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The diversity of pupils and their different difficulties challenge teachers' skills and methods in teaching. Some behavioral challenges require rapid intervention and a multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary approach from the teachers. An internationally recognized tool, TCM (Teacher Classroom Management), aims to support pupils' socio-emotional development, improve teacher-pupil interaction, and strengthen school-home cooperation. This pilot study examines teachers' experiences of TCM in Finnish primary school context. The study is qualitative, and the data (N=16) was collected through focus group interviews. According to the results, the teacher's strengthened group management skills were positively reflected in the classroom. Teachers´ positive communication with the class strengthened interaction and made it easier to deal with difficult issues. However, implementing TCM in the school community requires ongoing support. Collegial experiences and renewed group management skills strengthened the teachers' own experience of coping at work. The TCM method provided appropriate group management tools.

This descriptive case study examined how teaching practices were evidenced in Grade 1 classrooms in two different cultural and educational contexts, Finland and Japan. Teachers’ teaching practices were video-recorded in 53 classrooms in Finland and six classrooms in Japan and rated with the Early Childhood Classroom Observation Measure by trained investigators. Four Finnish teachers and two Japanese teachers having the highest scores in either child-centered or teacher-directed practices were selected for a descriptive case study to take a closer look at how teaching practices in terms of management, climate, and instruction are evidenced in authentic classroom situations. The analysis revealed some similarities and disparities in how teacher-directed and child-centered practices are reflected in classroom situations in the two countries. For example, in Japan, teachers favoring child-centered practices asked more open-ended questions and encouraged brainstorming and group discussions, whereas the Finnish teachers emphasized socio-emotional skills. The results suggest that cultural values may play a role in how teachers create a positive climate, implement instruction, and organize activities in the classroom. peerReviewed

Self-assessment has been shown to have positive effects on students’ self-regulated learning strategies and academic achievement. However, self-assessment and self-assessment instruction are under-researched areas among students with intellectual disability. This data-driven qualitative study aimed at examining the self-assessment expressions students with intellectual disability documented in their learning diaries and how the teacher and teaching assistants used video recordings to facilitate students’ self-assessments in one Finnish special needs education class. The naturally occurring research data consisted of both students’ tablet-based learning diaries (N = 6) and video recordings of students’ self-assessment situations (N = 17). The results show that students’ self-assessment expressions varied from short and vague expressions to argumentative and reflective assessments. The use of video recordings served various functions, such as directing and instructing students, demonstrating assessment and providing feedback. The outcomes of this study demonstrate how the self-assessment practices of students with intellectual disabilities can be facilitated by using video. peerReviewed

The purpose of this study is to investigate how teachers use different types of discourse to support dialogic argumentation. Dialogic argumentation is a collaborative process in which students construct arguments together and examine arguments presented by their peers. Science teachers can use argumentation as a vehicle to help students gain a working understanding of science content and the nature of science and its practices. Whole-class closing discussions from video-recorded lessons are analyzed to study the discourse used to support argumentation by two physics teachers in lower secondary schools. Analysis of discourse includes coding of communicative approach at the episode level and coding of teacher roles of questioning at the level of speaking turns. Student argumentation is also assessed on the basis of dialogicity and complexity of arguments. Findings characterize different ways of orchestrating argumentative discussions. Authoritative episodes were characterized by the presence of the dispenser role, with teachers retaining ownership over ideas and classroom activities to emphasize the correctness of a justification. Dialogic episodes of classroom interaction showed openness to student perspectives, but teachers’ use of questioning roles revealed different ways of orchestrating argumentative discussions. The moderator role granted ownership of ideas to students to either pursue a single student’s argument in more depth or to directly contrast opposing justifications. Less commonly used were the roles of coach and participant, which teachers used to elicit student justifications in more depth or support students in examining the arguments of their peers. Examination of discourse using multiple frameworks revealed differences in teachers’ values and the impact of the use of teacher questioning roles on student contributions to argumentative discussions.

This qualitative study aimed at examining the question modification strategies Eritrean elementary and middle school teachers used to differentiate their instruction and meet the diversity in the classroom as well as the functions these strategies served in classroom interactions. The research data consisted of videotaped recordings (N = 11 videotaped lessons) of classroom interactions in eight mathematics and science classrooms, which were analysed through interaction analysis. The findings showed that Eritrean teachers utilised the following five question modification strategies either independently or in combination: repetition; rephrasing; clarification; decomposition; and code-switching. Although repetition was the most commonly used strategy, it was not found to help teachers to differentiate their instruction. Likewise, the utilisation of rephrasing was dependent on how effectively teachers captured students’ misunderstandings and modified their questions accordingly. Instead, clarification, decomposition, and code-switching were found to be the most highly developed question modification strategies from the viewpoint of differentiation. It was concluded that the question modification strategies were dominant and workable elements of classroom interactions in teacher-led and poorly-resourced large classrooms, such as those in Eritrea.

