message to a modern and effective learning process.
Fast development in technology and future predictions of researchers have forced decision-makers and educators to think, what is crucial in education. What facts, skills, and values help a student in our fast-changing world and in preserving our planet for future generations? The latest Finnish national curriculum answers these key-questions.
Changing the concept of learning has challenged learning material producers and the operational culture of schools. The Finnish new national curriculum underlines the importance of transversal competencies (skills of the future), multidisciplinary and phenomenon-based approach and value education. The great aim for students is to adopt a culturally sustainable eco-social way of life. Finnish schools do not only want to bring up grownups who will survive the future but grownups who are willing and capable to make our world a better place to live for all of its inhabitants.
Many teachers have founded it challenging to fit the new aims regarding transversal competence and phenomenon-based learning to the busy everyday school life. Often the majority of a teacher’s time and efforts in a class goes to a couple of students with special needs. The curriculum still applies a subject-based (maths, art, biology etc.) division. All subjects have their content related aims. It is not a simple task to combine all these aims into the phenomenon-based learning process while carrying out assessment that is encouraging, directing and equal.
Finnish class teachers have wide professional independency and that makes it easier to build phenomenon-based processes. The problem is how to find time to do research, plan and build these kind of holistic multidimensional entireties. To get their job done properly, without reaching burnout, teachers need high-quality study materials that help them accomplish learning projects in the classroom. This high-quality study material involves a multidisciplinary approach, it should cover content aims and aims related to the transversal competencies, and include versatile assessment tools.
The idea of phenomenon-based learning is that learning is anchored in the real world. School shouldn’t be an island, but rather in active interaction with the surrounding reality. Finnish private NGOs, scientifical institutions and governmental agencies have understood that now they have a good opportunity and, on the other hand, responsibility to equip schools with learning material. Finnish teachers appreciate innovative learning material that provides help in their work. Above all, well-structured learning process guarantees a holistic, interesting and an effective learning experience for students.
The traditional learning material publishers have taken the first steps in producing multidisciplinary learning materials but are still focused on producing subject-related textbooks. Although there have been some success stories of phenomenon-based learning processes produced by the third party, most of the organisations (for instance charity NGOs) still haven’t used their full potential. Reasons for that can be limited to financial resources or lack of understanding about the great opportunity to share their message with future workers, tax-payers, consumers, donors and decision-makers. But it also seems that many organisations are lacking a professional understanding of educational science, knowledge of aims and demands of a current national curriculum and an experience of the practical challenges of today’s school-life. Here OPTICO comes into the picture.
In OPITCO we have long experience of building learning processes and we want to offer our expertise in this matter.
1) We have a carefully built and tested model of the experimental learning process (TULILLA-concept) that based on scientific learning-theories and the demands of the Finnish national curriculum. (In the case our customer comes from a country other than Finland, we are ready to modify the process so that it fits a customer’s cultural context.)
2) We do listen to our customers carefully. After that we help them to build the budget and the project and distribution plan for the production. (The learning process can be a self-directing online process built on Internet platform or a process can be carried out in the school environment/forest/factory etc. with close co-operation with a teacher or/and tutors provided by the customer’s organisation.)
3) We have a team of professionals (teachers, graphic designers, media people and technical experts) that can produce all aspects of the learning process from orientation to final assessment and feedback (keys in hand). Responsibilities regarding the production will be agreed on in the project plan.
If you have content you would like to share with the students of your country, let’s think together about, how to transfer your idea into an exciting, holistic learning process.
See “Globalagents” entirety regarding Global responsability. This learning process we did for Finnish NGO called FELM. Pilot version’s Internet platform has been made on Thinglink.