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Post 6

               Initially I wanted to do my thesis on the benefits of remote education, specifically in the context of language learning and plurilingual environments. I felt that this would have been the best way for me to apply all my previous life experience to my thesis. I would be interested in doing a meta-analysis of different types of language learning software and making a recommendation. This is still a distinct possibility. I would also be keen on working with strong programmers to develop our own language learning software and potentially selling it. This is impossible however because we are not permitted to financially benefit from our thesis. As I write this at the end of the first period of the first semester of my master’s studies, my thoughts, and interests regarding my thesis have changed. The scientific grounding course has aided me in honing my interests and understanding how to write about them and learn more about them within the academi
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Post #5

  After completing my studies I hope to return to the classroom and teach for a few years. This has been my intention since applying to LET. I was forced out of classroom teaching by the COVID-19 pandemic. I still miss my students and I know that I left something unfinished that I would have otherwise relished in completing. I had planned on teaching in Shanghai for a minimum of three years when I left for vacation January 17, 2020 only to never return.              For this reason, I earnestly believe that I still have so much to learn when it comes to classroom teaching. I am excited to apply the skills that I will have learned about collaborative learning, learning technologies and learning environments to the learning community that I will be a part of. I have not yet decided which age group I would like to teach. However, I am leaning towards primary school. I want to be a classroom teacher for at least three years if not more so that I may hone my craft. In addition to professi
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Lecture 2

     LET is where theory meets practice; this philosophy was one of the main motivators for my applying to the program. The research that LET performs focuses on helping people of all ages engage with the work that they do in a more meaningful and profitable way (something I am passionate about). The LET research team also recognizes that each data point that they collect corresponds to a learner or an educator who is a real person with a story. Research Center for Psychology and Educational Psychology focus on counseling, organizational dynamics and growth and development. I found a lot of overlap with what their studies are and what LET studies. However, RCPEP has the end goal of applying the knowledge they gain to the field of counseling and making it applicable for counselors in the educational space. Whereas LET’s philosophy of “Teach what we research and research what we teach”  In Silvola et al. (2021), “Expectations for supporting student engagement with learning analytics”
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Lecture 4

    Presenting the research of the Faculty of Education continues as Values, Ideologies and Social Context of Education (VISE) presenting their work.  I found this presentation to be a bit of a culture shock for me specifically in the Gender Studies section. I will freely admit that all the knowledge that I have about feminism has come from my periphery. My undergraduate university is located in a community where the LGBTQIA+ community has a lot of input, and its members are quite visible, specifically lesbians. So, although I had never taken a class in gender studies, I have received an education by simply attending classes. Professors across all disciplines integrate intersectionality into their lesson plans and curriculum design. There was more than one instance in which I said something ignorant/biased/steeped in privilege and was checked by a peer or a tutor, sometimes gently, sometimes not so much. My perception of the term “white feminism” is entirely negative. The book
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Lecture 3 Teachers, teaching and educational communities

TTEE teaches what they research and they research what they teach, whether that be teacher education, adult education. This group of individuals left quite a positive impression on me. Their research in particular I found to be very intriguing because they do not draw hard lines in regards to what is fair game for research. The educational process itself is also an institution that doesn’t get talked about enough. I was overjoyed to hear them talking about re-theorizing education  and developing new methods to advance empirical knowledge. More importantly however was learning that this department collaborates with everyone! At risk of sounding callous, the educational studies field can be connected to anything and educational studies for the sake of educational studies limits the benefit that the work and research being done in our field can have on the broader population. I found the article on Young Children’s Belonging in Finnish Education settings to have really piqued my interest
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1. Introduction and study counselling:

The whole purpose of this course is to gain a general overview of the faculty of education and the types of research being done and who is doing that research, It is important for us to understand all of the different types of educational research going on at the university because we never know where our inspiration could come from. It is also very important that we are exposed to different ways of approaching the field of educational studies. These lectures will help me to gain the knowledge and understanding I need so that I may have the deepest understanding of the tools and resources at my disposal through the university. The reason that I chose the Learning, Education and Technology masters program is because I found the research that they are doing to be the most fascinating. Specifically Dindar, M., Ren, Lei., & Järvenoja, H. (2020). An experimental study on the effects of gamified cooperation and competition on English vocabulary learning. British Journal of Educational. T
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