Ieec 120913 rytkölä_kuusisto

Entrepreneurship education in Finnish teacher training – creative problem

solving in action

IEEC 2013

Riikka Kuusisto-Kajander & Tiina Rytkölä

KERHOKESKUS Innovations for teaching

Vision: The well-being of children and youth. Association ensures possibilities for children and youth to grow mentally coherent, self-confident, intellectual and critical, with the abilities to use problem-solving thinking methods.”

Non-profit organisation Kerhokeskus acts in co-operation with others within the field

of education

www.kerhokeskus.fi/en

Northern names from Santa Claus land

•Choose yourself a Northern name •How does it describe you professionally? •Share with a pair

Norhern names

• Rideswithnorthernlights • Reindeerdance • Snowwhitesparkle • Spelldon´tneed • Seefarwise • Rideonwolverine • Healwellflower • Bearhunteye

• Elfhattingle • Blackwolfpaw • Flyinggreyowl • Antletsspell • Guidelighthigh • Trolltaimpower • Cloudberryfield • Goesforestwell

In  this  session…

Backgrounds of the optional course ”Creative  problem solving methods in  action”    

Course content and working methods

Feedback and forward

Backgroud: Four statements

1. Entrepreneurial skills and creativity are 21st-century civics skills

2. To learn those skills you have to practice and find the proper methods

3. Finnish teacher training is far too theory oriented 4. Creative problem solving methods can not be understood by reading books

A pilot course for teacher students in winter 2013

• Organized by Kerhokeskus with Turku University, Rauma teacher training department

• Course leaders came from Kerhokeskus

• Optional course open for all students

=> students from different main subject and class level => highly motivated => no drop outs

• The focus of the course was recognizing

and developing creative problem solving with student oriented methods.

• Learning methods were based on creative problem solving process (Sahlberg. et. al. 1994)

Creative problem solving process

• Finding and defining the question

STEP 1: Preparation

• Working on solution STEP 2: Working

• Assessment and presentation STEP 3: Evaluating

Based on Sahlberg et. al. 1994

What did the students do?

• Each student had a self-made real life problem to solve

• The prosess was exposed continuously by the methods and tasks

• Finding different ways to solve the problem

• Tuning the students to righ frequency is important for the success

• Group support during the whole process, continual evaluation and assessment

Distance thinking patterns -a treat

Distance thinking pattern

Funny/grazy but still reasonable

application

Possible solution

A hairbrush

-Spiny school pack -Plastic school pack -Iron  … -Fold the school pack flat -hard school pack - shiny school back

A new school pack

-spiny -plastic -Iron -Fit in a pocket -light -hard -shiny -… -… -…

-School pack with feet -Recycled school pack (a pro-environmental) …

- ergonomic school pack (prop up your back) -Reflecting school pack: practical in the dark

WHAT TO DO?

• Working with pairs / groups • Every pair /group pick up two cards (a

possible solution -card and a distance thinking pattern -card)

• Write five qualities which are typical to your distance thinking pattern

• Develop five funny/grazy but still reasonable applications

• Develop one possible solution

A variety of tools were used Mind map tools Problem solving tools Collaborative learning tools Peer review tools

The  students  say… ”Problem-based method was new to me, I tried it as soon as I got to training

school.”

”Lots of new ideas for teacher profession”

”I am now more brave expressing crazy ideas and evaluating different kinds of thinking”

”The course and feedback encouraged me to evaluate the methods used in teacher training –methods should be broaden and assessment brought up

more widely.”

” Entrepreunership and what it offers is now much more clear to me.”

According to mind map analysis:

• students own understanding about creative problem solving is developed from images what creative problem solving is to images how I can use it and for what I can use creative problem solving.

• Most important result was to understand importance and variety of assessment during the creative problem solving process.

Evaluation and assessment

…were piloting the process and their role was taken up continuously Self-evaluation methods Pair and group assessment Collaborative learning evalution Peer review tools Monitoring by course leaders

What next?

• The co-operation set up is unique in Finland • The course will be organized in two

Universities in the next 6 months • Collected data will be used in reseach • The structure is working, but needs a little

trimming to support the process better

Thank you! Interested? Ask more:

Riikka Kuusisto-Kajander Senior project manager, M.ed, Ph.D student

riikka.kuusisto@kerhokeskus.fi

Tiina Rytkölä Senior project manager, M. Soc. Sci

tiina.rytkola@kerhokeskus.fi