Tässä artikkelissa tutkimme suomalaisten englanninopettajien käsityksiä maahanmuuttajaoppilaista, joilla on monikielinen tausta, vieraan kielen luokkahuoneessa. Aiemmat tutkimukset monikielisistä oppijoista ovat keskittyneet toisen kielen oppimiseen tai oppijan äidinkieleen. Tässä tutkimuksessa keskitymme englantiin vieraana kielenä, sillä maailma on aiempaa monikielisempi ja liikkuvuus yleisempää kuin ennen. Aineistona on englannin opettajien haastattelut (n=7), joissa he pohtivat kokemuksiaan maahanmuuttajaoppilaista vieraan kielen oppitunnilla. Analyysimenetelmänä oli laadullinen sisällönanalyysi. Tulokset osoittavat, että osallistujat eivät olleet pohtineet monikielisyyttä englannin oppitunnilla, mutta joitain ennakkokäsityksiä voitiin havaita. Opettajien käsitykset monikielisistä oppilaista olivat ristiriitaisia: he eivät halunneet johdattaa huomiota oppilaan kielelliseen taustaan, mutta toisaalta he olivat havainneet monikielisten oppijoiden olevan luokkatovereitaan kielitietoisempia. Vaikkakaan opettajat eivät tunnistaneet oppilaiden kielellisiä resursseja ja pohtineet monikielisyyden mahdollisuuksia, he olivat tukeneet monikielisiä oppilaita monia eri kielellisiä keinoja käyttäen. This article sets out to explore English as foreign language (EFL) teachers’ views of teaching migrant pupils with multilingual backgrounds in a regular classroom. Previous studies on multilingual pupils have mostly concentrated on second language learning contexts or on the role of pupils’ L1. In an increasingly multilingual world and due to growing migration, this study concentrates on EFL. The data were interviews with English teachers (n=7), who reflected on their experiences with migrant pupils in the foreign language classroom. The data were analysed through qualitative content analysis. The participants had not really pondered on the role of multilingualism in the EFL classroom and some underlying preconceptions could be detected. Teachers’ perception of the multilingual pupil was controversial in that they did not want to draw attention to the linguistic background of the pupil but, on the other hand, they had noticed that multilingual learners had greater language awareness than their mainstream peers. Although not fully aware of the potential of multilingualism and the pupils’ linguistic resources in EFL teaching, the teachers had used several ways of supporting their multilingual learners, reflecting the principles of translanguaging. peerReviewed

Synchronous online learning platforms have been used actively during the COVID-19 period. They have opened possibilities for online learning and interaction, but have also posed new challenges for instructors. This article provides insights into one teacher’s interactions and examines how the instructor presence is expressed in the teachers’ activities in virtual classrooms in higher education. Instructor presence is investigated using the social and teaching presence indicators of the community of inquiry (CoI) framework. Twelve hours of interactions across six online classes were recorded, transcribed, and analysed using content analysis. The findings suggest that indicators of teaching presence dominate interactions in a virtual classroom, but it often involves co-occurrences of indicators of social presence. The typical features of instructor presence included addressing students by name, encouraging them, expressing gratitude for and acknowledging their contributions, describing actions on the dashboard, clarifying and summarising content, and responding to technical concerns. These findings may suggest holistic and pedagogical ways to understand and develop synchronous online interactions and teaching and learning practices. They also have implications for the skills instructors need in virtual classrooms.

This study investigates how schoolchildren organise their spatial and epistemic ‘territories’ among peer groups to constitute local social and moral orders in open learning environments. Open learning environments, the result of recent school reforms in Finland, challenge the conventional organisation of traditional classrooms. We use a microanalysis of naturally occurring video-recorded interactions to show the interactional dynamics of how children produce epistemic and spatial territories by creating moment-by-moment unfolding participation frameworks and emotional alliances. We suggest that the lack of institutional structures in open learning environments withholds children from the territorial shelters that exist in more traditional classrooms. Therefore, open learning environments make students and their peer groups more vulnerable in terms of their social face (Goffman, 1955), including their competence and skills, as they are constantly exposed to other people's observations and criticisms of and interventions in their peer groups. Our results shed light on the tendency of human beings to produce spatial and epistemic structures and moral orders where none exist. publishedVersion

Background Student engagement denotes active participation in academic work through commitment and involvement in learning tasks (Appleton et al., 2006, Journal of School Psychology, 44, 427). This study looks at questions such as whether engagement experiences in one lesson have an effect on the next lesson. In the present study, process‐oriented analyses were conducted to examine lower secondary school students’ engagement experiences and the stability of those experiences from one lesson to the next. Aims (1) To what extent are students’ engagement experiences, in terms of behavioural and cognitive engagement, emotional engagement, and disaffection, stable from one lesson to the next (autoregressive cyclic effects)? (2) What are the cross‐lagged relationships (dynamic effects) between engagement experiences from one lesson to the next? Sample The sample consisted of 56 Finnish lower secondary school students. The students provided ratings of their engagement experiences at the end of each lesson for one week (5 days, 975 ratings). Each student rated, on average, 17.4 lessons (SD = 5.67). Methods We specified multilevel dynamic structural equation models with random slopes. Results The models showed small significant sustainability in behavioural and cognitive engagement, emotional engagement, and disaffection from one lesson to the next, regardless of subject matter and teacher continuity. Higher behavioural and cognitive engagement in a lesson also had a self‐diminishing effect on disaffection. Conclusions The present study provides valuable information to teachers by showing that an experience in one lesson can have an effect on subsequent ones. peerReviewed

Jenni Ruotsalaisen kasvatustieteen väitöskirja "Literacy instruction and reading performance in first grade classrooms" tarkastettiin Jyväskylän yliopiston kasvatustieteiden ja psykologian tiedekunnassa 20.5.2022. Vastaväittäjänä toimi professori Krista Uibu Tarton yliopistosta ja kustoksena professori Anna-Maija Poikkeus Jyväskylän yliopistosta. nonPeerReviewed

