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Session Information
01 SES 12 A, Mentoring of New Teachers in the Nordic Countries: Practices of professional learning as ecosystems. Part 2.
Symposium continued from 01 SES 11 A
Contribution
In 2006, a wide national review of teacher education (Piesanen, Kiviniemi & Valkonen 2006) revealed that teachers lack support in the beginning of the teaching career. Similar findings were reported by the Trade Union of Education. Thereafter, Finnish Institute for Educational Research responded to these reviews by launching a set of research and development projects. The pilot studies originally started from the traditional one-to-one mentoring model. Gradually the approach was tuned more into the form of peer group mentoring. It was found out that teachers learn also from each other by sharing their challenges and experiences. Thus, the next step was to develop a peer group mentoring format more consciously in 2007-09 through a project called Verme. The project published a book (Heikkinen, Jokinen & Tynjälä 2010) where the PGM model was outlined and empirical experiences of the model were reported. Simultaneously, a national programme for teacher development (Osaava Ohjelma, 2010-17) was launched. Within this programme, the PGM model was scaled throughout Finland. However, the financial crisis hit the public sector at the very same time, and the municipalities had to cut costs. Thus, it was not a favorable moment to introduce any new tasks to the municipality employers. Quite the opposite, mentoring was often regarded as an extra cost. In some municipalities, however, PGM was implemented as an encompassing form of in-service education. When a national Teacher Education Development Programme was launched (2017-20) PGM was chosen as one of the instruments to develop teachers’ professional learning. However, simultaneously another big project, called the Tutor Teacher project, was also launched. Despite the fact the profiles of the models were intended to be different, in many municipalities the two projects were understood to serve the same purpose: peer learning of teachers. From an ecosystem perspective, the models were seen as competitors in the same ecological niche. In the future, there are a number of challenges to solve in the Finland. The profiles and the funding mechanisms of the two parallel and competitive models should be balanced, and the responsibilities of the stakeholders (municipality employers, schools, teachers’ union, universities providing teacher education) have to be clarified. Therefore, a broad based social deliberation is needed to find out solutions for the best ways to develop induction of new teachers in the Finnish ecosystem of education.
References
Geeraerts, K., Tynjälä, P., & Heikkinen, H. 2018. Inter-generational learning of teachers : what and how do teachers learn from older and younger colleagues? European Journal of Teacher Education, 41 (4), 479-495. Heikkinen, H., Jokinen, H. & Tynjälä, P. 2012. Teacher education and development as lifelong and lifewide learning. In: H. Heikkinen, H. Jokinen & P. Tynjälä (Eds.) Peer-Group Mentoring for Teacher Development. Milton Park: Routledge, 3-30. Heikkinen, H., Wilkinson, J., Aspfors, J., & Bristol, L. 2018. Understanding mentoring of new teachers: Communicative and strategic practices in Australia and Finland. Teaching and Teacher Education, 71, 1-11. Kemmis, S. & Heikkinen, H. 2012. Future perspectives: Peer-Group Mentoring and international practices for teacher development. In: H. Heikkinen, H. Jokinen & P. Tynjälä (Eds.) Peer-Group Mentoring for Teacher Development. Milton Park: Routledge, 144-170. Kemmis, S., Heikkinen, H., Aspfors, J., Fransson, G. & Edwards-Groves, C. 2014. Mentoring as Contested Practice: Support, Supervision and Collaborative Self-development. Teaching and Teacher Education 43, 154-164. Piesanen, E., Kiviniemi, U., & Valkonen, S. (2005). Opettajankoulutuksen kehittämisohjelman seuranta ja arviointi. Opettajien täydennyskoulutus, 1998-2005.
Programme by Networks, ECER 2021
00. Central Events (Keynotes, EERA-Panel, EERJ Round Table, Invited Sessions)
Network 1. Continuing Professional Development: Learning for Individuals, Leaders, and Organisations
Network 2. Vocational Education and Training (VETNET)
Network 3. Curriculum Innovation
Network 4. Inclusive Education
Network 5. Children and Youth at Risk and Urban Education
Network 6. Open Learning: Media, Environments and Cultures
Network 7. Social Justice and Intercultural Education
Network 8. Research on Health Education
Network 9. Assessment, Evaluation, Testing and Measurement
Network 10. Teacher Education Research
Network 11. Educational Effectiveness and Quality Assurance
Network 12. LISnet - Library and Information Science Network
Network 13. Philosophy of Education
Network 14. Communities, Families and Schooling in Educational Research
Network 15. Research Partnerships in Education
Network 16. ICT in Education and Training
Network 17. Histories of Education
Network 18. Research in Sport Pedagogy
Network 19. Ethnography
Network 20. Research in Innovative Intercultural Learning Environments
Network 22. Research in Higher Education
Network 23. Policy Studies and Politics of Education
Network 24. Mathematics Education Research
Network 25. Research on Children's Rights in Education
Network 26. Educational Leadership
Network 27. Didactics – Learning and Teaching
Network 28. Sociologies of Education
Network 29. Reserach on Arts Education
Network 30. Research on Environmental und Sustainability Education
Network 31. Research on Language and Education (LEd)
Network 32. Organizational Education
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