Onks tavallinen koe vai sellanen, missä pitää miettii? : ympäristölähtöisen terveyskasvatuspedagogiikan kehittäminen narratiivisena toimintatutkimuksena

Niemi Reetta Is this a normal test or do we have to think? Developing environmentally oriented health education pedagogy through narrative action research Jyväskylä: University of Jyväskylä 2009, 215 p (Studies in Sport, Physical Education and Health ISSN 0356–1070; 140) ISBN 978-951-39-3619-8 (nid.), 978-951-39-5174-0 (PDF) Diss. The purpose of this narrative action research was to develop environmentally oriented health education pedagogy in order to support pupil participation and empowerment and strengthen the sense of community between school and home. Instruction was based on participative teaching methods which refer to a combination of an active learning situation, reflection, and a learning tool that allows the learners to find their own voice. The development work was evaluated using inquiry questions designed to examine the following: 1. How did the teaching methods support the achievement of those criteria set for good knowledge in health education? 2. How did the learning tools used for learning expression support the pupils’ finding their voice? 3. How did the teacher, pupils, and parents experience the lived pedagogy and the related practices in the process of planning, implementing, and evaluating education? The data consisted of essay answers, learning diaries, and narrative learning expressions by 5th and 6th graders taught by the author. It included narratives of lived pedagogy by teachers, pupils, and parents. It was gathered between April 2006 and May 2007 and analysed by using narrative methods. A total of 25 pupils and 19 parents participated in the research. Environmentally oriented health education pedagogy is based on constructivism both in terms of its learning concept and its epistemological assumptions. In addition, it includes features of participative education, experiential learning, investigative learning, and critical pedagogy. In this research, learning was evaluated from two viewpoints: the criteria of good knowledge and finding one’s own voice. The results showed that a stimulating learning situation supported the achievement of the criteria set for good knowledge better than the learning tool used. As for achieving the cognitive learning goals, there seemed to be no difference between the essay concept map and learning diary methods. In the context of learning expression, finding one’s own voice was evaluated on the basis of pupils’ ability to express themselves in their mother tongue, present their thoughts and emotions, examine their relation to and viewpoint of the object of learning, and viewing both themselves and their environment critically from different angles. The results suggested that the process of finding one’s own voice was best supported by narrative learning expression and least by the essay concept map method. In this research, lived pedagogy was defined as an interactive relation between the pupil, the teacher, and the parent, and a new application of narrative analysis was developed to study it. The experiences of lived pedagogy were documented in narratives by three different voices: my (teacher’s) voice, your (pupil’s) voice, and their (parents’) voice. As a result, the interpretations of lived pedagogy were based on a signifying process involving persons in an educational relationship. When analysing the voices, it turned out that involving the pupils and their parents in the processes of planning, implementing, and evaluating education increased the sense of community in the classroom. Project learning and teaching methods used were also seen to support participation and sense of community.