Oppimista: Finnish for Learning

An integral part of the Finnish learning process is to develop students’ knowledge, skills, values, and attitudes. Students are provided with support, meaningful challenges and options for personalizing their learning paths. In Finland, students are not compared to others or ranked. Instead, teachers are trusted to provide assessments and feedback they think are most beneficial for each student’s learning development and well-being.

Learning does not happen only in the classroom – it happens everywhere and all the time. For example, learning outdoors and in communities helps students to collaborate, make connections, and integrate knowledge into real-world situations.

Students learn best through experiences that are active, engaging, meaningful, and interactive. Phenomena and problem-based learning are a key part of understanding complex global issues.

Highly educated teachers help students succeed Finnish teachers are highly educated and trusted, and they are given plenty of pedagogical autonomy. Teachers understand how age-appropriate learning happens and they obtain a wide toolkit of modern teaching methods to introduce new knowledge, activate students, and support students with difficulties.

Teachers plan lessons according to the curriculum’s learning objectives and with a touch of their own personality. 21st century skills and subject content are integrated into holistic learning entities so that students learn to make meaningful connections. Teachers’ skills are continuously improved during their careers as an essential part of long-term school development.

• Thinking and learning to learn

• Cultural literacy, communication and expression

• Managing daily life, taking care of oneself and others

• Multiliteracy

• ICT skills

• Working life and competence and entrepreneurship

• Participation and building sustainable future

Education should nurture a student’s self-perception as an independent and impactful learner.

The ability to think and learn how to learn forms the groundwork for lifelong learning. This skill aims to support students in making observations, seeking, evaluating, editing, producing, and sharing ideas and information. Students need to have the courage to face unclear and conflicting information and to seek innovative answers.

Along with critical and creative thinking, education should nurture a student’s self-perception as an independent and impactful learner who can reflect and evaluate their learning: setting goals, picking their study methods, and managing their progress. They should also find joy in learning. For this to happen, teachers should be able to experiment, vary and adapt their teaching methods according to the different learning styles and needs when teaching these skills. 

Creative thinking can be taught even during history classes. Instead of merely memorizing the names of historically significant people, students could learn on a deeper level by gaining an understanding of what made these people aspire to change the world, even if through fiction. It gives them room to discuss, analyze, make hypotheses and come up with their ideas.

While searching for new ways to apply skills and knowledge, students learn how to become independent and creative learners, listen to their inner voice, and reflect on their ideas, while learning how to reason their choices.

Constructive feedback works both ways

Studying within a sustainable learning community where knowledge is shared and co-created also ensures proper feedback development and helps students identify their strengths, habits, and learning strategies. When students analyze and visualize themselves as independent learners, it helps them create their study patterns.

The ability to give constructive feedback plays a vital role in a student’s self-perception. Students often receive feedback during learning but rarely write and share it themselves, even though it boosts the capability to access both personal and others’ progress. One way to incorporate a feedback practice into the curriculum is anonymous peer evaluation. That way students learn how to provide valuable comments and point out positive aspects as well as suggest improvements.

Therefore, teaching students critical thinking, self-realization and actualization develop a solid foundation for growth and lifelong learning.

Understanding and respecting other cultures and backgrounds is essential in today’s globalized society. Having a curious mind helps.

Globalization and internationalization have led to people interacting with different cultures, traditions, philosophical views, religions, and languages on a daily bases in schools. Life today requires acceptance and understanding of different cultural backgrounds as well as advanced emotional and social interaction skills.

No matter how different or strange someone’s thoughts or behavior might be, we need to remember to respect their human rights. It’s essential for students to be exposed to their backgrounds, build their cultural identity and explore the cultures of others.

Teaching students about respectful interaction, expression, and participation is important for creating value in diversity and self-expression. It’s about how to communicate in different situations and towards younger or older people. There is not a one formula for great communication skills, but there are various ways to develop that skill. Students should be introduced to various forms of cultural expression: art, music, language, and religion. Offering diverse opportunities for self-expression develops a student’s maturity, empathy, and emotional intelligence with communication skills.

