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Finland’s Phenomenon-based Learning

The Teacher’s Role in Finland’s Phenomenon-based Learning

Tara García Mathewson, The Hechinger ReportDec 10

https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/55006/the-teachers-role-in-finlands-phenomenon-based-learning

Phenomenon-based learning is a lot like project-based learning, a more familiar term in the United States. Both prioritize hands-on activities that give students control over the direction of the project and both emphasize assignments that relate to the real world. They also emphasize student mastery of transferrable skills rather than a narrow set of facts identified by teachers.

Teachers have to make sure students know the foundational knowledge they need on a given topic to even consider developing a research question within it. They need to teach students how to craft appropriate research questions that can lead to interesting and engaging, and hopefully even original, research opportunities. And they need to pause the student-directed investigations to teach and model the skills students should be using on their own along the way.

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more on the FInland Phenomenon in this iMS blog
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=finland+phenomenon

Finland ideas for US education

OPINION: Can this 12-step program from Finland aid U.S. education?

 Finland system consistently receives top marks from UNICEF, the OECD and the World Economic Forum.
Many U.S. states are similar in population size and demographics to Finland, and education is largely run at the state level. In the economically depressed forest region of North Karelia — on the Russian border — where we spent much of our time, the unemployment rate is nearly 15 percent, compared with under 5 percent in America and our home state of New York. However, the U.S. child poverty rate is four times higher than Finland’s.
Delegations and universities from China and around the developing world are visiting Finland to learn how to improve their own school systems.Singapore has launched a series of Finnish-style school reforms.

n Finland, we heard none of the clichés common in U.S. education reform circles, like “rigor,” “standards-based accountability,” “data-driven instruction,” “teacher evaluation through value-added measurement” or getting children “college- and career-ready” starting in kindergarten.

Instead, Finnish educators and officials constantly stressed to us their missions of helping every child reach his or her full potential and supporting all children’s well-being. “School should be a child’s favorite place,” said Heikki Happonen, an education professor at the University of Eastern Finland and an authority on creating warm, child-centered learning environments.

How can the United States improve its schools? We can start by piloting and implementing these 12 global education best practices, many of which are working extremely well for Finland:

1) Emphasize well-being.

2) Upgrade testing and other assessments. 

3) Invest resources fairly.

4) Boost learning through physical activity. 

5) Change the focus. Create an emotional atmosphere and physical environment of warmth, comfort and safety so that children are happy and eager to come to school. Teach not just basic skills, but also arts, crafts, music, civics, ethics, home economics and life skills.

6) Make homework efficient. Reduce the homework load in elementary and middle schools to no more than 30 minutes per night, and make it responsibility-based rather than stress-based.

7) Trust educators and children. Give them professional respect, creative freedom and autonomy, including the ability to experiment, take manageable risks and fail in the pursuit of success.

8) Shorten the school day. Deliver lessons through more efficient teaching and scheduling, as Finland does. Simplify curriculum standards to a framework that can fit into a single book, and leave detailed implementation to local districts.

9) Institute universal after-school programs.

10) Improve, expand and destigmatize vocational and technical education.   Encourage more students to attend schools in which they can acquire valuable career/trade skills.

11) Launch preventive special-education interventions early and aggressively. 

12) Revamp teacher training toward a medical and military model. Shift to treating the teaching profession as a critical national security function requiring government-funded, graduate-level training in research and collaborative clinical practice, as Finland does.

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more on Finland Phenomenon in this IMS blog
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=finland+phenomenon

US and Finland Phenomenon

Maybe Instead of Finland, We Should Be More Like Massachusetts?

https://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/finding_common_ground/2016/12/maybe_instead_of_finland_we_should_be_more_like_massachusetts.html
Finland consistently ranks high in the PISA results for many reasons. (What is PISA? Click here to read a guest blog written by Andreas Schleicher who is the Director of PISA). They don’t push curriculum that isn’t age appropriate, their teachers are highly qualified and the field of education is respected as one of the top professions.
Additionally, Finland has a much more flexible education system than the US. The U.S. has constant carrot and stick programs as well as a great deal of accountability and mandates. Teachers, leaders and students in Finland feel as though they have a voice in their schooling.
The Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (MDOE) website provides the results from the recent PISA.
family involvement and wealth as the most important factors, many of the articles focusing on the strength of the Massachusetts education system also state that there is an achievement gap they have where their impoverished students are concerned.
the issue of over-testing students, and the pressures of standardized testing.
in the long run, we as a nation might want to pay attention to Massachusetts because their education system is consistently strong, and they treat education and their teachers with respect. Although Finland is a great country to visit and learn from, it seems as though we really don’t have to go that far to see educational greatness because we have it within our own country too.
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more on finland phenomenon in this IMS blog
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims/2018/04/24/resources-on-finland-phenomenon/

resources on Finland Phenomenon

link to the DVD: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2101464/

also available here:

or here

https://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2011/05/02/the-finland-phenomenon-inside-the-worlds-most-surprising-school-system/#2e72f37a572d

https://edexcellence.net/articles/the-finland-phenomenon-inside-the-worlds-most-surprising-school-system

http://www.progressiveteacher.in/the-finnish-phenomenon-in-education/

 

Finland vs US ed system

7 reasons Finland’s education system puts the US model to shame

http://www.businessinsider.com/finland-education-beats-us-2017-5

Why Finland has the best schools

William Doyle, March 18, 2016

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more on Finland Phenomenon in this IMS blog
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=finland+phenomenon

Finland Phenomenon reversed

When Finnish Teachers Work in America’s Public Schools

There are more restrictions to professional freedom in the United States, and the educators find the school day overly rigid.

Charles Rex Arbogast / AP

Timothy D. Walker

http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2016/11/when-finnish-teachers-work-in-americas-public-schools/508685/

Muja concluded her response with a quote from one of Pasi Sahlberg’s articles for The Washington Post, “What if Finland’s great teachers taught in U.S. schools?”

Sahlberg, an education scholar and the author of Finnish Lessons 2.0, answers the theoretical question in his article’s title, writing in part: “I argue that if there were any gains in student achievement they would be marginal. Why? Education policies in Indiana and many other states in the United States create a context for teaching that limits (Finnish) teachers to use their skills, wisdom and shared knowledge for the good of their students’ learning.”

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more about Finland Phenomenon in this IMS blog

https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=finland+phenomenon

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leadership in finland

Lessons From Finland: What Educators Can Learn About Leadership

education reform Finland

Finland schools: Subjects scrapped and replaced with ‘topics’ as country reforms its education system

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/finland-schools-subjects-are-out-and-topics-are-in-as-country-reforms-its-education-system-10123911.html

Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) rankings https://nces.ed.gov/surveys/pisa/

Subject-specific lessons – an hour of history in the morning, an hour of geography in the afternoon – are already being phased out for 16-year-olds in the city’s upper schools. They are being replaced by what the Finns call “phenomenon” teaching – or teaching by topic. For instance, a teenager studying a vocational course might take “cafeteria services” lessons, which would include elements of maths, languages (to help serve foreign customers), writing skills and communication skills.

The reforms reflect growing calls in the UK – not least from the Confederation of British Industry and Labour’s Shadow Education Secretary Tristram Hunt – for education to  promote character, resilience and communication skills, rather than just pushing children through “exam factories”. (http://www.theguardian.com/education/2015/mar/20/labour-calls-time-on-exam-factory-approach-to-schooling)
(My Note/Question: so UK is ready to scrap what US pushes even harder with the STEM idea?)

More on education in Finland and its education in this IMS blog:

https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims/?s=finland

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