Our study focused on the leadership strategies of Estonian and Finnish principals aimed at encouraging teachers to participate in school development. We also looked at context-bound factors that form the framework within which principals discuss their work regarding (1) creating a shared vision, (2) implementing shared leadership practices, (3)…

Background: Studies indicate that access to nature may increase general human health and wellbeing. As a learning environment, the outdoors can also positively influence children's personal and social growth, healthy development, wellbeing and learning abilities. To maximise the potential offered by outdoor learning, it is necessary to gain deeper…

Leadership from a distributed pedagogical perspective involves engaging multiple professionals in implementing shared responsibilities. In educational organizations, leadership responsibility structures have changed, with researchers advancing a more decentralized leadership system for sustainable pedagogical improvement. These global changes in…

Tongue twisters are a controversial pronunciation teaching classic. Whereas some see tongue twisters difficult and frustrating for learners, others find them fun and motivating. This study was inspired by these opposing views and the fact that previous studies have failed to offer convincing proof of whether this technique works for L2…

Purpose: This qualitative study assesses the enablers of the work of a novel, self-managing digital pedagogy peer support team in a Finnish higher education institution. Design/methodology/approach: This study employs a qualitative methodology with in-depth interviews of five digital pedagogy facilitators. The data collected are analyzed with the…

Outdoor education has many benefits for students, and the interest among teachers in this teaching method is growing. The aim of this study is to examine Finnish and Norwegian student teachers' views on outdoor education as a teaching method. Student teachers from one teacher education programme in Finland (n = 66) and one in Norway (n = 32)…

The teaching and pedagogical development of academic communities is influenced by different contextual elements, which may not be apparent in everyday community practices, but may become evident through deeper reflection of the context. This study approaches these elements from the perspective of a supportive pedagogical culture for teaching and…

The study aims to clarify how Finnish teacher educators integrate research and teaching to support their approaches to teaching. Research questions cover teacher educators' forms of research-teaching integration, approaches to teaching, and the relationship between them. With a survey methodology, the study obtained 101 responses with a…

In this study, we investigated how well two different student-centred instructional models fostered engineering students' learning in a time of crisis. We analysed students' (N = 375) approaches to learning during four engineering mathematics courses in a Finnish university before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. Students' deep and surface…

Preschool teachers' read-aloud and writing practices were investigated using a questionnaire about how activities were planned and organized, and what their purpose was. The results indicate that early literacy practices were not planned systematically. Most of the preschool teachers (77%) reported having storybook read-alouds at least three times…

This study aimed to build an integrative model of the interrelations between pedagogical training, teacher regulation skills, learning patterns and student-centred teaching approach. Self-reported questionnaire data were collected from 378 higher education teachers and analysed using structural equation modelling. The findings indicated that…

Can environmental education help to mitigate learners eco/climate anxiety? Anxiety surrounding climate change has drastically risen in youth in recent years. This paper aims to answer the call from Pihkala's (2020) previous review for more concrete information on educational approaches to support learners in processing eco/climate anxiety. As…

Previous research has emphasized both the importance of giving and receiving peer feedback for the purpose of active learning, as well as of university students' engagement in reflection to improve learning outcomes. However, requiring students to explicitly reflect on peer reviewing is an understudied learning activity in higher education that…

Lecturers who are actively engaged in shaping their teaching and teaching practices demonstrate agency. Teacher agency has increasingly been described as a key factor in educational development at universities. Lecturers are expected to innovatively develop courses and continuously improve their teaching practices to respond to, for example,…

The purpose of this mixed methods study was to explore changes in pedagogical awareness of teaching early mathematical skills among teachers in early childhood education (N =7) when participating in a tailored professional development (PD) program in mathematics. The program, which was designed around principles of transformative learning, was…