Category Archives: Conference

Practice of Reading Activities in Taiwanese preschools

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Professor Hui-Hua Chen and professor Jyrki Reunamo presented the results of the Taiwan observation in Frankfurt (International Conference on Early Childhood Education and Teaching Systems). Children spend more time in different, mostly adult-led reading moments than in Finland (half an hour a day), so reading is an important part of children’s everyday life, just because of the quantity. However, the quality needs enhancements. Reading situations are used sparingly from the point of view of children’s emotions, sociality, and learning. The pedagogical possibilities of reading situations are used to little advantage. Unfortunately, children often remain passive recipients in reading situations, and the images evoked by the book are not evoked in group processes.

Chen, Hui-Hua & Reunamo, J. (2024). Comprehension and Practice of Reading Activities in Taiwanese preschools​. International conference on early childhood education and teaching systems (ICECETS-24). 8. tammikuuta 2024. Frankfurt, Germany.

FERA Conference on Education 2023

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At the 2023 FERA Conference on Education in Vaasa, there were two presentations based on Progressive Feedback data:

Syrjämäki, M., Reunamo, J., Pesonen, H., Pirttimaa, R., & Kontu, Elina. Autistisen lapsen sitoutuneisuus varhaiskasvatuksen toimintaympäristössä [The involvement of autistic child in early childhood education].

Lahtinen, L., Fonsén, E., Heikonen, L., Kallioniemi, A. & Reunamo, J. Johtajuuden ulottuvuudet ja niihin liittyvät ilmiöt varhaiskasvatuksessa [The dimensions of leadership and their relations to the unit descriptors].

 

Taiwanese aboriginal children

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About three percent of Taiwan’s natives are Taiwanese aboriginals, who have inhabited Taiwan at least 6,500 years before the arrival of other nationalities, primarily Chinese. The official number of tribes is 16. The indigenous peoples have suffered for centuries from economic and social discrimination. The segregation is still visible in today’s early childhood education in Taiwan. Dong Hwa University held a conference on 4.11.23 2023 Quality early childhood education conference: Embracing diversity, multidisciplinarity and compassion for the underprivileged. In the keynote presentation, Jyrki Reunamo described the results acquired by using Progressive Feedback observation. The data consisted of 2189 observations of the indigenous peoples of the Hualien region. The results clearly showed the difficulties in learning, rarer than usual experiences of happiness, few participating and less influential activities in the learning environment. Furthermore, teachers paid less personal attention to the aboriginal children. In addition, relationships with other children remained looser. The results describe the marginalized position of children with indigenous backgrounds and a looser shared interest. These children need more co-developing content in early childhood education.

The research team in Taiwan included Hui-Chun Lee (Tzu-Chi University), Li-Chen Wang (Chang Gung University), Hui-Hua Chen (Dong Hwa University) and Shu-Shuan Shih (Taitung University).

Dimensions of Art Education

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The International Conference of Aesthetics Education for Young Children was held in Shih Chien University, Taipei. In his keynote presentation, Jyrki Reunamo reviewed three wonderful art education videos about visual arts, music, and drama. The videos show wonderful ways for teachers to introduce the world of arts to children. Reunamo also presented his model of art education (click the picture to enlarge it). In the model, there are four functions for art in education. The first is to express and enjoy the world of art and its heritage. The second are the created personal orientations for different art. The third function is the mastering of art (doing it right). The fourth function is a community-enriching shared creation of art. The presentation can be viewed at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mo8kDineJLs

Toddlers and outdoor activities

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The results of Progressive Feedback were presented in  Hangzhou CECECin early education conference 3.12.2019. In the results we saw that the weather is a challenge for the toddlers and their educators. In Finland, especially cold winter months require winter clothes, which may restrict children’s movement and activities. On the other hand, outdoors highlights the importance of peer contacts and movement. In the table the distribution of the toddlers emotions is presented. In outdoor activities, children have a lot of positive emotions, but the amount of negative emotions is also higher than in other activities. The toddlers need Outdoor activities could include developing different types of sun loungers, heaters, shelters, heated sandboxes, and intermediate spaces for flexible outdoor use throughout the day. During summer, for example, shade and water play need attention.

Effective teaching and its effects on early childhood development

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In EARLI 2019 conference (Aachen Germany), we had a symposium discussing the comparison of two different teaching practices in two different cultures, Hong Kong and Finland. We examine the relationships between effective teaching and childhood development. Our aim is to compare two different educational cultures by using the same observation instrument in both countries and to reveal the most effective teaching methods both in Finland and Hong Kong. In the picture is our research team in Aachen, from left to right: Jyrki Reunamo (University of Helsinki), project leader James Ko (Education University of Hong Kong), Kathy Sylva (University of Oxford), Pamela Sammons (University of Oxford).

Finnish Education Evaluation

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Finnish Education Evaluation Center organized a meeting for the content producers of evaluation 17 June 2019. The goal of the meeting was to enhance the information exchange on the national level, increase national cooperation, decrease overlaping data collection and add perspectives, openness and effectiveness. Jyrki Reunamo presented Progressive Feedback, which has deep, fresh and comprehensive early education evaluation system running in Finland, comprising of more than half of the Finnish Early Education. You can see the presentation at https://karvi.fi/app/uploads/2019/06/Jyrki-Reunamo.pdf.

Progressive Feedback in Tzu-Chi University, Taiwan

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In Tzu-Chi University, the early educators have completed the final exhibition and sharing workshop 23 November 2018. This sharing exhibition of the project lasted for three weeks in front of university library., On 17th November was the final sharing workshop including 40 minutes of statistic report of observation and 3 hour oral presentations of development tasks(8 preschools presented), 1 hour of educational market (11 preschools presented), and one hour of river plan workshop. There were also parents bringing their child to try to activities in the educational market. The six oral reports were excellent in developing the curriculum, and educators said that they learned a lot from the project!

Finland & China in WPC conference, Beijing

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7-9 July, at the WPC World Principal Conference, Beijing China, more than 3000 principals were focused on enhancing children’s well-being. We had our own booth in the conference. In the picture, Tuomas Sarkkinen and his team are discussing possibilities of participating in the Chinese PF. In addition to the booth, our contributions included keynotes and presentations. Presenters introducing Finnish early education were (in alphbetical order) Steve Ho, Kari Kasanen, Nikke Keskinen, Raija Laine, Mikko Mäkelä, Kati Rintakorpi, Jyrki Reunamo, Kirsi Tarkka,  Taru Terho and Petra Varttinen.

Hong Kong & Finnish Early Education Research funding

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Exiting news just arrived from Hong Kong Research Fund (GRF) 2018/19 exercise. Our proposal entitled “Effective Teaching and Their Effects on Early Childhood Development: A Comparative, Longitudinal, Mixed-method Study of Hong Kong and Finnish Kindergartens”, has been supported by the RGC with an approved amount of HK$1,369,000. Warmest congratulations for professor James Ko from the Education University of Hong Kong. Thank you also for Pamela Sammons from the University of Oxford. We will work out the details of the research in 2018  and the data collection starts in 2019. In the picture you can see James, Pam and Jyrki preparing the research plan at EARLI 2018 conference in Tampere.