Documente Academic
Documente Profesional
Documente Cultură
Arto K. Ahonen
Finnish Institute for Educational Research
University of Jyvskyl, Finland
arto.k.ahonen@jyu.fi
Introduction
In todays digital world, students must adapt to emerging technologies and new social
environments that change the way we communicate and work. Learning to collaborate
effectively and connect digitally on local and global scales is essential for everyone in a
knowledge-based economy. Although reading, writing and mathematics are essential,
todays school curricula should also include critical thinking and problem-solving,
communication, collaboration, creativity and innovation. In recent years the role of these so
called 21st century skills has received much attention at various levels of the Finnish
educational system.
During last years, the role of 21st century skills at teaching and learning has received strong
attention at the diverse levels of Finnish educational system. Recent national expert panel
indicated, that Finnish school leaders and politicians agree that we need to apply 21st century
skills more apparently in our schools (Salo, Kankaanranta, Vhhyypp&Viik-Kajander,
2011). There seems to be a common understanding that the development of our school system
necessitates the better embedding of 21st century learning as well as the design of new
assessment tools and methods in order to provide citizens better capabilities to act in the
knowledge society (Krokfors et.al 2010; Vhhyypp&Mikama, 2010; Norrena,
Kankaanranta & Ahonen, 2012). Like always, school is also a subject of public debate. It is
argued that we are in the crossroads where we have to decide whether we are going to let the
school separate itself from the other sectors of life and society or whether we wish to keep it
up with the development in society at large (e.g. Pohjola, 2011;Vlijrvi, 2012). Moreover,
recent evaluation research on the implementation of Finnish school curricula has shown that
even though 21st century skills are well recognized and referred to in curricula, the role of
these skills in everyday school practices remains rather ambiguous and tend to be overlooked
in regular teaching and learning activities (Kartovaara, 2009;Siekkinen&Saastamoinen,
2010).
The national recognition of 21st century skills has also brought along a need for - and interest
in the development of - tools and methods for teaching and assessing such skills. Finland has
recently participated in two international studies related to 21st century skills. A study called
Innovative Teaching and Learning (ITL) investigates the factors that support successful
pedagogical change and its emerging outcomes within and across various country contexts,
and uses the results to inform both policy and practice. This research applies both global and
local lenses to study innovative teaching and learning. Finland also participates in another
international project, named Assessment and Teaching of 21st Century Skills (ATC21S),
taking into account the future needs for teaching and learning. While todays international
and national standards primarily measure core subject performance (in mathematics, science
and reading), ATC21S is designing new assessment prototypes to help education systems
include the 21st-century skills that are essential to performing better in those core subjects.
As can be seen on the table 1 the elements of 21st century skills have been rather well
covered already in the valid Finnish National curriculum from year 2004. This national
curriculum covers the nine years of compulsory basic education. In the valid national
curriculum (2004, 19) the working methods describe the learning activities closely related
with the skills described in existing 21st century skills frameworks. Also the descriptions of
cross-curricular themes relate closely to the 21st century skill frameworks especially in the
areas of life skills and citizenship.
Table 1. Comparison of 21st century skills frameworks
Assessment and
Teaching for 21st
Century Skills
OECD
DeSeCo
Ways of Thinking
Creativity and
innovation
Information as a
product:
Critical thinking,
problem solving,
decision making
Restructuring and
modelling of
information and
developing of own
ideas (knowledge)
Problem solving,
argumentation,
reasoning and
conclusion
Effective
communication:
Communication and
interaction
Collaboration and
virtual interaction
Cultural know-how
Work skills and learning
skills
Multiliteracy (e.g.
reading, writing,
mathematical, visual,
media and digital
literacy)
Information as a
source:
Searching, evaluating,
and organizing
information
Human technology(W)
Self-care, everyday
management and safety
Participatory citizenship
and entrepreneurship (C)
Participation,
involvement and
responsibility
ICT literacy
Social responsibility
Social impact
There is an on-going reform of the National core Curriculum in Finland. The draft version of
the core curriculum for the year 2016 is taking a big step towards even better involvement of
21st century skills, as most of the skills listed in the above-described frameworks are to be
covered in the new core curriculum. For example, the skill of multiliteracy covers many
different types of literacies; reading, writing, mathematical literacy, visual literacy, media
literacy and digital literacy (OPS 2016, 2013).
