INTERNATIONAL TEACHER SEMINAR 2006
Foreword
Maailma Tutuksi ry - Get to Know the World Association (NGO) in cooperation with the Finnish Association for Local Secondary Schools and the Baltic and Nordic teachers’ associations have implemened a comparative teacher survey about social values and attitudes on different issues, the appreciation of the profession and the use of ICT as an educational tool.
The evaluation was carried out by the Center of Educational Assessment at Helsinki University.
The Association expresses acknowledgements to the partners who participated in the in the Nordic and Baltic teacher survey:
Special thanks also to the Finnish Ministry of Education and Nordic Cultural Fund who provided the funding as well as to the European Comission Representatives in Finland who hosted the event.
The Association is grateful to Mr. Jukka O. Mattila who kindly acted as educational expert as well as to Mr. Giuseppe Lugano who closely followed the procedure of the seminar as a special advisor and gave valuable information about the use Forum Fennicum as a platform to distribute and collect material in the learning communities.
When dealing with everyday practical problems, Finnish schools largely tend to work isolated from the other schools. This may also concern the situation of the schools in other countries.
However, the problems of the schools are much alike. One could say that it is a great waste of effort and time trying to "invent the wheel" separately and independently in each school. Therefore, it would be very beneficial to get acquainted with the methods of the other schools and try to find out solutions together.
Benchmarking is a quality managemant term which deals with learning solutions from other companies or from other people (in this case, from other schools). Benchmarking has been widely used to enhance the everyday practises of the member schools of the Finnish Association for Local Secondary Schools.
In addition a Forum Fennicum platform is introduced as an operating environment to share experience and knowledge based on the report.
Helsinki 10.10 – 11.10.2006.
Paul Lwoff
Executive director
Maailma Tutuksi ry
P.O.Box 814
FIN – 00101 Helsinki
Pekka Arinen
Project Manager
Center for Educational Assessment
University of Helsinki