The Finnish classroom assessment culture is considered that of assessment for learning. The situation in upper-secondary schools is different, however. While teachers in Finland appreciate assessment supporting learning, they feel unable to merge it with assessment of learning outcomes, and favour the latter due to the Matriculation Examination (ME; e.g. Leontjev, submitted), a high-stakes exam growingly used in university admission. Learners, likewise, expect teachers to prepare them for the ME (Lakkala & Ilomäki, 2013), the results of which play a significant role in their further studies. The tension between assessment for learning and exam preparation is, therefore, often resolved in the benefit of the latter. In the present study, we illustrate how this tension can be resolved for teachers and learners in the benefit of supporting learning both in praxis—a dialectical unity of theory and practice, drawing on a detailed analysis of two interactions with learners. We will discuss the implications for the development of teacher classroom practices and teachers’ professional development.

Students face several challenges when asked to locate relevant and credible information from the internet. This article introduces three principles for designing online inquiry lessons and documents what we learned from five language arts teachers from Finland who implemented and provided feedback on a learning unit framed in those design principles. Teachers implemented a researcher-designed online inquiry unit in nine upper secondary school classrooms. The unit included four 75-minute lessons sequenced to support the location, evaluation, and synthesis of information students encountered in an online inquiry task. Teachers’ diaries revealed their impressions of the unit, problems encountered, and exceptions made to the designed plan. Follow-up interviews revealed additional insights about appropriate time allocation, clear instruction, and areas where students benefit from explicit guidance in strategy use. Findings suggest a researcher-teacher collaboration can be a fruitful endeavor to assist in advancing the design of productive online inquiry activities. publishedVersion

This paper offers an insight into how interaction is multimodally built during taskaccomplishment around mobile devices in classroom interaction. More specifically, it investigates eye gaze as a resource in recruiting help and pursuing response from peers during interactional or task-related trouble sequences. The data come from video-recorded lessons at Finnish comprehensive schools where mobile devices are used for learning tasks. Drawing on multimodal conversation analysis, the article demonstrates that gaze is employed by pupils as one of the first resources to display and address trouble. Although tasks often require gaze to be directed at devices, it can be flexibly reoriented to peers when needed. The findings increase our understanding of functions of eye gaze and peer interaction in today’s technology-rich educational contexts. peerReviewed

Videoconferencing is increasingly used in education as a way to support distance learning. This article contributes to the emerging interactional literature on video-mediated educational interaction by exploring how a telepresence robot is used to facilitate remote participation in university-level foreign language teaching. A telepresence robot differs from commonly used videoconferencing set-ups in that it allows mobility and remote camera control. A remote student can thus move a classroom-based robot from a distance in order to shift attention between people, objects and environmental structures during classroom activities. Using multimodal conversation analysis, we focus on how participants manage telepresent remote students’ visual access to classroom learning materials. In particular, we show how visibility checks are accomplished as a sequential and embodied practice in interaction between physically dispersed participants. Moreover, we demonstrate how participants conduct interactional work to make learning materials visible to the remote student by showing them and guiding the ‘seeing’ of materials. The findings portray some ways in which participants in video-mediated interaction display sensitivity to the possibility of intersubjective trouble and the recipient’s visual perspective. Besides increasing understanding of visual and interactional practices in technology-rich learning environments, the findings can be applied in the pedagogical design of such environments. publishedVersion

This study explores the ways students in a higher education setting engage in word searches. The investigation draws on 30-hour video recordings of content classes in an English as a medium of instruction university in Turkey. Using conversation analysis, the study focuses on the interactionally accomplished functions of vocal and visual practices deployed by the students in the course of a word search. We revealed that word searches are constructed through publicly visible resources (i.e. gaze, body orientation, gestures) and explicit formulaic expressions (i.e. how can I say it?), and accomplished via bilingual resources. It was also observed that the teacher does not orient to word searches when there is a need to interactionally monitor and manage the repairable content (i.e. pedagogical content, subject-specific word), thus prioritizing content over second language (i.e. English) use in the current content-oriented setting. The study contributes to our understanding of how the participants’ situated roles as a student and teacher are contingently negotiated in the ongoing word search in bilingual classroom contexts. peerReviewed

Whereas science is fundamentally a result of a dialogic debate, the authoritative approach has been conceived of as a fundamental part of school science. Dialogic interactions encompass the mutual appreciation of different ideas manifested in teacher supportiveness toward students and, in authoritative interactions, the focus is more on the science’s or teacher’s point of view. Whereas dialogic and authoritative interactions have been viewed as oppositional in recent educational research, authoritative interactions could well be the seed for and give strength and meaning to dialogic interactions, and thus, to the overall dialogue. The focus in this study is on the interplay between authoritative and dialogic interactions rather than on the rivalry between them. In other words, we present how both dialogic and authoritative interactions can be essential for teacher orchestration of whole-class discussions. This is achieved through a temporal consideration of the interactions and an in-depth analysis of selected episodes of a case science teacher. Interpretations are complemented with teacher reflections to shed light on the on-the-fly decisions made by the teacher when orchestrating dialogue. Implications for educational research and teacher education are discussed. peerReviewed

This study offers detailed observational analyses of how teachers use optimism as an instructional resource when responding to students’ failure expectation displays in classroom situations. The results were based on video-recordings of 25 lessons in two Finnish part-time special education settings, analysed by means of applied conversation analysis. The results showed that the teachers boosted optimism by inverting students’ negative utterances, giving examples of successful experiences of peers, offering praise for students’ earlier performance or focusing on problems through instructional support. The study underlines the importance of addressing and elaborating students’ negative learning-related self-assessments in classroom interactions. peerReviewed

