The comparative essay on the primary school professional experience (4 cr)

Evaluation scale

H-5

Objective

- Students will learn to reflect their own actions and choices during their teaching
- Students are able to read, assess and produce academic text, that follows the style of academic writing
- Students are able to design and implement a small-scale empirical scientific study and conduct a small interview at their practice school
- Students are able to learn more about their own interestsin the feel of education
- Students are able to choose appropriate data processing method

Execution methods

Teaching profili:
Individual work (106 hours)

During the professional experience:
o Choose a topic for your reflective essay that you want to study and know more
o Interview someone at your primary education placement about the topic to get their perspective on it and write their thought down

After the professional experience write an essay about following items:
o Short info about your practice place and your group
o Your topic
- The academic background of it: what does the previous academic studies say?
- Why the topic is important to you?
o Your study methods and how you started to approach and to structure your topic
o The results
- How was your topic present during your teaching practice?
- What did you find out from the interview?
o The conclusions
- Your own thoughts and conclusions about the topic
- The situation in Finland vs. your home country
- Your own reflections on the topic: how does this knowledge help you to be a highly qualified primary school teacher?

Accomplishment methods

The study course is interlinked to the IEDU0003 course:
After professional experience, a student can widen his/her excellence in primary education by a small-scale empirical study

Content

- Familiarization with the academic literature
- Structuring the topic of the student’s choice
- Writing a small empirical study that is based on the student’s teaching practice

Assessment criteria, satisfactory (1)

Fail / returned for revision (0):
The text is copied (and pasted) from the reference material. This is plagiarism and leads to further consequences.
The author only lists the ideas from the reference materials. The author’s point of view is not revealed. The content does not relate to the assignment. The essay is poorly structured. The author uses only web sites and lecture notes as reference materials. Writing lacks coherence and logic. The language is incomprehensible. The in-text and end-of text references acknowledge less than 40% of the sources or are missing altogether. The format of the references is not consistent with a chosen referencing style. The essay is shorter than a minimum required length.

Sufficient (1):
The author only lists the ideas from the reference materials. The author’s point of view is not revealed. The essay is poorly structured. The author uses only web sites and lecture notes, occasionally a book chapter or governmental documents but no research. Writing lacks coherence and logic. The in-text and end-of text references acknowledge only 40%-50% of the sources. Some references are not relevant or outdated. The format of the references is not consistent with a chosen referencing style.

Satisfactory (2):
The author occasionally summarizes but mostly only lists the ideas from the reference materials. The author’s point of view can come out occasionally. The essay is poorly structured. The author uses only a few of the following materials: journal articles, book chapters,
governmental documents, or uses predominantly only web sites or lecture notes. Writing lacks coherence. The author uses in-text and end-of-text references to acknowledge at least 50%- 60% of the sources (e.g. journal articles, governmental documents, Internet sites). The references are
relevant and less relevant. Recent and less recent references are used. The format of the references is not consistent with a chosen referencing style.

Assessment criteria, good (3)

Good (3):
The points of comparison and the description of research show that the author understands the main issues of the topic. The author’s point of view is presented. The author summarizes well the ideas of the reference materials but the writing lacks extensive analysis of the content in the reference materials. The structure of the essay is quite clear and understandable. The author uses some of the following materials: journal articles, book chapters, governmental documents. Writing is quite accurate. The author uses in-text and end-of-text references to acknowledge at least 80% of the sources (e.g. journal articles, governmental documents, Internet sites). The references are relevant and mostly recent. The format of the references is mostly consistent with a chosen referencing style.

Very good (4): The comparison of education systems and the description of research show that the author understands the topic. The author’s point of view is well formulated from the reference materials. The author uses a variety of materials, e.g. journal articles, book chapters, governmental documents. Writing is accurate and ideas are well formulated. The structure of the essay is clear and understandable. The author uses in-text and end-of-text references to acknowledge at least 90% of the sources (e.g. journal articles, governmental documents, Internet sites). The references are relevant and recent. The format of the references is consistent with a chosen referencing style. The length of the essay is appropriate.

Assessment criteria, excellent (5)

Excellent (5):
The author has selected relevant and well-justified points of comparison and research for the essay. The author’s point of view shows an excellent understanding of how education systems are constructed and how they work. The ideas from the reference materials have been critically and
thoughtfully used for the author’s thinking and reflection. The author uses a variety of materials, e.g. journal articles, book chapters, governmental documents. Writing is precise, logical and convincing. The structure of the essay is clear and understandable. The author uses in-text and end-of-text references to acknowledge ALL the sources (e.g. journal articles, governmental documents, Internet sites). The references are relevant and recent. The format of the references is consistent with a chosen referencing style. The length of the essay is appropriate.

Assessment criteria, approved/failed

Pass: see criteria 3-5
Fail: see criteria 0-2

Qualifications

The course is aimed at student teachers.