The Internet has become part of our daily life and serves as a source of knowledge as well as a space for interaction. E-learning is thus a vital element in teaching, and digital media offer not only the possibility to support the individual learning processes of students, but also to foster multilingualism and to immerse into authentic learning…

In inquiry-based science education, there have been gradual shifts in research interests: the nature of scientific method, the debates on the effects of inquiry learning, and, recently, inquiry teaching. However, many in-service programs for inquiry teaching have reported inconsistent results due to the static view of classroom inquiries and due…

Introduction: Teachers in Finland are demanded to develop students' competencies in information literacy. However, they can meet this demand only by collaborating with public librarians. The aim in this case study was to explore the perspectives of teachers, librarians and students in a problem-based project and to analyse the advantages and…

This article analyses Finnish higher education institutions' reception of the implementation of the new quality assurance systems that governments participating in the Bologna Process have committed to establishing in the Berlin Communique´ of 2003. The data were collected using a web survey and the respondents were classified with a cluster…

This paper sheds light on the role of tertiary or higher education in economic development across two successful OECD case studies: Finland and South Korea. A number of key aspects are discussed, from the nature of the social contract between higher education and the economy to the endogenous characteristics of domestic higher education to the…

In this article, a qualitative study about teachers' thoughts on consultation between special teachers and class teachers is reported. The aim of the study was to deepen the knowledge about how consultation in special educational contexts can be understood and developed based on the descriptions of special teachers and class teachers on this…

Since the 1980s, numerous education reforms have sought to dismantle centralised bureaucracies and replace them with devolved systems of schooling that emphasise parental choice and competition between increasingly diversified types of schools. Nevertheless, the "Finnish variety of "post-comprehensivism" continues to emphasise…

Peer mentoring is one of the most important guidance practices for first-year students entering higher education and academic life. We are interested in mentors' roles and apply the ideas of group counseling in order to increase the understanding of peer mentoring. Other aspects of guidance--content, methods, and collaboration--are approached on…

The aim of this article was to shed light on problematic issues related to the practical element in early childhood teacher education. We approach these questions mainly through scrutinizing and interpreting this part of kindergarten teachers' university education in Finland. We then expand our analysis to include the broader issues of job…

The paper presents a Sino-Finnish teaching initiative, including the design and experiences of a series of pedagogical workshops implemented at the Aalto-Tongji Design Factory (DF), Shanghai, China, and the experimentation plans collected from the 54 attending professors and teachers. The workshops aimed to encourage trying out interdisciplinary…

Seven final year cohorts of Finnish pre-service primary teachers (N = 384) were given an exit survey, which measured their estimated attainment of knowledge and experience in the 10 domains of professional activity considered critical for new teachers in the Interstate New Teacher Assessment and Support Consortium (INTASC) standards. The results…

The article presents practices of distributed pedagogical leadership and generative dialogue as a tool with which management and personnel can better operate in the increasingly turbulent world of education. Distributed pedagogical leadership includes common characteristics of a professional learning community when the educational actors…

An international comparative research project was carried out in the Netherlands, Wales, Germany and Finland to understand how trainee teachers reflect upon play. Data was collected among 31 Dutch, 37 Welsh, 40 German and 19 Finnish teacher trainees. They watched four videotaped sequences of preschoolers engaged in an activity. Next, they answered…

This study explored how the construction of an argument graph promotes students' collaborative online reading compared to note-taking. Upper secondary school students ("n"?=?76) worked in pairs. The pairs were asked to search for and read source material on the Web for a joint essay and either construct an argument graph or take notes…

The supply of student talent is now taking on an increasingly global dimension and this has extended the breadth of university-industry interaction. Set in the context of a rapidly growing international student market, knowledge transfer between academia and business through global student talent supply is an emerging practice. This paper…