QUINT

Quality in Nordic Teaching.

The Nordic Centre of Excellence «Quality in Nordic Teaching» (QUINT) will focus on teaching quality in Nordic classrooms asking questions like: In what way does teaching make a difference to student learning and engagement across and within school subjects, with and without digital-rich support, in mono- and multi-cultural contexts across the Nordic countries? How can classroom videos be effective tools for teacher training? Does the use of video-technology and other digital systems generate potential for new forms of collaborative research between researchers and practitioners?

Often Nordic welfare states and their educational systems are described as homogeneous, but studies indicate that there are significant differences when researchers observe the practices of teachers and interactions in classrooms. There is a need for systematic and comparative research efforts to go deeper and broader into these patterns that also take into account the changing landscape of Nordic schools, such as the digitalization of learning processes and a stronger multicultural profile.

The Nordic Centre of Excellence QUINT is led by Professor Kirsti Klette from the University of Oslo.

Project team

Co-teamleader University of Helsinki:
Anna Slotte

Researchers at the University of Helsinki:
Maria Ahlholm
Markku Hannula
Gunilla Holm
Ida Hummelstedt-Djedou
Liisa Tainio
Harriet Zilliacus

Project activities

QUINT will bring together researchers from Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden. By doing large and small scale video-studies of classrooms at grades 5-7/8-10 and by logging on-line interactions we will be in a position to produce new insights into what characterizes teaching quality in Nordic classrooms. Video-technology provides researchers with rich data that they can analyze together and also do one or several new analyses of the empirical material.

Video-recordings are also proven to be effective learning resources for teachers professional learning, and QUINT will support several research projects that go deeper into how video data enhance the teaching quality of pre- and in-service teachers. An overarching theme for the Centre is the use of video in new forms of collaborative research that enable productive and concrete discussions about improvements in teaching practices.

Cooperation and funding

Funding
Nordforsk

Cooperation
University of Oslo (Norway)
Åbo Akademi University (Finland)
Akureyri University (Iceland)
Iceland University (Iceland)
Karlstad University (Sweden)
The University of Southern Denmark (Denmark)
University College Lillebælt/ Odense (Denmark)

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Contact information