Nowadays, media education is an integral part of early childhood education, comprehensive education and upper secondary education alike. However, there are still many teachers in the workforce whose training did not include any media education at all. The University of Eastern Finland is now filling this gap.
Digital skills, multiliteracy, fake news... Many of today’s children and adolescents get immersed in various media and media-related phenomena already in toddlerhood. They master different platforms and technologies surprisingly well, but there is much more to media skills than just the technical side.
“Media education also covers the contexts of upbringing and education. In addition to digital skills, today’s teachers must also know how to teach critical media literacy and ethical media behaviour,” University Lecturer Jukka Mäkisalo from the School of Humanities says.
The School of Humanities and the School of Applied Educational Science and Teacher Education have now teamed up to plan and implement a completely new study module in media education. Launched this autumn, the study module is available to Bachelor’s and Master’s degree students as a minor subject, and as a continuing education module for teachers already in the profession.
Last autumn, around 20 people started the studies, half of them UEF’s students completing a minor subject, and the other half teachers taking the study module as continuing education.
“The goal of this new and multidisciplinary study module is to offer students knowledge and tools that can help them to understand the changes, phenomena, threats and opportunities of our digitising world especially from a pedagogical perspective,” Professor of Education Ritva Kantelinen says.
New ideas for work
For some years now, media education has been an overarching theme in Finland’s national core curricula, meaning that there is an immense need to train teachers.
“This is a typical example of how the world of schools changes, and how these changes then translate back to teacher education, which needs to be updated accordingly. Media education has been part of teacher education already before, but our new study module seeks not only to disseminate information, but also to be a source of inspiration, new ideas and excitement for teachers in their efforts to deliver diverse media education,” Kantelinen says.
According to Mäkisalo, it is wonderful and important that both student teachers and teachers with years of professional experience participate in the same training.
“This makes it possible for the two groups to exchange valuable experiences during their studies.”
Internationally attractive
The study module in media education comprises six courses, each awarding five credits. The themes include digital well-being, media literacy, and media technology. One of the courses, Media Skills in Digital Learning Environments, has also been turned into a made-to-order version for transnational education – after all, the need for media education isn’t limited to Finland alone.
“Many of our international partners have been interested in the study module, especially during the pandemic. Not all countries have succeeded in the digital leap as well as Finland, and the need for support is very real,” Coordinator of Transnational Education Mari Argillander says.
The planning and implementation of the study module was supported by the University of Eastern Finland through funding allocated to continuous learning. This made it possible to hire full-time training planners, and planning was also supported by the university’s Teacher Training Schools.
“Thanks to this funding, we were able to create an outstanding module that meets the needs emerging from the field. We were able to use some of our earlier elements in education by refining them further, but the module also contains plenty of new and multidisciplinary material,” Mäkisalo says.
This led to the creation of a study module that is well tuned in with the needs of contemporary society.
“All of the courses can be completed online, and their content is diverse. We strive for creating a module that is unique among the Finnish universities and that brings together the viewpoints of two independent disciplines.”