China

Student Agency in Higher Education

The activity will focus on constructing research collaboration on the topic of student agency with the international partners from the Northeast Normal University (China) and Finnish partners from the University of Jyväskylä and JAMK University of Applied Sciences. This includes mobility, agreements, translation work, data collection and analyses.

Finnish early childhood education webinars

This webinar series focused on the Unique Finnish Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) System - Pedagogy and Early Childhood Teacher Education as key elements ensuring the equitability and quality of ECEC. The main aim in the proposal is to establish effective and sustainable collaboration between Finnish Higher Education Institutes and partners in China, and to increase the possibilities for further cooperation and networking. This initiative intends to co-create research-based solutions to address global education challenges and to contribute the sustainable develop with quality education in early childhood education. This project involved three universities, two universities of applied sciences and 1 company in Finland, as well as three universities and one company in China. The speakers of five webinars were top-notch early childhood education researchers, and practitioners from Finland. These five webinars were organized in March - May 2022. It was implemented successfully with over 620 participants from several countries according to the plan in the project proposal. The webinars shared the best research, practices, and concrete pedagogical methods of early childhood education. We have received positive feedbacks from the participants. This project has strengthened the international collaborations among HEIs in Finland and China. It also has promoted Finnish Early childhood education, especially the equity, equality, teacher education, life-long learning, inclusiveness education, transversal competencies, etc. for Sustainable Education Goal 4. Future research and collaboration will be continued among the collaborated HEIs, and new HEIs are also welcomed to join. Please contact jenny.niu@helsinki.fi for further information regarding this project.

Innovative joint effort in combating school burnout in Finland & China

We have done several activities to reach our project aims. First, one important activity is we have organized a Sino-Finnish international seminar on school burnout on 27th May 2022. In this whole-day seminar, we have 8 keynote speakers from various institutes (U Helsinki, U Jyvaskyla, London School of Economics and Political Science, Peking U, Beijing Normal U, Central China Normal U, Schoolday Oy). The seminar attracted more than 300 registrations from researchers and teachers in the world. During the seminar, through presentation and panel discussion, we were trying to figure out an international innovative solution for burnout of students and teachers from a multi-disciplinary and international perspective. The seminar has also sparked lot of interests in Chinese media. See appendix for pictures. Second, through this project, we have managed to develop an online burnout survey for teachers and students in China. The survey has been distributed since the beginning of April 20227. So far, we have received more than 300 teachers’ responses. However, the students’ responses are low due to the Covid situation in China. This will serve as the research resources for the future steps. Third, we also build up a blogsite for the project to make the project more visible and to facilitate future communication and collaboration. The blog can be accessed here https://blogs.helsinki.fi/burnout-finland-china/about-us/.

Learning of transversal competencies in science teacher education in Finland and China

The aim of the initiative is to strengthen collaboration in research on future teacher education, with an emphasis on the teaching and learning of transversal competencies and the efficacy of educational reforms. The participating institutions include the University of Helsinki and University of Jyväskylä, Beijing Normal University (at Zhuhai), other Chinese universities such as South China Normal University and the University of Macau. Reforming education for the twenty-first century has become an essential topic globally. Teacher preparation and the development of knowledge and attitudes are pivotal factors in attaining the goals of these reforms. As part of this initiative, lectures on “teaching for the future” will be organized. A systematic inquiry as main part will be conducted to assess future science teachers’ knowledge and attitudes towards educational reforms for teaching and learning of transformal competences. The findings will be utilized to provide suggestions for the development of student teacher programs.

Encountering local theories of cross-curricular course in the making – building partnership between Finland, Taiwan, and China to engage local schooling changes for sustainability

To enhance sustainable development, learning beyond traditional schooling is essential. Cross-curricular course allows students to connect personal experiences, real world, and school-lessons in learning. The curriculum model underlining learning beyond school has been adopted to many countries. Current implementations of cross-curricular model nevertheless show discords with established schooling arrangements. The basic idea of our initiative is that education for sustainable development requires alternatives of cross-curricular course which could be found through sharing experiences and practices of exemplar cases in different regions. Implementing the initiative will produce firstly selected cases to be analysed in Finland, China, and Taiwan (step 1), then data informing characteristics of selected cases (step 2), and methods of using data to engage local actors (step 3), followed by planning a collaborative project to work with local networks (step 4). The collaboration to sharing practices of cross-curricular course stimulate conscious changes toward quality education and sustainable development.

Student travel grants to the 2022 SDG4 Seminar at the University of Jyväskylä

Open call for institutional travel grants for GINTL-related activities

UH has a continuous call for travel grants to and from the three GINTL regions. Students, staff and their collaborators can submit applications related to GINTL activities requiring travel.

Knowledge of interculturality ‘otherwise’: Developing a research-based international partnership between universities in China, Finland, and Morocco

Knowledge of interculturality is often too ‘Euro- and western-centric’ in global scholarship and education, leaving little space for the Global South to speak in its own (negotiated) terms about the notion. Based on our former GINTL online exchange project between universities in China and Finland, this research-based international cooperation links up scholars and students from different parts of the world (China, Finland, and Morocco) to ‘expand the horizons of knowledge production’ about interculturality. A series of videos will be produced by world experts from the participating institutions about interculturality to help students unthink and rethink their knowledge of the topic in long-term virtual exchanges. This important project thus explores ways of rebalancing power imbalances between Global North and Global South voices in the production of knowledge about interculturality ‘otherwise’.