Category Archives: Development tasks

The dissertation of Jouni Veijalainen on 18 Sep 2020

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The dissertation of Jouni Veijalainen will be held at Hall 302, Siltavuorenpenger 3 A, Athena Building. The opponent is Professor Elina Kontu, University of Tampere, and the custos is Professor Lasse Lipponen.

Jouni’s work is made from the data of the Progressive Feedback. Jouni has been involved in all stages of the process: data collection, data preparation, organization, and staff training. Jouni’s work highlights the multifaceted connections of self-regulation to a child’s well-being and the role of early childhood education in it.

The dissertation is published in the series Educational Research. The dissertation is also an electronic publication and can be read on the E-thesis service. Unfortunately, the summary is in Finnish, but all the articles are in English.

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.

Learning environment evaluation

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The Finnish Education Evaluation Centre (Karvi) has published the Guidelines and Recommendations for Evaluationg the Quality of Early Childhood Education and Care in 2017. Now, two years later Karvi has published a report (in Finnish) based on a survey based on educators’ self-evaluation on the quality of Early Education in daycare centres and childminders. Mari Sillman has just finished her graduated thesis on the reliability of self-evaluated quality based on the Karvi indicators. The thesis is an invaluable perspective on the challenges of valid and reliable early education evaluation. According to Sillman, a survey based on self-evaluation is challenging or impossible. Multimethod evaluation could be a more reliable
way. Mari’s thesis is available here. In Progressive feedback, we can compare the self-evaluation surveys with independent measures of observation, leadership evaluation, child evaluation and tests.

Equality & segregation

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In Finland, we have been doing research on Early Education for long. Our comprehensive and deep results expose the hidden processes of inequality. The leading Finnish newspaper, Helsingin Sanomat, had these research results as main news in 2 August 2019. Early Education can make headlines. This is important, because the processes of inequality are often unconscious and the best way for more equal future is to become aware of the small, but repeating obstacles of equality. The best way to enhance equality is to get a hold of the processes of inequality as early as possible. Read the article.

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 play

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With the support of Lego Foundation we have produced a white paper for Facilitating play. Play is a essential for children’s learning in all kinds of activities. However, play can also get stuck in dead end, increase segregation and be meaningless. The essential element is progressive play. The book is just out, it is available totally free in here.

Precise feedback for schools and classes

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In Finland, in Nummenkylä and Siimapuisto day-care centres, we have piloted progressive feedback, in which it is possible to give timely feedback for the educators and principals to understand, follow and steer the development processes in real-time in the school. In the pilot system, each educator is trained as an observer and each observer observes a random group once a month. This practice gives the keys for educational development to the educators and principals, with the possibility to share the results with parents and children for deepr cooperation.

Facilitating play

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At Lego Foundation, we have been writing a white paper about Play facilitation: the science behind the art of engaging young children. The writers are Hanne Jensen, Angela Pyle, Jennifer M. Zosh, Hasina B. Ebrahim, Alejandra Zaragoza Scherman, Jyrki Reunamo and Bridget K. Hamre. Play is important in developing skills, learning, solving problems, in relationships, health and societal development. However, not all play is beneficial. Play facilitates learning when it is joyful, meaningful, actively engaging, iterative and socially interactive. In the paper, it is considered important that play is integrated to all activity, including instruction. The paper includes a lot of research results based on our project. Thank you for everyone for their contribution. The paper is disseminated world-wide by Lego and it is launched officially 27 February 2019 in South Africa.

Physical activity of 1-3-year-old children in daycarecentres

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Virpi Katajarinne has written a rather unique graduate thesis. In her thesis, Virpi studies, for example, how 1-3-year-old children’s physical activity varies in different activities. This helps early educators to focus on important activities. It is also interesting to see how children’s emphasis on physical activity changes gradually from non-social subljects to a peer related activity and later on group-related physical activity (enlarge the table on the left by clicking it). It is also interesting to see how physical activity seems not to be connected with learning than with older children, perhaps Laevers’ involvement scale does not find the motor learning taking place with younger children? Virpi has written her thesis in English, which is rare in our department. Use this rare opportunity and read Virpi’s thesis yourself here!

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!