After reviewing the concepts of Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) and Translanguaging, this article presents an exploratory study of translanguaging in CLIL contexts. Employing illustrative extracts from a collection of CLIL classroom recordings in Austria, Finland and Spain, we argue that both pedagogic and interpersonal motivations can influence language choices. We suggest that the L1 should be appreciated as a potentially valuable tool in bilingual learning situations and that there is a need for increased awareness-raising around this question. peerReviewed

Classroom observations and teacher self-reports were used to examine the relationships between patterns of teacherestudent interactions and the wellbeing of Norwegian lower secondary school teachers. Latent profile analysis identified four subgroups. Teacherestudent interactions and the teachers' wellbeing were inter-related in that teachers who were observed to be high in all the interaction domains (Emotional Support, Classroom Organization, and Instructional Support) perceived themselves as having high job satisfaction. The results showed that improving teachers’ wellbeing has the potential to improve teacherestudent interactions and vice versa. The study also discusses the use of classroom observations to facilitate teacherestudent interactions in teacher training. peerReviewed

BACKGROUND Prior research has shown that engagement plays a significant role in students' academic learning. AIMS The present study sought to expand the current understanding of students' engagement by examining how situational engagement during a particular lesson is associated with the observed teacher-student classroom interactions (i.e., emotional support, instructional support, and classroom organization) in the same lesson. SAMPLE The participants were 709 Grade 7 students (47.7% girls) from 59 classrooms in 26 lower secondary schools and 51 teachers. METHODS The data consisted of 155 video-recorded lessons (90 language arts and 65 mathematics lessons) coded using the Classroom Assessment Scoring System - Secondary (CLASS-S) observational instrument. Students' self-ratings of their situation-specific engagement were collected using the mobile-based In Situations (InSitu) Instrument at the end of each lesson. The data were analyzed with cross-classified two-level hierarchical modelling. RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONS The results indicated that emotional support in the classroom was positively associated with students' emotional engagement and help-seeking, whereas classroom organization was associated with students' behavioural and cognitive engagement. Overall, the findings provide novel evidence suggesting that students' engagement can be fostered by supportive teacher-student interactions.

This study investigated how teachers' visual focus of attention is associated with students' basic academic skills and teachers' individual support for students in basic academic skills in authentic classroom settings. Teachers' (N = 46) visual focus of attention in the classroom was measured with mobile eye-tracking, and students' (N = 879) literacy and math skills were tested in Grade 1. The results revealed that teachers' visual focus of attention in terms of fixation counts correlated with students' basic academic skills and teachers' individual support for students in literacy and math. Two case studies showed that teachers' visual focus of attention varied among students with different teacher-reported individual support. It might indicate that the number of students with high teacher individual support in the classroom could influence how evenly teachers are able to distribute their attention. The practical implications of our findings suggest that it is essential to ensure the appropriate distribution of students who require greater individual support so these students can receive more of the teachers' visual focus of attention in the classrooms. peerReviewed

Previous studies pointed out that dealing with difficult behaviour is perceived by teachers as a major challenge in inclusive settings. However, research on the students' perception of the classroom behavioural climate (CBC) is rare. Therefore, this study aims to examine students’ perceptions of CBC and to identify predictors of CBC as well as associated variables. The sample consists of 650 German students from secondary schools (5th-9th grade) of whom 83 students are diagnosed with special educational needs (SEN). CBC was measured via four subscales (‘students’ possibilities to study and concentrating on teaching’, ‘disruptive behaviour’, ‘physical and psychological safety’ and ‘caring for the physical environment’). Results show significant differences in students’ perceptions of CBC between students from different school tracks. Furthermore, gender (being male) and SEN (having a) predict the perception of ‘physical and psychological safety’. Additionally, social inclusion, emotional experience as well as teacher support and care are associated with CBC. Accordingly, a positive CBC is important for the successful implementation of inclusive education: while diversity in classrooms is a challenge for behavioural climate, poor behavioural climate may also pose specific barriers to learning for some students with SEN and thus is a general challenge for equity in inclusive classrooms. peerReviewed

Despite rapid changes in education, science classrooms will remain central forums where fragmented pieces of information are brought together to construct coherent knowledge as concepts and explanatory scientific storylines. There is limited work stressing the importance of the interplay between how content is communicated through pedagogical link-making and the use of communicative approaches. Even less research addresses the role of coherence in this process. In this study, through exploring three cases of teachers teaching the same topic, we will bring forth differences on how links between past and to be learned scientific knowledge are made. We look at how authorship – whether teacher or students make the links – is related to students cognitively and emotionally engaged with the discussion. Besides revealing differences in these aspects, communicational coherence was found manifesting in different levels in the examples. Based on the findings, we discuss the role of communicational coherence and pedagogical link-making in meaningful learning of science. peerReviewed