It’s also important to teach the ability to identify and express emotions to guide students’ responses in different situations as well as understand why others react as they do. This 21st-century skill could be taught to students as a part of a teamwork exercise in Environmental Studies where students give feedback to each other from the work they did about recycling, e.g., how it feels to give and receive constructive and positive feedback. Other great example for lessons topic is to let student’s to showcase their cultural identity and family heritage with art, music, language or religion – e.g. why and how certain music is part of their celebrations or what is their way to draw or paint a person or family.

Personal connection makes for deeper learning

A key to increasing cultural literacy is learning a second language. Almost all schools include foreign languages in their curriculum. However, many lessons rely on simple words and grammar memorization. This kind of learning lacks connection with students’ personal lives and interests. Statistics show that people remember new information better when it is associated with personal experience. Through various forms of culture, languages, and art, students engage with others’ cultures and develop their unique way of communication and self-expression.

Increasing independence among youth means that schools have more responsibility in guiding students toward good citizenship.  

While a school’s primary task is to educate children, schools also have an important task to co-raise children in age-appropriate ways starting from how to tie shoelace or how to be a good friend to self-regulating technology usage and scheduling studies effectively. Students have more independence in their choices and actions while growing up. Accordingly, their choices and actions have a greater impact and consequences – surely it’s normal to make wrong choices or not be so aware of the consequences of your actions, that’s a part of learning. It is essential to be interested and discuss with students about their daily lives. During a discussion is much more easier to share experiences and advise students how to take care of yourself and make sustainable choices. Experiences and stories, good and bad, help students to understand their wider effects on themselves or to the community.

Becoming a responsible consumer

Along with teaching awareness of media and technology, consumer awareness and technology usage self-regulation are becoming ever more relevant. Everyone has a phone and access to web and social media – even though not all content is suitable for children. Students can critically evaluate their consumer behavior and the influence of advertising, so they can adjust their behavior and manage their consumption. Taking care of your own money (financial management skills) is also an important part of forming a foundation for future independence and are easy to practice in school e.g. in math or social studies.

Sometimes human relationships flourish in schools as all positive and negative situations with family, friends, boyfriends and girlfriends, teachers, or other authorities are dealt with there. Seizing the moment in teacher-led discussions about topical issues with the whole class might be a far more significant learning experience than a geography lesson. 

Another key aspect is increasing students’ awareness of health, general safety, and security. Being familiar with factors affecting them is vital in developing a student’s understanding of their limits and ability to take care of themselves. The ability to respect shared rules and identify security are also important life themes that should be covered in school. 

While schools can focus on only a few of these topics at a time, the most important one is to ensure a safe and healthy environment where students can develop essential skills for self-care and managing everyday life.

Students should be able to research, apply, edit, communicate, and present data in different mediums and platforms. 

When talking about literacy, people usually refer to the ability to read and write. They are not wrong: the traditional definition of literacy encompasses an understanding of visual and printed texts as well as audio, spatial, and gestural connections.

In today’s technology-dominated world, the traditional definition is no longer sufficient. 21st-century multiliteracy includes the ability to understand, produce and evaluate linguistic, visual, audio, gestural, spatial, and multimodal communication and information.

Digital natives are not necessarily digitally literate

Students should be guided in becoming multiliterate in all types of content and being able to research, apply, edit, communicate, and present data through a multitude of mediums and platforms. An important part of multiliteracy is to practice source credibility assessment, critical thinking, ethical conduct, influencing, and communication methods that are commonly used in scientific and artistic disciplines.

Multiliteracy develops students’ capacity to interpret, produce, make value judgments, and have a comprehensive ability to engage with the world by discovering the contexts and meaning of information around them. 

Generation Z is the first social generation to have grown up with access to the internet and portable digital technology from a very young age. They are called “digital natives” even though they are not necessarily digitally literate. They might be competent in using technology for leisure and play but they lack the skills to use it for learning and work. Multiliteracy skills are a crucial part of today’s working life with a range of IT tools and software. The ability to use information and communication technologies to find, evaluate, create, and communicate information, require both cognitive and technical skills.