How are the 21st century skills adopted in the pedagogical practices?
How, then, can these plans be better adopted also in the school culture and pedagogical
practices? Although the themes are regarded as central at curricular level, putting them into
practice is not always so simple. The study by Kartovaara (2009) indicated that school leaders
in Finnish comprehensive schools do not consider these themes to be well established in their
teaching; also they find teaching of them difficult. Moreover, the study found that there are
great differences between schools in the degree to which they adopt 21st century skills in their
teaching and learning programmes. A recent study conducted by the Finnish National Board
of Education found students knowledge of cross-curricular themes to be good but that their
attitudes toward them needed improvement (Lipponen, 2012). Teachers think that crosscurricular themes do not have a clear enough roles in the school curriculum and are therefore
often absent from their teaching (Niemi, 2012).
So far the problem has been that teachers in Finland and elsewhere have but few tools and
models available for this purpose. International student assessment such as PISA 2015 is
transferring into a computer based format, which allows the assessment of more complex
skills, such as collaborative problem solving. This may have an impact also on teaching and
learning at school.Although the twenty-first century skills - often labelled as soft or
generic skills have been widely recognized in curriculum standards, the main emphasis in
standards and assessment is still on hard skills in language and mathematics as well as
hard factual knowledge (Scardamalia, 2012, 250). The consensus among researchers in the
learning sciences is that these two are not in conflict. We cannot interpret that the problem
solving or social skills are practiced separate from the substance knowledge (c.f. Mugatroyd,
2010). Thinking skills and working skills are actually learned the best together in their natural
context (e.g. Rotherham & Willingham, 2009; Silva, 2009).
ITL-study in Finland
The international ITL Research (Innovative Teaching and Learning) was conducted in
Finland during years 20102012. ITL Research focuses on teaching practices that have been
shown to have strong relationships with 21st century learning outcomes, with a model that
draws extensively from leading global research and frameworks (e.g., Law et al., 2010;
P21skills, Binkley et al., 2012). Innovative teaching in this research refers to three
categories of practices:
ATC21S in Finland
The national interest in the enhancement of 21st century learning has also brought forth the
need and interest towards developing tools and methods for teaching and assessing such
skills. This led Finland to join in year 2010 as one of the founder countries in the Assessment
and Teaching of 21st Century Skills, ATC21S project. Finnish participation was finely
actions as they move through the tasks exploration of the task environment by selecting or
clicking on options or artefacts, in such a way that the student thinking process is
demonstrated, and skill level is explicit.The results of analysis of student performance across
the social and cognitive components of collaborative problem solving demonstrate that the
construct can be interpreted at two and five dimensional levels. The analysis is still in
progress.
the learning methods and instruction adopted. The assessment is mainly formative based on
constant evaluation regarding individual students development on different subjects. Mainly
it is up to individual teachers free choice whether they include elements of innovative
teaching and learning in their instruction.
Even though Finnish students attained good results in recent international comparisons on
literacy and numeracy based on TIMSS (Trends in International Mathematics and Science
Study) and PIRLS (Progress in International Reading and Literacy Study), their attitudes and
motivation toward learning were among the weakest of the 50 participating countries
(Kupari, Sulkunen, Vettenranta&Nissinen, 2012). The researchers argued that there is a need
for change in our school pedagogy and that students intrinsic motivation for learning should
have a central role in planning any teaching and learning activities, both in and outside the
classroom (Kupari et al., 2012). If schools are able to provide more meaningful learning, the
21st century skills can rise to a central position.