Focus and interest can change during the ongoing studies.
In lower secondary school I was good at reading and writing well as learning geography and English but not good at all in mathematics and sciences. In upper secondary school, the situation turned around. My strongest and most important subjects became soon to be mathematics and sciences. Later that led me to study mathematical subjects at the University of Oulu.
The best way to learn is to teach and supervise.
During the early years of my university time, I took a position as a mathematics teacher at a Finnish comprehensive school. The main reason for that was a lack of money. Knowledge and skills that one learns in the university are important and necessary but are not enough for teaching at schools. I learned that what one has studied in the university is not easy to transfer into real contexts. The application will not happen easily or automatically. The question is about different contexts.
Learning starts with questions.
When I was studying at the university at the same time I had an opportunity to work for several years in different research and teaching tasks in the department of theoretical physics of the University of Oulu. During those years, I think, I became to realize what scientific work is and could be. The department was quite small and in many ways an ideal one for collaboration. Big scientific ideas were all the time in the air and small problems and challenges of everyday life posed interesting questions and served as important topics in the discussions during coffee times and otherwise.
In developing learning the question is about interaction with the objects, people, and the phenomena of the real and virtual world. The teacher's task is to enhance the interaction by choosing a relevant pedagogical model and related educational technology.
To get a permanent position In Finland as a school teacher one has to pass the teacher's pedagogical studies. This used to take typically one year (two study terms). In teacher's pedagogical studies (1973-1974) the main focus and practice were in the methods and pedagogical models where the teacher is in the center of the learning process (typical in the 1970-tales). At that time nobody was telling to me what learning or what research says and knows about how students learn. Later when I was working as a teacher educator in the Kajaani department of teacher education, I found Jean Piaget's books. It was interesting that Piaget used some concepts in describing the development of thinking that were familiar to me from theoretical physics (e.g. conservation and group structure). Piaget's texts became to have the main impact on my thinking about how children probably learn and how the teacher should take it into account when designing learning activities.
Teaching, teacher education, and learning research should be strongly anchored with vital theoretical interpretations of how people learn and become to know.
Studies in theoretical physics have contributed significantly to my thinking about learning, education, teaching, and later also to teacher training. Anchors in principled learning-theoretical frameworks and Piagetian epistemology, constructivism, and constructionism (cf. Seymour Papert) have been widely reflected in my research and research interests (thinking skills, development of thinking, Logo, coding, Lego, robotics, exploratory learning, object-oriented learning, and recently design-oriented pedagogy e.g.), as well as in my and my research group's efforts to develop students’ learning and teachers' teaching.
in the future people should more than now be able
- to self-learn and by that way solve the problems and learning challenges they face (cf. continuous learning),
- to work together with colleagues and stakeholders in renewing and re-designing existing practices (through co-development)
- to learn from others,
- to create something new (innovation) and finally
- to change together with others the organizational culture to meet the challenges of a rapidly and constantly changing world.
Especially in recent times, we have observed that the world is changing constantly and the changes can happen very fast. This should keep in focus when we aim, through education to prepare our students to face future challenges. Our educational systems are too slow in delivering needed solutions to the challenges and for needed adaptation to the changes. This follows that people themselves and the community they represent should possess new kinds of competencies.
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