Learning new concepts through practice

Teaching this new skill is not necessarily a long and complicated process that requires time and resource-consuming preparations. Instead, teachers can implement shorter but still efficient lessons. For instance, lessons on financial literacy for younger audiences could be introduced via Monopoly. It allows students to take a break from routine while obtaining financial concepts and management as well as communication and entrepreneurial skills. If taught young, a fiscally wise mind can travel a great distance.

Another example could be a lesson about source credibility assessment – how to tell hoaxes and fake news from real and research-based information and what channels should one use to obtain accurate information. There are loads of recent examples of suitable topics for the task such as presidential elections, the pandemic, or global warming.

So, while teaching multiliteracy, it is good to remember that it is not only about an exact set of knowledge, but about a variety of ways in which students communicate and express themselves. As a part of reskilling and upskilling, digital literacy is a powerful tool in helping to combat future rises in unemployment.

Advanced skills to use technology are essential, but also having a deeper understanding on how technology can support our lives becomes even more important in the future.  

Along with constant development, technology enables learning to become more versatile, and more collaborative regardless of time or location. But even though our lives revolve around technologies and the internet, schools often don’t integrate them into the learning process efficiently due to several reasons: lack of access, lack of devices, lack of teacher training, lack of understanding or strict school policies. What ever the reasons are, the need for teacher training is real – how to use technology in teaching and how to introduce ICT skills to students? While students rely on modern tools and technologies daily with their smartphones, the learning process relies still more on traditional and often outdated teaching methods in teaching ICT.

Smartphones, tablets, and computers should no longer be seen as a distraction that disrupts the learning process but as necessary tools and skills which should be normal in a classroom. These devices are powerful tools for learning, communicating, searching, managing, and sharing information. ICT skills should be viewed as a vital part of multiliteracy. Although some schools are already battling with using too much technology in schools – then might be a good idea to focus on discussion, teamwork, and other activating methods instead.

Technologies enable learning to be more versatile and collaborative along with raising students’ proficiency in data management, data utilization, computer proficiency, and a range of IT programs, as well as secure internet activities. With education aiding digital skills and knowledge, students gain an opportunity to become active producers in the digital world while developing their digital know-how and participation instead of being just passive consumers. We already recognize that the younger generation is pioneering in many social media platforms such as TikTok and YouTube. ICT is a good topic to let the students share their expertise and learning with their peers – how does TikTok algorithm work or how to use Canva for creating visual presentations? Case examples and previous experiences are strong in learning such a complex topic.

Understanding technology and technological design

ICT skills are more than just the ability to use technology for learning – playing a math game, reading an e-book, or using Microsoft Office tools for school assignments. It’s understanding how technology is designed – this includes programming, algorithmic thinking, computational thinking abilities, artificial intelligence, virtual reality, and user experience. Modern technology is already affecting and controlling our daily choices more than we understand. Everyone does not need to be an engineer or data specialist or even understand what AR and VR are, but schools should have a more comprehensive approach to building students’ understanding of how to use technology safely and courteously inside and outside the school building. Parents should also teach their children skills regarding the usage of the internet or social media and how to communicate in different applications.

Despite technology-based learning requiring a lot of resources such as time, teacher training, and access to digital tools, it can start with smaller steps. Especially during the pandemic, when almost all schools switched to distance learning, teachers have more opportunities to implement ICT into daily learning from web-based whiteboards, interactive presentations, and online quizzes and games to entire online classrooms and courses. The internet is full of free materials, instructions, and examples. In the end, we want our students to rehearse ICT skills in school so they can have advanced skills in working life.

It is good to recognize that schools cannot be the only teachers of ICT skills. There is a need to involve parents, companies, and society to teach our children ICT skills regardless of geography, school, or gender.

Entrepreneurship is a way of thinking from a broader perspective and learning from experimentation and failures.

Schools are in an essential role to supply students with the skills they need in their future working life. However, the environment is changing rapidly and the task of predicting the exact set of skills required in the future is nearly impossible. This is a competence that needs support from outside of the school – from companies, organisations, parents and the local community.

