Early Childhood Education and Care professional experience (6cr)

Evaluation scale

H-5

Content scheduling

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Objective

Students familiarise themselves with Finnish early-childhood education and care by observing, participating and reflecting on everyday life in a Finnish kindergarten.
At the end of the course, a student should:
• Understand the foundation of early childhood education and care in Finland
• Be able to compare the differences and similarities between Finland and home country ECEC systems
• Be able to plan and conduct activities in a Finnish ECEC setting according to a local curriculum
• Enhance his/her readiness and tools to work with children with diverse cultural and language background by reflecting on ECEC experience

Execution methods

•Professional experience:
o Active participation in the planning and conducting of activities with children
o Discussions with the ECEC staff within the setting (e.g. local curriculum)
•A report, in which students address:
o The most important things learned during their ECEC placement
o Any aspect of Finnish ECEC that they find most interesting or most different from the systems in their home countries (e.g. the most positive features; elements of the Finnish system that students would like to change; questions that students would like to ask)

Accomplishment methods

•Professional experience: ECEC placement for 4 weeks
o 1. week: observation and planning (at least 15h/week)
o 2.-4. week: teaching or conducting activities 10h/week
o Total 120 h work: 45 h observation and practice and 75 h planning and assessment
•Individual work: Report
o After the practice a student will write a reflective essay based on his/her experiences and literature.
o Total 40 h work (length of essay 20 pages).

Content

• The foundation of Finnish early years education and care
• The curriculum and its influence on everyday life
• Educator’s roles and pedagogy in ECEC
• Principles of constructing the learning environment
• Co-operation with parents
• Children’s daily activities

Location and time

Info lecture 21.9.22 16-18 online (link will be sent in September).

There is not any official timetable for the practice. You will set the time period with your guiding teacher. The practice will last 4 weeks (1 week observation and 3 weeks planning and teaching with the help of your guiding teacher). The course teacher will organise the practice place for the students.

Please notice, that the pandemic situation might affect on the possibility to conduct the practice and the course.

Materials

Finnish National Agency for Education 2019. National core curriculum for early childhood education and care 2018.

Compare your own countries national curriculum and use it as a resource for the report.

To get a good or excellent grade (3-5) the report must include in-depth analysis of the teaching experience with links to theory. So try to find books, studies or articles that are linked to our experiences and use them in your report.

Teaching methods

The course consists of three parts: the info lecture, practice period and report.

Moodle-key edu1234.

Employer connections

Professional experience: ECEC placement for 4 weeks
1. week: observation and planning (at least 15h/week)
2.-4. week: teaching or conducting activities 10h/week

Total 120 h work: 45 h observation and practice and 75 h planning and assessment

The timetable is flexible!

Exam schedules

Individual work: Report
After the practice a student will write a reflective essay based on his/her experiences and literature.
Total 40 h work (length of essay 20 pages).

Deadline for the reports in the spring 2022 will be 31.12.2022 (returns to Moodle).

International connections

-

Completion alternatives

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Student workload

The course is for international students in the faculty of international.

Assessment criteria, satisfactory (1)

0
- no attending in practicing and/or the report is not submitted.
- the report content is very poorly organized; it’s too difficult to follow the content. the content presentation is one-sided: it either contains a very personal “diary” or lists only course content items but not both;
- the report lists only the “learning events” (what happened during classes); there is no reflection or analysis included
- the report describes in detail what happened, quoting text from slides and handouts but there is no evidence of how that content influenced student’s learning
- the self-evaluation aspects are mostly missing or are inadequate. The student lists a few strengths and areas to improve but there are no links to
theory. The student’s evaluation skills do not meet the minimum criteria for self-evaluation.

1-2
- attending in practicing
- the report is to the point but not well organized
- the report includes successful learning and difficulties (if any) the student encountered during the course but they are described in a personal or “diary” style rather than in an objective and constructive way
- the report includes both entries about what happened ( a short list, or a brief description) and description of student’s reaction and what they learned during the process; however, the entries are short or imbalanced (e.g. more description of what happened than reflection); those reflections
include sporadic references to previous learning experiences and learning expectations, or none at all; the learning process of the student is not easy to follow
- the report includes a description rather than evaluation of teaching methods with regard to student’s learning; no alternative solutions are proposed
-the learning process is not well analysed; immediate benefits of the course are mentioned sporadically but there is no reference as to how the learning experience can be used in the future by the student as an individual or an expert in the field
- the student is able to reflect on own teaching and evaluate the teaching experience sufficiently. Both strengths and areas to improve are considered but sometimes superficially. Some aspects of selfevaluation may be inadequate or missing. There are very few or no links to theory. The student demonstrates a satisfactory level of self-evaluation skills. It is not quite clear if the student can use the learning experience in future teaching.

Assessment criteria, good (3)

3-4
- attending in practicing
- the learning report is well organized and to the point
- the report contains both successful learning and difficulties (if any) the student encountered during the course; those are presented in a constructive way
- the report includes both entries about what happened ( a short list, or a brief description) and description of student’s reaction and what they learned during the process; those reflections include references to previous learning experiences and learning expectations but not learning theories; the learning process of the student is not described quite clearly
- the report includes a description rather than evaluation of teaching methods with regard to student’s learning: what helped and hindered learning; only a few alternative solutions are proposed
- the learning process is well analysed; the report includes immediate benefits of the course but does not indicate how the learning experience can be used in the future by the student as an individual or an expert in the field
- The student is able to reflect on own teaching and evaluate the teaching experience thoroughly. Both strengths and areas to improve are considered. The report includes accurate analysis of the teaching experience with frequent links to theory. The student demonstrates a good level of self-evaluation skills. It is evident that the student can use the learning experience in future teaching.

Assessment criteria, excellent (5)

5
- attending in practicing
- the report is very well organized and to the point
- the report contains both successful learning and difficulties (if any) the student encountered during the course; those are presented in a constructive way
- the report includes both entries about what happened ( a short list, or a brief description) and description of student’s reaction and what they learned during the process; those reflections include references to learning theories, previous learning experiences and learning expectations; the
learning process of the student is described explicitly
- the report includes evaluation of teaching methods with regard to student’s learning: what helped and hindered learning; alternative solutions are proposed
- the learning process is very well analysed; the report includes immediate benefits of the course and what can be used later with regard to students as individuals and professionals in their fields of study
- The student is able to reflect on own teaching and evaluate the teaching experience in an excellent way. Both strengths and areas to improve are considered. The report includes in-depth analysis of the teaching experience with links to theory. The analysis follows, or extends, guidelines. The
student demonstrates a high level of self-evaluation skills. It is evident that the student can use the learning experience in future teaching.

Assessment criteria, approved/failed

Pass: see criteria 3-5
Fail: see criteria 0-2

Qualifications

The course is aimed at students of teacher education.

Further information

The pandemic situation might affect on the possibility to execute the course.