While the all travel, adventures out into a new a city, and meeting new people have been central to my study abroad experience so far, I have had to come back to reality here these past few weeks as the school workload has really ramped up. After all, this is a study abroad!
In case you haven’t been following my every blog, I’m studying within the Teacher Education program at the University of Helsinki, hoping to crack the code behind this highly touted Finnish education system. The university splits the normal semester into two separate teaching periods. Some programs will have courses run through both periods or maybe just one. The Teacher Education program schedules all of their courses in the first period only, and the second half of the semester is used for teaching practicum for the full-time students. This means I’ve condensed my entire semester course load into a few short weeks, wrapping up at the end of October! There’s certainly been no easing into my studies!
Apart from the initial shock of the short and intensive nature of my courses, they have been quite different from what I have been used to back at Northeastern. The Teacher Education program at the University of Helsinki places an emphasis on a research-based approach to teacher education. So instead of merely providing a broad coverage of different pedagogical theories, courses emphasize current research and reflection on own teaching practices. So what this looks like in a practical sense for my courses, is a lot of independent reading of course literature, whether it be a textbook or a research articles. Thankfully these have all been provided as online downloads through the university’s database systems, so I’ve been able to save a little money on that end!
Instead of covering theory or broad topics in lecture, university lecturers and PhD students will present their research on topics related to what we have studied on our own. Group work has also been an integral part of my courses. We must work collaboratively to make sense of course literature, and then present this learning to our classmates, implementing the pedagogical approaches we learned. The last main difference has been the focus on reflection. Instead of writing analytical essays on the course literature, we’ve instead been asked to write reflections on what we have learned, how we’ve learned, and how this might inform our practice as future educators. These reflections have really pushed my thinking and have forced me to analyze every aspect of my educational experience. For example, taking the time to critically analyze what might be influencing my feelings of stress in the classroom, has helped round out my understanding on the impacts of the learning environment, and push my thinking on potential pedagogical approaches I may use in the future. I think the Finns may be on to something here with how they educate their future teachers…
That’s all for this week, I got to get back to my studies! Scary to think I only have a few short weeks left of this intensive course work. Wish me luck!