Tässä tutkimuksessa tarkastellaan, miten oppilaslähtöisyys ja dialogisuus ilmenevät matematiikassa ja miten ne kytkeytyvät toisiinsa erityisesti oppilaiden näkökulmien, ajatusten ja kokemusten huomioimisen kautta. Tutkimuksen aineistoksi valittiin matematiikan aineenopettajaopiskelijoiden pitämiä oppitunteja, joissa havaittiin keskimääräisesti enemmän oppilaslähtöisyyden ja dialogisuuden ilmenemismuotoja. Keskustelunanalyysin keinoin osoitettiin, että oppilaslähtöisyyttä ja dialogisuutta voidaan edistää niin matematiikkaa kuin muitakin aiheita käsittelevissä opetuskeskusteluissa. Esimerkkien avulla pohditaan, miten vallitseva auktoritatiivinen ja oppiainekeskeinen opetusvuorovaikutus on haastettavissa jo opettajaopiskelijoiden opetusharjoittelun aikana. peerReviewed

This study examines the occurrence and quality of educational dialogue in the Grade 1 classrooms of teachers with low, moderate and high self-efficacy beliefs. Video recordings of 24 teachers were analysed based on episodes of educational dialogue and were categorised with respect to patterns of dialogic teaching. Teachers with low levels of self-efficacy conducted educational dialogue the least; they also used less teacher-initiated, high-quality dialogue compared with moderate and high self-efficacy teachers. Teachers with high self-efficacy utilised more child-initiated high-quality dialogue compared with the moderate self-efficacy teachers. The findings are important because they provide a new approach for the field of educational dialogue by considering self-efficacy as a teacher-related factor on the background of dialogue. peerReviewed

This study was conducted in the context of a teacher professional development programme that aimed to improve dialogic teaching in the classroom, and it describes the programme and examines the change in teachers' dialogic teaching practices and pupils' classroom engagement during the programme. Data on pupils' school engagement were collected using classroom video recordings and students' self-ratings at the end of the lesson including dialogic teaching practices. The participants comprised seven in-service teachers and their 140 pupils (10- to 15-year-olds) from two comprehensive schools. The findings indicated positive change in the use of dialogic teaching practices and in observed pupils' school engagement during the programme. Moreover, pupils' help-seeking during lessons increased over the course of the programme. The study suggests that a structured professional development programme utilising video recordings with teacher reflections provides beneficial tools for promoting teachers' employment of dialogic interaction and pupils' school engagement. peerReviewed

Tässä tutkimuksessa tarkastellaan opettajien näkemyksiä siitä, millaisia haasteita on luokkahuoneen vuorovaikutustilanteissa tapahtuvassa formatiivisessa arvioinnissa. Aineisto koostuu viiden opettajan keskusteluista täydennyskoulutuksessa. Keskustelujen teemoina olivat opettajien omien videonäytteiden ja kirjallisen materiaalin pohjalta opettajan sensitiivisyys, palaute ja dialogisuus. Vaikka keskustelun perussävy koulutuksen aikana oli myönteinen ja aineena oli oman työn kehittäminen, esiin nousi huomattava määrä oppimista edistävän luokkahuonevuorovaikutuksen ja arvioinnin haasteita. Laadullinen aineistolähtöinen sisällönanalyysi kohdistui näihin haasteisiin sekä opettajien esittämiin ratkaisuihin ja suhtautumistapoihin. Näiden lisäksi tarkasteltiin opettajien kokemuksia kyseisestä täydennyskoulutuksesta. Aineistolähtöisen analyysin perusteella vuorovaikutteisen arvioinnin haasteet liittyivät opettajien, oppilaiden, muiden toimijoiden ja toimintaympäristön ristiriitaisiin toiveisiin, vaatimuksiin ja mahdollisuuksiin. Runsaista ratkaisuehdotuksista huolimatta todettiin, että vuorovaikutustilanteissa tapahtuvan arvioinnin onnistuminen ei ole aina mahdollista. Opettajat kokivat yhteisen reflektion kuitenkin edistäneen omaa osaamistaan ja hyvinvointiaan täydennyskoulutuksen aikana. Tulosten pohjalta voidaan ehdottaa, että opettajan arviointiosaamiseen kohdistuvan koulutuksen tulee tiedon lisäksi tarjota mahdollisuuksia reflektoida syvällisesti omaa toimintaa yhdessä kollegojen kanssa. peerReviewed

Research related to dialogic teaching has been gaining ground in recent decades. On a theoretical level, researchers have described how sociocultural approaches are linked to dialogic teaching. In addition, empirical studies have explained how dialogic teaching manifests itself in educational dialogue and classroom interactions. However, studies addressing how the dialogic theory and practice could be linked meaningfully in teacher education and professional development programs in subject teacher education and related praxis are still limited. Especially in the case of math teacher education, the reported professional development programs are limited in number. Whereas the tendency has been to report the challenges accompanying dialogicity, the present study contributes by making suggestions and delivering ways to enhance the dialogicity of math teaching. Most importantly, the findings reveal that this is done mostly by the student teachers themselves. Additionally, all of this can be considered a result of participating in an initial teacher education program, following a systematic and cyclic structure to develop one's understanding and skills related to classroom interactions that include dialogic approaches. Implications for subject teacher education are also discussed based on the findings of the current study. peerReviewed

The present study aimed to investigate the associations between teachers’ observed emotional support and social competence among Finnish pre-schoolers (6-year-olds). The quality of emotional support was observed using the Classroom Assessment Scoring System Pre-K in 47 preschool classrooms twice across the preschool year. Teachers rated children’s social competence in autumn and again in spring, using the Multisource Assessment of Social Competence Scale (MASCS), which produced sum scores for cooperating skills, empathy, impulsivity, and disruptiveness. Consistent with the transactional model, we specified reciprocal (auto-regressive and cross-lagged) relationships within a Multilevel Structural Equation Models (MSEM) framework. The results showed that higher quality of emotional support in preschool autumn was related to more prosocial behaviours typical of the classroom during spring of the preschool year. Children’s antisocial behaviours typical of the preschool classroom were not associated with quality of emotional support or vice versa. The results emphasize the importance of responsive and sensitive classroom interactions in promoting prosocial behaviours. peerReviewed

