Ilona Södervik – visiting researcher from Finland

Ilona Södervik work as a university lecturer at the Centre of University Pedagogics at the University of Helsinki. She is visiting Cecilia Lundholm and the Department of Teaching and Learning for a few weeks this summer. The purpose is manly to join a seminar and talk about her research.

Ilona Södervik
Ilona Södervik. Photo: Private.

Ilona Söderviks research concerns the development of expertise in the context of life sciences and university teacher education. She is particularly interested in questions that deal with the challenges related to conceptual understanding of complex phenomena – and the role of it in authentic case-processing and learning of practical, hands-on skills. 

Ilona is visiting Cecilia Lundholm at the Department of Teaching and Learning for a few weeks in June and July. Besides being a guest lecturer at the seminar about Conceptual Change and talk about her research, she will also work with some research papers and hopefully have a couple of days to enjoy Stockholm before she returns home.

 

How come you are collaborating with Cecilia Lundholm and 
the Department of Teaching and Learning?

– I have admired Cecilia’s work for long, because of her pioneering work within conceptual change research tradition. My own background is in biology and I find it inspiring that she has investigated conceptual change type of learning in a more unconventional research context, in social sciences. 

– I think that there are similar type of learning challenges in sustainability education context that we both are interested in. The practical impetus for the visit was our stimulating discussions last August at the Earli conference, where I acted as a discussant in the symposium that Cecilia organized.

– I know there is extremely high-level work at the Department of Teaching and Learning and I’m eager to learn more about the departments research. I also would like to meet and discuss with new and old colleagues there.

 

You have experience in both training student teachers and university teachers. What do you think is the biggest difference?

– University teachers are truly a unique group of teachers, notes Ilona. They typically are experts in their own discipline, but still today, many of them teach without formal pedagogical education and hence, have only a limited knowledge of pedagogical concepts and theories. Our studies have shown that they remarkably benefit even from short pedagogical trainings. 

– Finnish teacher students are super motivated and talented students, but like all learners, also they may have conceptions that hinder their potential. In our new project, we aim to foster teachers’ sustainability competences, and especially their futures thinking skills. All in all, supporting the development of both teacher groups’ adaptive expertise together with the sense of agency is crucial.

 

What will you talk about at the seminar in Conceptual Change when you are here?

– Within the conceptual change research tradition, the focus has been on natural sciences. That’s true also in my own studies. However, like I said, some researchers, like Cecilia, have broadened the spectrum. I think this is important, because for example our studies show that teachers’ conceptions of teaching and learning impact on their classroom observation and behaviour. 

– Additionally, there seems to be conceptual change challenges also in learning of sustainability-related issues. Actually, for many university students the concept of sustainability itself typically requires conceptual change! 

– Thus, at the seminar in Conceptual Change I will talk about the role of conceptual change type of learning related to the development of university teachers' pedagogical expertise and related to sustainability education.

Seminar with Ilona Södervik June 15th 
Ilona Söderviks profile-page