Environmental factors that affect Finnish children’s thinking : Analyses of Finnish teachers’ views of lessons

What factors constrain Finnish children’s high level of mathematical and scientific literacy? This study examined Finnish teacher’s views of lessons by using “video interview methods”. Finnish elementary school teachers viewed the video of a Japanese 3rd grade mathematics lesson, answered the questionnaire about similarities and differences between Finnish and Japanese lesson, and discussed in a group of 2-3 members the characteristics of both countries’ mathematics lessons and their future directions. The results showed that the teachers seemed to have the impression of similarity between the lessons of two countries in regards to introducing daily materials in mathematics lessons and solving a problem in different ways. On the contrary, the Finnish teachers expressed that they deal with various types of problems in a single lesson, and that they introduce pair or group activities in a mathematics lesson more often than in Japanese one. Finnish teachers’ views of children as individuals as wells as their views of educational goals as utilization of acquired knowledge and skills in everyday situations and as development of peer relations are considered to affect their construction of mathematics lessons and types of children’s activities involved in the lessons