This paper explores teacher elicitation practices following a perceived absence of a response to an initial inquiry. Specifically, we focus on whole class post-task discussions where a teacher pursues responses in post-first position following students’ non-uptake, and thus makes her orientation toward the expectation of a response publicly available. The data for this study come from 30 h of video-recorded classroom interactions in an English as a medium of instruction university in Turkey. Using Conversation Analysis, this study demonstrates that when confronted with a non-response to her initial elicitation in whole class interaction, in addition to drawing on interactional resources (e.g., designedly incomplete utterances, increments) that have been described in earlier research on response pursuits, the teacher uses two additional strategies to secure an answer: (1) modeling a response by personalizing the task, and (2) drawing on a range of multimodal resources (i.e., pedagogical artifact, embodied behavior, vocalization) to elicit engagement. The study particularly focuses on how the teacher employs multimodal tools to promote engagement and to further the progress of the ongoing pedagogical activity (i.e., reflective discussions) when a response is due but not provided. The findings have implications for understanding the design and delivery of teacher response pursuits, and thus contribute to our understanding of turn allocation practices during the whole class sharing phase in content classrooms. peerReviewed

In classroom settings, laughter and smiles are resources for action that are available to both teachers and students. Recent interactional studies have documented how students use these resources to deal with trouble of various kind, but less is known about the sequential and activity contexts of teachers’ laughter-relevant practices, as well as their pedagogical functions. We use multimodal conversation analysis (CA) to investigate the interactional unfolding and pedagogical orientations of teacher smiles during instructional IRE (initiation-response-evaluation) sequences in a corpus of 37 bilingual lessons collected in schools in Finland and Spain. In analysing the focal smiles, we pay attention to their temporal relationships to students’ preceding and subsequent facial expressions and the unfolding of on-going talk. We argue that smiling can index teachers’ affiliative and pedagogical responsiveness to troubles and competences implied by prior student actions. The analysis of selected data fragments shows how smiling is part of multimodal action packages through which teachers manage momentary action disalignments and restore a sense of students as competent actors. The findings contribute towards recent CA research on the embodied and interactional nature of teaching and learning by showing some ways in which smiling is a situated practice used for professional purposes. info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion

Educational field can take advantage of the improvements of Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR), since we can apply ASR algorithms in non-ideal conditions such as real classrooms. In the context of QuIP project, we used ASR systems to translate audio from teachers’ talk into text to study conceptual networks based on what the teacher says during his/her lecture, particularly the key concepts mentioned and their temporal co-occurrence. In the present study, quantitative metrics are provided, such as centrality measures and PageRank, which can be used to analyse the conceptual networks in a broaden way. With a case-study design, two teachers’ talk are described quantitatively and qualitatively using the metrics, suggesting that PageRank could be a good metric to find differences in teachers’ talk. Finally, we discuss about the potential of this kind of analysis. peerReviewed

This study explored teachers' professional vision by examining how teachers experiencing low, moderate and high work-related stress reason their eye-tracking recordings in terms of description, explanation and prediction. A qualitative analysis of retrospective think-aloud interviews with 24 Grade 1 teachers showed that teachers predominantly used description in their reasoning, while explanation and prediction were less frequent. The description mainly focused on teacher information/elaboration and classroom management/behaviour. Teachers with moderate stress utilised self-reflection most frequently, whereas teachers with high stress utilised it the least. The results suggest that the level of teacher work-related stress may be reflected in their self-reflection. peerReviewed

Unlike continuous whole-class (plenary) interaction, independent task work involves incipient teacher–student talk, as the teacher typically ‘makes rounds’ to engage in brief desk interactions with students. This article draws on multimodal conversation analysis to investigate how teacher movement during tasks offers resources for re-engaging in desk interactions and offering task-related guidance. The focus is on teachers’ walking trajectories and ways of positioning the body, and students’ orientation to them, in (i) (pre-)opening moments of a desk interaction, and (ii) during a subsequent instructional turn that guides students with the ongoing task. The analysis shows how the pedagogical actions of checking and assessing student progress as well as making oneself available to students become observable in ways of walking, and how students display bodily whether they need teacher help. Movement also offers resources for shifting from individualized to collective instruction during rounds. These findings suggest that ways of navigating the body in the classroom space can index pedagogical concerns, which the students can use to make sense of the teachers’ ongoing and projected engagements.

Using multimodal conversation analysis, this article examines how students strive to resolve non-understandings through requests for clarification during teacher-fronted physics lectures ta...

This article examines how a teacher in a Content-and-Language-Integrated-Learning (CLIL) program engages in various definitional practices during a plenary episode in a physics class taught in English in Finland. The episode focuses on explaining Hooke’s law, which involves defining its key concepts and their relations as instructable matters. Using multimodal conversation analysis, the article shows how the teacher accomplishes definitions and definition-related actions through talk and a range of embodied and material resources. The different configurations of resources are coordinated to elucidate the key concepts, to contextualize them in relation to the larger activity, and to situate them in the domain of physical laws. The teacher’s actions occasion recipient responses from students that contingently shape the evolving lesson. The findings contribute to understanding how the installation of knowledge about a physical law is accomplished as the teacher’s professional work in a CLIL setting. Thus, for CLIL science teacher education, the study indicates the indispensable need to attend to the artful coordination of multilingual and multimodal practices that teachers employ to define and contextualize physical phenomena.