This competence is important in developing a students’ competence for being a understanding the practices of working life, roles of an employer and employee, mastering small talk and social interaction in a work setting, as well as being able to adapt to new environments and challenges. Promoting positive attitudes towards work and fostering an entrepreneurial spirit in students is key to learning meaningful working life skills.

Soft skills form a solid basis for future development 

To function in the working life of the future, students should acquire soft skills such as adaptivity and resilience, communication and collaboration, time management, and lifelong learning. Comprehensive soft skills form a solid base for further learning, growth, and development. With a good soft skills for example in communication (asking questions / asking help) and self-leadership (how to adapt new information / how to organise your time between different tasks) all new processes and knowledge can be adapted more easily.

Entrepreneurship is often perceived as learning how to establish a company, but it should be understood as entrepreneurial attitude, spirit, or a way of thinking – a flexible, adaptive, quick-thinking mindset that allows one to make mistakes and learn from them. It’s not all about how to be an entrepreneur, it’s more about supporting students to recognize their strengths and weaknesses and develop themselves toward their future goals. Perhaps they can create a job that did not exist before.

Learning from real-world experiences

To implement these skills in the education environment, teachers will probably need support in providing working life connections to students. Guest lecturers from interesting companies, interviewing own parent or relatives and field trips to working life events or fairs can help students understand what does working life actually look like and what kind of work even exists. It is important to share information and examples of what types of skills play key roles in building a career and to start building their own path in working life.

Another way of rehearse working life skills in practice is learn by doing: students plan and organised a project from the beginning to the end, join to a miniature society for one day or start a imaginary (or even real) start-up company. The goal of these exercises is to experience the planning part, but also the part of implementation, real-life practice. When experiencing a failure or success, it will leave a long-lasting memory for the future. Students will learn how to design and manage a project, deepen their understanding in various roles of a team and how to give and receive feedback. Students can plan the project timeline and budget, examine different value propositions, choose target customers and take responsibility of their own work.

Working life and entrepreneurship competencies develop naturally when students are offered opportunities for practicing these skills in a school environment. Building social connections, adaptivity, and resilience, gaining new experiences, and learning about different career paths prepare youth for tomorrow’s work and spark their imagination for creating their own working life.

Schools have a key role in supporting students in their journey toward responsible citizenship.

To build a sustainable future for the next generation or actually with the next generation, actions need to be taken in schools. By increasing the overall understanding of the local and global environment is the foundation for students to become responsible, active, and aware members of our society. Students must also be able to understand the context for the future is: what has been done, what is happening now, and what path to take?

While in school, the aim is to practice democracy, decision-making, expressing your own opinions and participating to discussion. It’s also important to learn how to recognize the significance of your own choices and actions, not for yourself but also consequences to the local environment, society, and nature.  

The school is in a unique position to support student participation by creating formal structures and channels through which students can effectively influence their to school community and local environment (e.g., projects, student unions, collaboration with the community). These opportunities give students positive experiences of taking initiative to do something meaningful while rehearsing crucial skills such as teamwork, critical thinking, dialogue, problem-solving, brainstorming, and how to influence other people. Students do not need to participate to political discussion as such, but they can choose the topics which are interesting and meaningful for them.

Building awareness is the basis for involvement

Another aspect is to encourage students to understand and assess the ways their choices affect the environment and society on both local and global levels. By developing students’ relationships with nature and community, emphasis on skill development is reaching the goal of aiding students to understand different scenarios for the future and act if they recognize a problem. 

For example designing recycle-project in school to increase eco-awareness, or organizing a debate and preparing counterparts for structured discussion about how to solve teenagers’ unemployment, are great ways to bring world’s problems into practice and increase awareness. By letting students design real-life projects and demonstrate real issues, they will probably make better choices for the benefit of the society and environment.

Students can learn how to influence their environment sustainably and courteously from school sustainability projects, school elections, and competitions. With curiosity, open-mindedness, and an understanding of sustainability principles, students could become active influences and participants in the world of today and tomorrow, generating equality, sustainability, and justice in the future.