Subject Teacher Education and Developing of University Teaching at TUT
1. Subject Teacher Education
and
Developing of University
Teaching at TUT
Tampere workshop 26.6-27.6.2014
Jorma Joutsenlahti
Adjunct professor (TUT)
Senior Lecturer in didactics of mathematics
(UTA)
3. 1. Subject teacher education at
TUT
• Most Finnish universities have
permission for teacher training
• TUT is the only technical university in
Finland that is allowed to train
subject teachers with Diploma
engineering degree
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4. Teacher Education
• Subject teachers for secondary,
upper secondary and vocational
schools
• Teachers must have education up to
Master's degree (Diploma Engineer)
at the university (at TUT) and the 60
ects pedagogical studies (at UTA)
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5. Structure of Studies at TUT
• TUT is allowed to train subject teachers
with Diploma engineering degree in
• Mathematics
• Physics
• Chemistry
• Information technology
• The students will have a teacher’s
qualification in their Engineering diploma
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8. Conclusions
• Teachers in Finland have Master’s degree
• Subject teachers have: Major subject (at least
120 ECTS), Pedagogical studies (60 ECTS)
and Minor subject(s) (60 ECTS)
• Teacher training at technical university has
been a success
• Students are interested - one of the best
degree programs at TUT
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9. 2. Developing university
mathematics teaching at TUT
• Some students’ basic skills are not sufficient
• Lack of the basic routines of school algebra
• The universities have
– made math courses easier
– provided bridging courses
– founded support centers
– done nothing
• (European society for engineering education
(SEFI))
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10. Research project at the
Tampere University of
Technology
• In the Fall 2012 languaging exercises were tested at an
engineering math course at the Tampere University of
Technology (Jussi Kangas, n=229) and in an analysis
course at the University of Turku (Petteri Harjulehto,
n=48)
• The students were given one languaging exercise per
week
• The exercises were handed to the teachers
• At the end of the course a series of questions (16 Likert
scaled and 2 open) were handed to the students to find
out their thoughts and attitudes toward languaging
exercises
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11. Example : Coding meanings
and expressing arguments by
natural language
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Esimerkki 3, ratkaisu A
11
Natural
language
Symbolic
mathematical
language
12. Benefits to use languaging in
mathematics 1
• It will grow student’s own understanding,
because when student is speaking aloud
(or writing) his/her thoughts (s)he has to
first make the process clear to himself
(herself) and after that (s)he can explain it
to companions. A spoken language is a
thought language
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13. Benefits to use languaging
in mathematics 2
• The listening companions can reflect their
own thinking to the student’s and perhaps
they change their opinion and at the same
time their mathematical thinking develops.
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14. Benefits to use languaging
in mathematics 3
• From the pedagogical point of view when
the student is expressing his/her
mathematical thinking by own words it is
easy for a teacher to evaluate how the
pupil has attached new concepts into
his/her knowledge structure. After hearing
the pupil, the teacher guides them by new
arrangements of teaching if necessary
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