This conversation analytic study investigates student-initiated multi-unit questions (MUQs) in whole class interaction. Based on a corpus of 30 hours of videotaped interactions from teacher education classrooms in an English-medium instruction university, we demonstrate that students use MUQs to introduce topics, either by recontextualizing some aspect of the prior topic, or alternatively, without these cohesive ties, which requires more interactional work to achieve intersubjectivity. Findings reveal that MUQs render student professional concerns more relevant and salient, foregrounding those inquiries as a space for launching topics. Students bring up issues such as ways of handling particular situations through MUQs and contribute what they already know about the topic of the question, thereby confining the scope of the sought information. The study contributes to understanding how topic initiating practices are enacted through local connections where the student questions do display coherence with the immediately preceding discourse. peerReviewed

This study examined the reliability and validity of the Classroom Assessment Scoring System–Secondary (CLASS-S) in Finnish classrooms. Trained observers coded classroom interactions based on video recordings of 46 Grade 6 classrooms (450 cycles). Concurrent associations were investigated with respect to teacher self-ratings (e.g., efficacy beliefs and teaching-related stress). Confirmatory factor analysis showed that the hypothesized three-factor structure of the original CLASS-S (Emotional Support, Organizational Support, and Instructional Support), with some modifications, provided a better fit for the data compared with one- and two-factor structures. Structural validity was demonstrated by mostly high factor loadings. Except for two interrater intraclass correlations, all item, scale, and interrater reliabilities were either acceptable or good. The study found some evidence for concurrent associations between the three CLASS-S factors and teacher self-ratings. The results provide evidence of the applicability of the CLASS-S instrument in educational contexts (Finland) outside the United States.

Although detention is one of the most popular methods of punishment in schools, it is being met with increasing criticism as an educational intervention. Few studies have explored its use to date; therefore, the present pilot study was planned to survey the popularity of detention. By analyzing a representative sample of comprehensive school teachers (N = 2,276) in Finland at grade levels 1-9, it was found that 30% of Finnish school teachers regularly use this punishment. Differences in use were observed across gender, age, and teacher category. These results provide a baseline against which future follow-up studies can be compared. peerReviewed

Cognitive assessment in natural group settings facilitates data collection but poses threats to the validity. In this study, tablet‐based working memory (WM) tasks, the counting span, and reading span were used in predicting 12‐year‐old children's (N = 837) scholastic skills and fluid intelligence in a classroom with environmental noise. WM tasks had excellent internal consistency, correlated with scholastic skills, and accounted for more of the variance in cognitive performance (grade point average, fluid intelligence, scholastic skills) compared with individually administered (n = 190) digit span task. Furthermore, the multilevel analysis revealed that compared with the classrooms with no noise, when naturally occurring speech or nonspeech types of environmental noises were present during assessment, WM scores or the reliability estimates were not lower. In contrast, when both types of noises were present, the relationships between some of the WM and achievement scores were even stronger. Thus, assessments in natural classroom contexts may promote revealing the individual differences in WM.

Three dimensions of dialogicity are emphasised in the literature: dialogic teacher talk, students' dialogic moves and organising for dialogic teaching. In this article, we examine these dimensions and the interplay between them in supporting dialogic argumentation in the context of whole-class discussions in mathematics and physics. Three seemingly different seventh-grade lessons were selected for further analysis from the database of a research project on dialogic argumentation. In this paper, we focus on whole-class discussions after a group assignment. The lessons were video recorded with multiple cameras and transcribed. We characterised dialogic features of teacher talk, more general teacher decisions and organising for dialogic teaching, as well as students' dialogic and justifying moves. In addition, we examined how these were connected. According to the results, the three dimensions of dialogicity played out differently in the lessons. Furthermore, the results give insights into the interplay of the three dialogicity dimensions and students' justifying moves in dialogic argumentation. peerReviewed

Heli Muhosen kasvatustieteen väitöskirja ”Educational dialogue in the classroom: Scaffolding, knowledge building and associations with academic performance” (Opetusdialogin laatu on yhteydessä oppimiseen) tarkastettiin Jyväskylän yliopiston Kasvatustieteiden ja psykologian tiedekunnassa 4.5.2018. Vastaväittäjänä toimi professori Kristiina Kumpulainen Helsingin yliopistosta ja kustoksena professori Marja-Kristiina Lerkkanen Jyväskylän yliopistosta. nonPeerReviewed

Drawing on a corpus of pre-service teacher training classroom interactions in an English-medium instruction university in Turkey, we examine teacher follow-up turns that introduce specialized terms, showing how a teacher transforms student’s responses into pedagogically relevant points using academic language. We argue that teacher third-turns following student contributions accomplish several interrelated actions, not only introducing new terminology to these teachers-in-training, but also familiarizing them with ways of thinking specific to their discipline, i.e., these turns model “doing being a teacher.” These teacher actions are used to bridge student contributions to more scientific talk, that is, the teacher confirms contributions as subject-relevant by steering the direction of the upcoming talk, while also introducing students to potentially unfamiliar terminology, speaking as a member of an unnamed group of subject-matter experts. Notably, we argue that these content-based follow-ups are realized multimodally, drawing on prosodic, gestural, and proxemic resources, among others, and that these multimodal actions are an important aspect of teacher’s classroom interactional competence, showing how instructors socialize pre-service teachers into thinking and talking like professionals, i.e., like teachers. peerReviewed

