As I look back on this brief period of time that we have studied thus far, I'm glad to say that I have been able to bring back something that I have learned from my studies straight to my classroom. I in fact started my TOK course by having the students do their own learning related Pecha Kuchas. Those turned out to be great and also very popular among the students themselves. They noticed that this in fact is a great way to learn of one another.

I also had them start a reflective journal in which they posted some reflections from each lesson. Now that the second period is over, I got to read the journals which were really great and allowed me to see how they viewed the course.



The image below pictures the IB Learner Profile. This is what the IB philosophy would like to see in the students. I had my students ponder on their own learner profile based on this image and they seemed to have seen themselves in many of the descriptors here as they had reflected on that in their journals. 'Risk-takers' was a popular one.

We have now finished the first part of our studies and I look back on that with mixed feelings. Most of those eminate from the fact that I have had to do this simultaneously with work which has made team work and attending virtual classrooms during the working day quite a challenge. However, I feel like I have learned a lot and I have gotten to be a part of a wonderful group connecting over Skype, Adobe Connect and email.

What I have brought back from our lessons and meetings is a positive approach toward teaching AND learning with constantly developing methods. The world is in perpetual change, therefor the tools that we use need to follow suite.

I have been teaching Theory of Knowledge in the International Baccalaureate Diploma Program while doing my teacher studies and hence have  been able to bring ideas and tasks from those to my own classroom at school. The one thing that has turned out to be a wonderful tool for reflective thought as well as critical thinking (the essence of the TOK course) has been the Pecha Kucha assignment. I had my students start the course off with their own Pecha Kucha presentations in which they reflected on their own learning and I have to say that I learned more about them during those than I have during an entire year. They were truly insightful and wonderful.

home page

"The construction of identities uses building materials from history, from geography, from biology, from productive and reproductive institutions, from collective memory and from personal fantasies, from power apparatuses and religious revelations. But individuals, social groups, and societies process all these materials, and rearrange their meaning, according to social determinations and cultural projects that are rooted in their social structure, and in their space/time framework."

Castells, M. 1997. The power of identity. Oxford: Blackwell.



Welcome to my blog Constructing  Teacher Identity. Here you will be able to read about my new journey into learning how to teach. I will try and reflect on the process of learning about education, pedagogy as well as the act of teaching itself.

When I first started my studies at the university of Jyväskylä many, many years ago, I was determined never to become a teacher. Why is it that I remember that vow so well right now? First lesson learned; never say never.

The greatest impetus and inspiration for my newly found desire to become a teacher comes from teenagers, more specifically IB students at the Sotkamo High School. I have gotten to know many of them now in my current job of international relations coordinator and have realized how gratifying it can be to acces those young minds through teaching. Call me naive or an incurable romantic, I just may want to make a difference through constructing my teacher identity.


I am priviliged in being able to take part in the vocational teacher education in Oulu. I am equally privileged in being able to call myself a member of our very competent iVet 2013 group Dewey!

This is the first task given to the Deweys; What is TLA?

Group Dewey Task:

Teaching activities -> learning activities (TLA)

Define TLA :
University of Hong Kong Office of Education Development and Gateway Education definition is:
"These are simply any activity which stimulates, encourages or facilitates learning of one or more intended learning outcomes. The emphasis is on the word activity and it is important to ensure that the TLA is appropriate for the intended learning outcome and any subsequent assessment tasks-see Constructive Alignment section. Therefore, TLA's should be specifically aimed at activating the action verbs used in the ILO's. They can be as diverse as lectures, field trips, role play, internships, exchanges, discussions etc. The only limits are your imagination and creativity!"

Opetus- ja oppimisteko (TLA in Finnish)

Jyväskylän yliopisto, Koppa:
Karjalainen, A. 1997