'Nordic values’ and schooling during COVID-19 : how to balance comprehensive education and sustainable pandemic regulations

Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Opportunities to enact practice in campus courses: Taking a student perspective.

The aim of this article is to explore similarities and differences in teacher candidates’ perceptions of their opportunities to enact practice in university courses in five teacher education programmes, located in Norway, Finland, USA, Cuba, and Chile. Paper and pencil surveys were distributed among candidates (N = 488) to measure their perception of their opportunities to enact practice in campus courses. Across programmes, the students report the least opportunity to examine transcripts of classroom talk or student discussions. They report the most opportunity to talk about their field placement and to plan for their teaching. Using Analysis of Variance, differences between the programmes were studied. Students in a programme which has explicitly made efforts to connect theory and practice over a period of 15 years do report more opportunities to enact practice. Students from a programme that has been constantly working on improvements but not a major redesign conceptualised around coherence, report experiencing fewer opportunities to enact practice. We conclude that teaching practices closely linked to pupils’ understanding might be in need of additional attention in teacher education programmes.submittedVersionNivå

Justice through participation : student engagement in Nordic classrooms

In this article, we approach large questions regarding justice and equality in the Nordic classrooms. A substantial body of previous research emphasises the importance of student engagement in teaching and learning. Drawing on video data from Norway, Sweden and Finland, we focus on whole-class teaching, i.e. situa- tions in which the teacher addresses the class from the front of the classroom, to investigate justice trough participation. We have approached our topic through two concerns: student participation in classroom discourse and student engagement as providing access to content. Our findings seem to pose some serious chal- lenges for the Nordic welfare society vision of classrooms as core societal hubs for justice and equality. While whole-class teaching is one of the primary tools available for attempting to achieve justice and equality for all, this interaction format seems to contain inher- ent constraints that do not support equitable student engagement. Further, the way the Nordic classrooms have responded so far to the massive digitisation in their societies seems to pose serious questions rather than provide comforting answers.In this article, we approach large questions regarding justice and equality in the Nordic classrooms. A substantial body of previous research emphasises the importance of student engagement in teaching and learning. Drawing on video data from Norway, Sweden and Finland, we focus on whole-class teaching, i.e. situations in which the teacher addresses the class from the front of the classroom, to investigate justice trough participation. We have approached our topic through two concerns: student participation in classroom discourse and student engagement as providing access to content. Our findings seem to pose some serious challenges for the Nordic welfare society vision of classrooms as core societal hubs for justice and equality. While whole-class teaching is one of the primary tools available for attempting to achieve justice and equality for all, this interaction format seems to contain inherent constraints that do not support equitable student engagement. Further, the way the Nordic classrooms have responded so far to the massive digitisation in their societies seems to pose serious questions rather than provide comforting answersPeer reviewe

Kommentar: Intervju med klasseromsforsker

Professor Kirsti Klette, klasseromsforsker ved Universitetet i Oslo, i intervju med professor Stephen Dobson, Høgskolen i Hedmark. Klette er kjent for sinforskning om klasserom og sin støtte for bruk av nye medier, herunder videofilming i klasserom

Working Time Blues: On How Norwegian Teachers Experience Restructuring in Education

