The School of Vocational Teacher Education
Haaga-Helia was the most sought-after university of applied sciences that organises teacher education last year. The number of applicants to our vocational teacher education increased considerably. The total number of applicants was 1,261, and new admissions totalled 350. During the year, a total of 324 teachers, 20 special-needs teachers and 14 student counsellors graduated from our degree programmes.
Vocational teacher gradutes 2019
Our important themes included guidance, personalisation and the competency-based approach, and we will continue to develop these themes this year as well. We generated digital competence indicators for teacher education and the related descriptions of demonstrating competence, which we will apply to make studies progress more smoothly and to improve harmonised operating methods between the different implementations of teacher education.
We started the pilot of immersive pedagogy, in which our students themselves implement the contact sessions of their studies. During the pilot, the students received support for assessment, planning and implementation from instructors of the School of Vocational Teacher Education. We invested in high-quality RDI activities, for which the past year was a success. We carried out instruction-related interaction research that applies biometrics at the Haaga-Helia SalesLab. In our projects, we developed the work of teachers, rights of learners, as well as workplace and higher education pedagogy, among other things. In addition, we produced a total of 147 publications.
The year was successful financially as well. Commercially, our operations were the most active among the organisations of uppersecondary vocational education. We implemented diverse competence development, for which funding was provided by the Finnish National Agency for Education. The national “Parasta osaamista” project on the best competence was one of the significant educational modules. We also strengthened our position among companies as the demand for Train the Trainer education increased.
We continued exporting teacher education. Our cooperation with the Tshwane University of Technology in South Africa was productive. The fifth group of students in the teacher education programme graduated in the autumn. Our new programmes included the Train the Trainer programme aimed at trainers of teachers and the Pedagogical Management Master degree education targeting managers and directors of universities. We also participated in the project to develop education in the technology sector in Uruguay, organised by EduExcellence. Our partner in the project was the Valkeakoski Vocational College.