, different instructional activities of the two teachers resulted in different learning activities in the two schools and, thus, different level of interaction in the Web-based environment. The findings of this research are discussed in terms of important factors influencing the knowledge sharing and constructing activities.

How do novice teachers in Finland perceive their professional agency

This study investigated novice teachers’ perceptions of their professional agency during the initial years of their work in schools. The research questions were: (i) How do novice teachers perceive their professional agency within their work, and what do they see as the main restrictions and resources affecting that agency? (ii) How do novice teachers perceive their professional agency in the construction and renegotiation of their professional identities, and what do they see as the main restrictions and resources affecting their sense of agency? In theoretical terms, we adhere to a subject-centered sociocultural approach. This implies understanding subjects as active agents from a developmental perspective, with attention also given to professional identities. The subjects of this study were 13 qualified primary-level class teachers who had worked from one to five years as class teachers in Finnish primary schools. Data from open-ended interviews with the novice teachers were analyzed using thematic analysis. The findings indicated that all the novice teachers perceived strong agency in their opportunities to apply and develop pedagogical practices within the classroom. However, they had a much weaker sense of agency as regards the social management of the classroom. When the teachers entered into the practical school context, most of them became aware that they would have to renegotiate their professional identities. This involved re-assessing their professional ideals and ethical standards. The major perceived constraint emerged from their lack of competence in providing support for the children’s psychological well-being. The role of the school principal was seen crucial for the novice teachers’ work in the schools: the principal was seen as acting as a resource but also as a constraint on the teacher’s sense of professional agency, both at the individual and school levels. In addition, close collaboration and support from other teachers in difficult everyday situations was seen as crucial for the teachers’ survival in the practical school context. The study provides insights into the challenges and constraints affecting novice teachers’ sense of professional agency, and on the resources and support that they need in their first years at work.