This research focussed on the use of formative assessment in Finnish initial teacher education. Pre-service teachers' perceptions of using formative assessment to promote learning were explored. A convenience sample (N = 60) was taken from two pre-service teacher cohorts in which two methods of formative assessment were used during a period of…

Teacher education (TE) in Finland is based on strong university autonomy, including the right to decide the curriculum content and the teaching methods. Democracy and its values are generally seen as central principles for TE, and the normative basis for education promoting democratic culture is strong. However, in practice, education for…

Teacher training should promote the professional competence of student teachers to plan drama education. This study focuses on how designing a drama course based on the Steps of Progress (SPM) and Arc of Drama (ADM) models can promote the adoption of drama education as described by student teachers. Research data was collected from the synthesis…

This article explores how global citizenship can be seen in the practices of science education in the context of international education policy and Finnish school and teacher education, with a focus on scientific literacy and sustainability education for promoting a sustainable future. Possibilities of science education to promote sustainability…

Despite the growing importance of in-service teachers' mentalization in early childhood education (ECE), studies on pre-service teachers are scarce. We embedded a newly developed version of video enhanced reflective practice (VERP) program in an online study module in a bachelor's degree program to promote Finnish ECE student teachers'…

This article provides a critical exploration of the textbook-based character of Finnish educational culture. The opening section points to the need to recognize and better understand the role of textbooks in Finnish education. The next section outlines how and why textbooks have become a characterizing feature of Finnish educational culture before…

The aim of this paper is to investigate and compare lessons given in primary school teacher education in Japan, Finland and Sweden. We analyse one lesson from each country and compare them using a common framework. Chevallard's anthropological theory of the didactic (ATD) is used to frame this analysis and in particular to model teacher educators'…

This study examines pre-service primary school teachers' (PSTs') possible selves in relation to science teaching and the ways in which these possible selves change over time. This longitudinal study adds to the body of knowledge by examining PSTs' possible selves at various time points throughout their teacher preparation: three PSTs, selected…

The purpose of this paper is to analyze how positive pedagogical practices are implemented by early childhood education (ECE) teachers in Finland. A survey was conducted among 625 teachers, enquiring about specific positive pedagogical practices in ECEC. It was found that the correlation between the sum variables and principal components were…

Background: Around the world, policy makers and teacher educators are paying increasing attention to how teacher candidates learn to study and enact teaching and to grounding preparation more deeply in teachers' classroom practice. Evidence from the United States and the Netherlands suggests that efforts to tie preparation to practice may…

This paper reports on a project designed to promote the understanding of the World Heritage site of Old Rauma, Finland, with the help of craft activities. Through fieldwork and an analysis of the data collected from two craft interventions, the paper examines how craft making can serve as a medium to celebrate a sense of place and inspire people…

The approaches of learning by doing and making have always been inherent components of Finnish craft and technology education. Craft is a practical subject that involves many hands-on activities during which students actively practice experimentation, investigation, invention, problem-solving and designing skills. The same ideology is utilised in…

This study explores how five pre-service subject teachers from different disciplines made sense of and characterized their teacher identity after completing their yearlong pedagogical studies. Leaning on the Bakhtinian dialogical approach and socio-culturally oriented discourse analysis, we examine how the students negotiated multiple voices in…

Recent research and reform efforts in science education have consistently stressed the importance of coherent science instruction, in which learning opportunities are connected and contextualized by meaningful phenomena, focus on a small set of core ideas over time, and generate a need-to-know about new ideas through a set of connected lessons.…

Worldwide, scholars and policymakers emphasise the importance of basing teacher education in practice. Scholars have therefore suggested to extend the amount of fieldwork. Still, research has shown that the fieldwork component in teacher education of variable quality. During the last 10 years, an increasing body of research has thus emphasised…