Xin Tangin psykologian väitöskirja ”Teaching Practices in Early Primary School: Dimensions, Patterns and Consequences” tarkastettiin Jyväskylän yliopiston kasvatustieteiden ja psykologian tiedekunnassa 13. joulukuuta 2017. Vastaväittäjänä toimi apulaisprofessori Antje von Suchodoletz (New York University Abu Dhabi) ja kustoksena professori Marja-Kristiina Lerkkanen (Jyväskylän yliopisto). nonPeerReviewed

This study is an action research that was planned and implemented with 23 Ethiopian Village School teachers. The action of the four year project concentrated on developing new, student-centred teaching methods instead of traditional lecturing and rote learning in one remote school. The overall aim of the study was to follow this process and the teachers’ professional development, and to explore how the practical arrangements, such as material or cultural surroundings, constrain or enable usage of student-centred methods at the school. The theoretical framework of the study consists of theories about professional development, action research, and the theory of practice architectures. The data have been collected by group discussions, interviews, videotapes and field notes. My diary notes, samples of the Finnish teacher students’ trainee reports and photos are added to give deeper understanding about the context. Data have been analysed thematically and through the theory of practice architectures. The findings of the study show that participatory action research helped teachers to develop new culturally suitable teaching methods based on student-centred pedagogy. It increased teachers’ collaboration, raised their motivation and supported their professional development. The analysis revealed that existing practical arrangements at the school do not support the use of a student-centred teaching method. For example, a detailed curriculum, annual tests, a high student-teacher ratio and a lack of teaching and learning materials support teacher-led teaching and make it difficult to implement student-centred teaching methods. If the wish is for student-centred learning methods to be used in every school of Ethiopia, changes in curricula, student-teacher ratios and the examination system are needed. Encouraging and equipping teachers to do their own action research projects at the schools will support their continuous professional development.

This study examined the reliability and validity of the Classroom Assessment Scoring System–Secondary (CLASS-S) in Finnish classrooms. Trained observers coded classroom interactions based on video recordings of 46 Grade 6 classrooms (450 cycles). Concurrent associations were investigated with respect to teacher self-ratings (e.g., efficacy beliefs and teaching-related stress). Confirmatory factor analysis showed that the hypothesized three-factor structure of the original CLASS-S (Emotional Support, Organizational Support, and Instructional Support), with some modifications, provided a better fit for the data compared with one- and two-factor structures. Structural validity was demonstrated by mostly high factor loadings. Except for two interrater intraclass correlations, all item, scale, and interrater reliabilities were either acceptable or good. The study found some evidence for concurrent associations between the three CLASS-S factors and teacher self-ratings. The results provide evidence of the applicability of the CLASS-S instrument in educational contexts (Finland) outside the United States. peerReviewed

Tämän pro gradu -tutkielman tarkoituksena oli tarkastella koululuokkien työrauhaan vaikuttavia tekijöitä. Aineistona käytettiin Niilo Mäki Instituutin Prokoulu-projektin tutkimusaineistoa. Vastemuuttujana käytettiin oppilaan arvioimaa luokan työrauhaa. Selittäviksi muuttujiksi asetettiin aiemman tutkimustiedon perusteella oppilaan arvioita erilaisista sosiaalisista suhteista ja käyttäytymiseen liittyvistä asioista, luokan opettajan ominaisuuksia ja arvioita koulun toimintakulttuurista sekä yleisiä luokkaan liittyviä ominaisuuksia. Analyysimenetelmänä käytettiin hierarkkista lineaarista regressiomallia, ts. lineaarista sekamallia, johon asetettiin oppilas-, luokka- ja koulutasot. Sekamallin satunnaisten tekijöiden avulla voitiin ottaa huomioon havaintoyksiköiden korreloituneisuus ryhmän sisällä ja tutkia työrauhan eroavaisuuksia luokkien ja koulujen välillä. Usean hierarkkisen tason sisältävää sekamallia rakennettaessa voidaan asettaa eri tasojen muuttujien välisiä interaktioita, esimerkiksi tässä työssä tutkittiin, onko oppilaan arvioiden ja opettajan ominaisuuksien välillä yhdysvaikutusta. Tuloksena oli, että Prokoulu-aineistossa oppilaan kokemaa työrauhaa selittivät oppilaiden väliset suhteet, koulun sääntöjen oikeudenmukaisuus, selkeät odotukset hyvälle käytökselle, hyvän käytöksen huomioiminen, opettajan työkokemus opettamassaan koulussa, opettajan minäpystyvyys, luokan oppilasmäärä, tyttöjen osuus ja tarkkaavuus- ja käytösongelmia kokevien oppilaiden osuus. Oppilassuhteiden, koulun sääntöjen oikeudenmukaisuuden, hyvän käytöksen huomioimisen ja selkeiden käyttäytymisodotusten vaikutukset olivat erilaisia muuttujan eri tasoilla. Koulun sääntöjen oikeudenmukaisuuden ja käyttäytymisodotusten selkeys myös selittivät työrauhan kokemista eri luokissa eri tavalla. Koulujen välinen vaihtelu työrauhassa oli pientä, joten koulutasoa ei tarvittu malliin.