Category Archives: Research

Chinese Teacher Education cooperation

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A dedicated group of Early Education experts from China visited University of Helsinki and Finland 26-30 September. The visitors included Dong Li (China next generation education foundation early childhood education federation), Gavin (CEO of the Lead Baby Education Group), Jackie (Education director of Lead Baby Education Group), Ye Fei (China Early Childhood Education Weekly, Founder and chief editor,  Blue sky club, Founder), Yuan Shenggang (online Education platform, Founder) & Liu Hong (CEO of the Beijing Tayaseine Education Ltd., Co). We work for cooperation in teacher education and development of Chinese early education. The delegation visited also Nummenkylä daycare center to have a first hand experience on Progressive feedback.

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Tunisia, World bank & UNICEF cooperation

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The Tunisian Ministry of Women, Family and Children partnered with Fun Academy to provide equitable and high-quality early childhood education and care (ECEC) in Tunisia. The World Bank and UNICEF are providing the international and technical support for this initiative. The delegation visited University of Helsinki in August to seek possibilities for early childhood development (ECD) and protection. The Orientation Project provides excellent auditing tools to observe how lessons, activities and routines within an early years setup are correlated with ECD outcomes.

Taitung University cooperation

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Professors Shu-Jane Chien ja Elaine Shih from the University of Taitung visited University of Helsinki in August. The students also accomplished a two-week practicum in Kerava at Lapila and Keravanjoki day care centres. We agreed to strenghten both the research and exchange cooperation in the future. Professor Nina Sajaniemi was invited to visit Taitung University to work out the details of the future research.

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.

PF & dSign

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Vertti Kivi (dSign Vertti Kivi & Co) has created an interior design for a harmonious, exiting and playful kindergarten for our project. The design has a great variety of surroundings and moods inspired by Finnish forest. Especially inspiring are the adaptable (automatic, programmable, creative or manual) lighting designs, for example, sunrise, noon, sunset, moonlight and starlight. You can see world in a different light. In the end, all we ever see in this world is light.

Less physical activity in weekends

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An article by Anna-Liisa Kyhälä, Jyrki Reunamo ja Heikki Ruismäki titled Preschool Children are more Physically Active and less Sedentary on Weekdays Compared with Weekends has just been accepted for publication in Journal of Early Childhood Education Research. In the article, it can be seen clearly that it is not enough to look at the average amount of physical activity, children’s differences are also important. Furthermore, because children seem to less physically active during weekends, sufficient physical activity in day care center is even more important.