Media Education and ICT in Early Childhood Teacher Educationa Study on Finnish University Level Training Programmes’ Curricula

Saara Salomaa

Senior Advisersaara.salomaa@kavi.fi

Pekka Mertala

Postdoctoral Researcherpekka-oskari.mertala@oulu.fi

• How are ME and ICT positioned in the

curricula of Finnish ECE teacher

training programmes?

• How the ME and ICT competencies presented

in Finnish ECEC teacher training

programmes’ curricula fall into the

categories of commin ECE professionalism ?

Data consist of the mandatory courses’ curricular texts from seven Finnish ECE teacher training programmes. The curricula have been effective during the academic year 2014-2015. This period was chosen to find out what recently graduated teachers have been studying. Tha data were analysed by the means of systematic content analysis.

• The positions were formed by srcutinising to what extent ME and ICT were included in names, goals ans contents of the analysed courses.

• The categories were built drawing on curriculum analysis. The analysing of tareted competencies was based on the central competence and knowledge areas of ECE.

Positions of Media Education and ICT in

Curricular texts

Altogether, among all training courses 301 manda-tory courses, 22 courses included ME or ICT themes. ME was included in 11 courses’ texts, ICT in 16 courses. Only five of the courses combined both ME and ICT. The position of ME in curricula can most often be described as ’recognisable’ type: cleraly but not widely included [Chart 1].

[1] Finnish National Board of Education (2016). Varhaiskasvatussuunnitelman perusteet 2016. [National Core Curriculum for Early Childhood Education].[2] Karila, K. (2012). A Nordic perspective on early childhood education and care policy. European Journal of Education, 47(4), 584–595.[3] Korhonen, V., & Rantala, L. (2007). Opettajankoulu-tus – mediakasvatuksen autiomaa? Mediakasvatus opettajankoulutuksen opetussuunnitelmateksteissä [Teacher training – A media education desert? media education in teacher training curricular texts]. Kasvatus, 38(5)

Introduction

Research Questions

Data and Method

Findings

The next most common position was ’traceable’, in which the subjects are included only as minor contents in courses. The position of ME was ’visible’, clearly and widely noticed in one curricu-lum. For ICT, the position was either visible (four curricula) or recognisable (three curricula).

Competence Areas targeted in Courses

including Media Education or ICT.

Peagogical competence was clearly emphasised with nine ME and 11 ICT related courses address-ing pedagogical questions [Chart 2].

Contextual competences

Educational competences

Competences in caring

Pedagogical competences

Interaction competences

Cooperation competences

Reflective competences

Knowledge management

Chart 1: The positions of media education

and ICT in curricular texts.

ME ICTVisible

Recognizable

Traceable

Media education and pedagogical use of ICT are marginal topics of Finnish ECE teacer education curricula, if compared to medias and ICT’s role in children’s everyday life. Only 7 % of the mandatory course descriptions included these topics and often only as minor content within the course. The position of ME in curriculum is most often recognisable, meaning the topic is clearly but not widely included. For ICT the topic is most often visible, but this is partly explained by our inclusion of three basic ICT usage courses (that are not pedagogically orientated) in the data. The findings indicate that ME and ICT related educational and interaction competencies are seldom discussed in course descriptions and care competencies are neglected. Also ME and ICT are taught mostly separate from each other which is contradictory to converged everyday media culture. However, it needs on be remembered, that these results of curricular text analysis only apply to the analysed texts. Additional research would be needed to reveal the actualised contents of teacher education.

Discussion

References

However, the most common topic was contextual competencies, targeted in 10 ME and 12 ICT courses. Reflective competences and knowledge management competences were both targeted in altogether 10 course descriptions and cooperation in nine courses. Competences for education and interaction were both targeted in three course descriptions. Competencies in care were not discussed course descriptions.

Since ME or ICT were rarely included in intern-ship periods, the main goal appears to be promot-ing the development of such consciousness and knowledge that can later evolve into practical professional competence. However, there was no appointed mandatory literature in any of the ICT courses.

Chart 2: Competence areas targeted

in course descriptions including

media education or ICT

10

12

ME

ICT

2

1

ME

ICT

0

0

ME

ICT

9

11

ME

ICT

1

2

ME

ICT

4

5

ME

ICT

4

6

ME

ICT

2

8

ME

ICT

Media and information and communications technolo-gy (ICT) are a part of children’s everyday life. The need to provide media and ICT education in early childhood education (ECE) has been acknowledged. The new Finnish core curriculum for ECE is mandatory for education providers and includes transversal compe-tence area ”Multiliteracy and ICT”, which, in turn, includes media literacy. Also media education pedago-gies are included in the curriculum.

Finland has a 20 year history of university level kinder-garten teacher education. As the only Finnish training that is entirely targeted to young children’s education, it can be seen essential on ECE’s development and pedago-gies. This research examines, to what extent ECE teacher education include media education (ME) and ICT.