Back in May I travelled to Finland on an LTS funded individual study visit. I’ve just written the interim report on my activities and observations, one of the conditions of funding. I thought I’d post it here as well for anyone who is interested in reading my thoughts on the trip and the possible impact on my own professional practice in the coming months and years.

The purpose of this study visit was to look at embedding ICT into secondary school subject curricula. The background to this was that the Finns have achieved considerable success in this area of education, with much of the academic research on the subject indicating that this might be a contributory factor behind the impressive PISA rankings achieved by Finland in recent years.

There were three distinct aspects making up the visit; firstly, observations of classroom practice and discussions with teachers and school managers. Secondly, a look at school support services underpinning both technology and pedagogy, and thirdly, meetings with university researchers currently working on ICT in education projects, as well as government policy makers and initial teacher education providers to give an overview of national directives and policy making.

The classroom visits were highly informative. Both were to schools on the outskirts of Helsinki. The first school was very advanced in its use of ICT in subject curricula, particularly in science and language education. The school was using Moodle to maintain a virtual learning environment (VLE) to which the students had access both in school and from home. The VLE was used for both class work and assignments, and enabled students to collaborate on projects as well as working independently on their own portfolios. Links to resources, as well as feedback on completed work were available to students who were expected to complete and return work to meet deadlines in electronic format. Deep learning was facilitated by the students constructing ‘glossaries’ hyperlinked to the wiki’s (which of course could be accessed by others, including their teacher for up to the minute feedback) they were building. Topics were introduced using lectures and by constructing mind-maps which the students could use as study guides allowing them to progress to more in-depth study required of them. This mixture of didactic teaching, independent study and collaborative work has been given the term ‘meld’ to describe the mixture of styles. In many ways a pattern of blended learning has emerged which works well in this school, with the use of ICT firmly embedded into practice but in a way which complements rather than replaces existing and more traditional forms of teaching and learning.

The second school had adopted an altogether different approach to ICT with the widespread introduction of interactive whiteboards. They were engaged in debate over the best ways in which to use these to encourage pupil participation in lessons and approaches adopted included using the whiteboards to facilitate multi-media and software use, introducing concepts and topics which were then further developed through group and individual work.

The common themes in both schools were the ‘blended learning’ approach using ICT to complement and enhance, rather than to replace existing practice and particularly the use of ICT to extend the use of formative and peer assessment through feedback, and collaboration. There are interesting and useful parallels with the planned use of GLOW in Scottish schools here where this idea of blended learning certainly having potential in our classrooms. My own practice during the next session will see me developing this approach and in my role as a GLOW mentor in school, encouraging and helping colleagues to use the GLOW applications to develop their own practice in this way. I think there is much to be gained from this measured approach of combining the different teaching and learning strategies into a ‘package’ which provides both variety and structure for pupils. All too often, the literature and experience suggests, we adopt almost stop-start tactics ditching the previous initiative for the newest idea without proper evaluation and measurement of outcomes. The PISA rankings for Finnish schools indicate that this blended learning approach could be instrumental in helping with raising attainment. This should be perhaps one of the underlying philosophies in the lesson planning process.

The other aspects of this visit were to do with national planning and support for schools, and research into ICT use in education. The Finns had successfully adopted a national strategy for equipping schools with hardware and funding staff training, and then leaving the cities and regions to develop teaching and learning approaches using the ICT, although national learning objects (off the shelf resources which could be adapted for different stages and subjects) had been initially produced. Schools appeared to have a large amount of autonomy in how they developed this use in some areas whilst the larger cities adopted a more centralised approach. Helsinkicity has developed their own VLE (similar to GLOW) using the ‘Fronter’ platform in use in some English education authorities. This is backed up with a support centre for teachers, the Helsinki Media Centre, which provides training and support in all aspects of technological education (including media and music). The training and support is provided by experienced classroom teachers who are identified by the media centre as having particular skills for each individual training need. Certainly this approach is ‘user-friendly’ for teachers needing support and a model which I am intending to use in school during the next session with the continued GLOW training focusing on teaching and learning applications. This will take the form of individual projects with school departments and weekly ‘drop-in’ sessions.

My discussions with researchers at the University of Helsinki addressed the area of raising attainment using ICT and the problems encountered in undertaking quantitative research projects. Whilst there is a plethora of research which addresses qualitative aspects of ICT use, data which measures actual gains in attainment from using ICT is harder to find. Our discussions focused on the methodological problems of such studies. Following this meeting I was able to re-align my own research methodology to follow a more design-based process enabling the project to adapt to evolving issues which arose as the research proceeded, and the interaction with the Finnish researchers and teachers has informed the rationale for the next phase of my classroom-based research into embedding ICT into secondary school subject teaching and learning.

I also had interesting and informative meetings at the national board of education and with one of the academics involved with initial teacher education. Both these meetings provided a useful insight into national policy and practice informing and directing educational development in Finland, particularly concerning ICT introduction and ongoing support in schools. Although the main impact of my study visit upon my own professional practice will be primarily concerned with classroom practice within my own school and authority as well as on my research projects, these last meetings helped me to see Finnish classroom teaching and learning within a more national context.