This paper provides an overview of the homeschooling movement in Finland focusing on the methods used to monitor the progress of compulsory education of home-educated children. Although the child's home municipality is obliged to monitor the progress of compulsory education, there are currently no national uniform instructions on how monitoring…

This paper reports on the results of a narrative-grounded investigation of student teachers' intercultural experiences and learning during their teaching practice. Our interest is in the meaning of the intercultural contact zone and how education for diversities is conceptualised and reflected upon in Finnish teacher education. Critical event…

This study clarifies the basic structure of student teachers' reflective thinking. It presents a constructivist account of teacher knowledge through a detailed analysis of various patterns of reflection in student teacher portfolios. We aim to gain a greater understanding of the process and outcomes of portfolio writing in the context of teaching…

Living in learning societies encourages learning outside the classroom. Alongside this reality, higher education institutions have been incorporating policies and procedures that support recognition of prior learning (RPL). This development means establishing adequate RPL assessment practices. Our empirical study at the Aalto University Language…

This article provides a brief history of massive open online courses (MOOCs), a snapshot of the rapidly evolving issue of credit recognition, and the integration of MOOCs into traditional degree programs, like the Gates Foundation-funded MOOCs-For-Credit Research Project. The article notes that MOOCs have accelerated innovation, especially in…

This study looks at the fairness of assessing learning journals both as the fairness in creating a valid and robust marking process as well as how different student groups may have unfair disadvantages in performing well in reflective assessment tasks. The fairness of a marking process is discussed through reflecting on the practical process and…

With the failure of the No Child Left Behind policies of the 1990's, educational reformers wished to establish a "new and improved" set of standards for the United States to follow. However, since their inception in 2006-2007, the new Common Core State Standards have become increasingly unpopular due to the fact that they remain largely…

Assessment determines what students regard as important: if a teacher wants to change students' learning, he/she should change the methods of assessment. This article describes the use of portfolio assessment on five courses dealing with chemical reactor and process design during the years 1999-2001. Although the use of portfolio was a new…

Investigated the attitudes of Finnish kindergarten teacher education students toward portfolios. Examined individual profiles of 5 students who completed portfolios for 3 years. Considered student responses in terms of seven themes: personal development, professional development, thinking skills, learning, collection of portfolio material,…

Documentation and assessment are important elements in securing continuity, progress, and flexibility in the teaching and learning of young children. This article explores the first year of portfolio assessment in a kindergarten in Finland, asking such questions as: (1) What are portfolios and why are Taija (one particular student), her peers,…

This article details the ongoing collaboration between two teacher training providers in the UK and Finland in the development and use of portfolios to support reflective practice in teacher education programmes. The use of portfolios for assessment in teacher education has developed extensively over a number of years to support the student to…

Investigated Finnish kindergarten teachers' evolving information and communications technology (ICT) capabilities in the construction and use of digital web portfolios. Teacher surveys indicated that access, competence, and motivation in ICT use intertwined during diverse cycles of portfolio development. Teachers had an enormous need for formal…

This qualitative case study describes a portfolio program in the teaching of English as a foreign language in two Finnish upper secondary schools. Approximately 100 students participated in the portfolio program, whose topic area was culture. First, the purpose of this action research was to try out and develop portfolios in foreign language…

Recent studies on student learning in higher education have paid attention to the relationships between characteristics of the learning environment and students' study orientations and study success. The purpose of the present paper is to examine these relationships in university level engineering education. The data were collected from…

This action research study developed, explored, and analyzed the use of digital portfolios as a multiperspective ecological assessment method in primary education learning environments in Finland. Participating in the study were kindergarten and primary school teachers who were challenged and encouraged to utilize networking and digital portfolios…