Dissertação de mestrado em Psicologia Clínica e da Saúde (Intervenções Cognitivo-Comportamentais nas Perturbações Psicológicas e da Saúde), apresentada à Faculdade de Psicologia e de Ciências da Educação da Universidade de CoimbraA depressão é uma das perturbações psicológicas mais prevalentes entre os adolescentes. As raparigas apresentam maior prevalência de sintomatologia depressiva do que os rapazes, sobretudo a partir dos 15 anos, altura em que tende a ocorrer o primeiro episódio de depressão major. As estratégias cognitivas de regulação emocional mal adaptativas têm vindo a ser apontadas como um fator de risco para a depressão e como um fator explicativo das diferenças de género ao nível da sintomatologia depressiva. O principal objetivo deste estudo foi testar o efeito moderador do género na relação entre as estratégias cognitivas de regulação emocional e a sintomatologia depressiva. A amostra foi constituída por 319 adolescentes, com idades entre os 13 e os 15 anos. Medidas de autorresposta foram utilizadas para aceder à sintomatologia depressiva (CDI) e às estratégias cognitivas de regulação emocional (CERQ). As raparigas apresentaram maior tendência para recorrer a estratégias cognitivas mal adaptativas de regulação emocional. A sintomatologia depressiva foi predita positivamente pela catastrofização para ambos os géneros e pela autoculpabilização e ruminação para as raparigas. Quanto a estratégias adaptativas, a reavaliação positiva e o replaneamento mostraram-se preditores negativos da sintomatologia depressiva para as raparigas. Culpar o outro mostrou ser um preditor negativo de sintomatologia depressiva para os rapazes. Encontrou-se ainda um efeito moderador do género na relação entre a estratégia cognitiva de reavaliação positiva e a sintomatologia depressiva. Os resultados mostram a importância de intervir clinicamente com os adolescentes ao nível das estratégias cognitivas de regulação emocional mal adaptativas e de promover a utilização da estratégia de reavaliação positiva, de modo a reduzir o risco de sintomatologia depressiva. A consideração destes resultados poderá contribuir, ainda, para delinear estratégias de prevenção eficazes.Depression is one of the most prevalent psychological conditions among adolescents. Girls have higher prevalence of depressive symptoms than boys, mostly above 15 years old, when the first major depressive episode tends to occur. Maladaptive cognitive emotion regulation strategies have been pointed as a risk factor for depression and also as a factor that explains gender differences in depressive symptoms. The main goal of this study was to test the moderating effect of gender in the relationship between cognitive emotion regulation strategies and depressive symptoms. The sample was composed by 319 adolescents, aging 13 to 15 years old. Self-reported measures were used in order to access depressive symptoms (CDI) and cognitive emotion regulation strategies (CERQ). Girls tend to use more maladaptive cognitive emotion regulation strategies. Depressive symptoms were positive predicted by catastrophizing for both genders and by self-blame and rumination for girls. As for adaptive strategies, positive reappraisal and refocus on planning were negative predictors of depressive symptoms for girls. Other-blame was a negative predictor of depressive symptoms for boys. We also found a moderator effect of gender in the relationship between positive reappraisal and depressive symptoms. Results show the importance of clinical intervention, with adolescents, on maladaptive cognitive emotion regulation strategies and the importance of enhancing the use of positive reappraisal, in order to reduce the risk of depressive symptoms. Considering this results could also contribute to the outlying of efficient prevention strategies

Signal, Error, or Bias? Exploring the Uses of Scores from Observation Systems

Scores from observational measures of teaching have recently been put to many uses within school systems, including communicating a standard of practice and providing teacher feedback, identifying teachers for professional development, monitoring system equity, and making employment decisions. In each of these uses, observation scores are interpreted as representing some aspect of the enacted instruction or teachers’ capacity to enact instruction, as seen through the observation systems lens for understanding teaching quality. The validity of these interpretations, or the extent to which observation scores are composed of a signal that accurately reflects the interpretation, has important implications for the overall validity of these uses of observation systems. Starting from an explicit conceptualization of instruction, this paper combines generalizability theory and hierarchical linear modelling approaches to decompose observation scores to explore the extent to which scores from observation systems are composed of signal, error, and bias across four different uses of scores. We show that the level of signal, error, and bias in scores depends more on what scores are interpreted as representing (i.e., the proposed use) than on the rubric being scored. Further, we show that errors and biases introduced by raters are a major threat to any attempt to interpret observation scores as capturing the understanding of teaching quality embedded in the observation system. We discuss implications for using scores from observation systems

Individual teaching methods: Work plans as a tool for promoting self-regulated learning in lower secondary classrooms?

To stimulate individualised learning and give students some autonomy and responsibility in relation to their own schoolwork, Norwegian teachers often use work plans as an instructional tool. A work plan is a document that describes different tasks students are supposed to complete within a certain time period, normally two to three weeks. This article explores whether the use of work plans can be used as a tool for promoting self-regulated learning (SRL). The analyses draw on data from the PISA+ video study. The data include video observations from five lower secondary mathematics classrooms (15-year-olds). Our analyses suggest the teachers rarely provided explicit instructions, cognitive feedback or autonomy-supportive learning strategies