‘The best guess for the future?’ Teachers’ adaptation to open and flexible learning environments in Finland

Kreeta Niemi

doi:10.1080/20004508.2020.1816371

Abstract

ABSTRACT Finnish education has recently experienced reforms with respect to guidelines forming the curriculum framework for basic education and school architecture. Since 2016, all new schools incorporate open and flexible design, at least to some extent. The more open school design challenges the conventional organisation of space and pre-defined structures and interaction practices. This study investigates how teachers both adapt and are affected by new demands for pedagogy, team teaching and teacher-student relationships. Interview data of 21 teachers of six modern schools are reviewed through thematic analysis. The new school layouts provided some incongruence with the teachers’ aims and their preferred practices. Although many teachers were dissatisfied with the new or remodelled space solution, they felt that their school had developed as a learning community, with improved collegiality, and good experiences of team teaching had increased. Shared vision, open discussion, commitment and enough time for preparation had helped in adaptation. Lacking arguments behind school transformation and the dismissal of ideas of school design hindered adaptation. This study suggests that teachers should have a greater voice in the school design process, and the needs of learners should be carefully considered, ensuring optimal physical and pedagogical context for effective and collaborative learning.

Highlights

Introduction and the contextReforms in curriculum and learning environmentsFinland is undergoing a strong phase of school redesign where traditional walled-in class rooms and rows of desks are replaced for more flexible, multipurpose, informal and transformative open plan designs
Since 2016, all new or totally renovated comprehensive schools in Finland have incorporated open and flexible designs and principles, at least to some extent. This reform of school architecture emerged at the same time as the curriculum reform of Finnish basic education (Ministry of Education, 2014), issued in 2016
The analysis focused on the semantic content of the data; that is, the experiences of and meanings given to open learning environments by the teachers, regarded as the “reality” for themselves

Summary

Introduction

Introduction and the contextReforms in curriculum and learning environmentsFinland is undergoing a strong phase of school redesign where traditional walled-in class rooms and rows of desks are replaced for more flexible, multipurpose, informal and transformative open plan designs. The themes teachers were asked about related to 1) school transformation, 2) their experiences of the new spaces and interaction practices, and how they used the spaces and resources in their teaching to support students’ learning, and 3) possibilities and challenges of new open and flexible learning environments.

Results

Conclusion