More on Scandinavian Academic Success

[Bob Schaeffer <bobschaeffer@earthlink.net>]

U.S. EDUCATORS SEEK LESSONS FROM SCANDINAVIA
HIGH-SCORING NATIONS ON AN INTERNATIONAL EXAM SAY SUCCESS STEMS FROM 
AUTONOMY, PROJECT-BASED LEARNING
eSchool News -- March 3, 2008
by Meris Stansbury

A delegation led by the Consortium for School Networking (CoSN) recently 
toured Scandinavia in search of answers for how students in that region 
of the world were able to score so high on a recent international test 
of math and science skills. They found that educators in Finland, 
Sweden, and Denmark all cited autonomy, project-based learning, and 
nationwide broadband internet access as keys to their success.

What the CoSN delegation didn’t find in those nations were competitive 
grading, standardized testing, and top-down accountability—all staples 
of the American education system.

As CoSN officials explained during a webcast held Feb. 27, the 
delegation traveled to Helsinki, Stockholm, and Copenhagen to talk with 
the ministries of education in each country and exchange ideas with 
local business and school leaders.

The group’s goal was to learn how these countries are approaching 
education, reaching students, involving teachers, and implementing 
policy. Specifically, CoSN wanted to see how strategic investment in 
information and communications technology (ICT) was affecting education 
in the region.

As in the United States, most Scandinavian classrooms are connected to 
the internet, students and teachers have access to computers, and there 
is an ample supply of online learning resources and virtual-schooling 
programs. However, according to Keith Krueger, CoSN’s chief executive, 
ICT in that area of the world “is supportive of programs, rather than a 
driving force, and is viewed as important primarily to ensure students’ 
success in their future careers.”

Kati Tuurala, Microsoft’s education manager in Finland—whose students 
scored the highest in both math and science on the latest Program for 
International Student Assessment (PISA)—said there is a “huge change in 
the knowledge economy because of the global market. In order to ensure 
future success, we need to know how to go from good to great.”

She credits Finland’s success to its major reforms of the 1970s, which 
included an emphasis on primary education for everyone in the country. 
“That’s the reason for our present-day success,” Tuurala said.

In all three countries, students start formal schooling at age seven 
after participating in extensive early-childhood and preschool programs 
focused on self-reflection and social behavior, rather than academic 
content. By focusing on self-reflection, students learn to become 
responsible for their own education, delegates said.

Barbara Stein, manager of external partnerships and advocacy for the 
National Education Association, said Scandinavian countries “encourage 
philosophical thought at a very young age. … Grading doesn’t happen 
until the high-school level, because they believe grading takes the fun 
out of learning. They want to inspire continuous learning.”

In fact, educators and policy makers in all three countries view 
accountability and assessment far differently than in the United States, 
delegates said. In contrast to the focus on quantitative measures and 
standardized testing found in No Child Left Behind (NCLB), Scandinavian 
officials rely on a system that produces highly competent teachers who 
use their professional expertise to work with each student and develop 
individualized learning plans.

“My teacher” and “the teacher” are terms of respect, not only when used 
by the students, but also by the school leader or headmaster. The 
teacher is most often viewed as a mentor, someone who has both knowledge 
and wisdom to impart and plays a key role in preparing students for 
adulthood.

In Finland, for instance, teaching is one of the most highly venerated 
professions in the country—and only one in eight applicants to 
teacher-education programs are accepted. All teachers there have a 
master’s degree.

Unlike in the United States, which has taken the opposite approach, 
Scandinavian countries have established national curriculum standards 
but have set fairly broad mandates, letting authority trickle down as 
close to the classroom as possible. Local school officials have the 
flexibility to provide education services according to their students’ 
unique needs and interests, as long as the basic policy framework is 
followed.

Therefore, teachers are extremely autonomous in their work. So are 
students. For example, internet-content filtering in the three countries 
is based largely on a philosophy of student responsibility. Internet 
filters rarely exist on school computers, other than for protection from 
viruses or spam. As a school librarian in Copenhagen said, “The students 
understand that the computers are here for learning.”

Julie Walker, executive director of the American Association of School 
Librarians, said these countries see students as having “the filter in 
their heads.”

Walker also noted that while “the U.S. holds teachers accountable for 
teaching, here they hold the students accountable for learning.”

One school that delegates visited in Copenhagen, Katrinedalsskolen, has 
students become independent learners working across curricular areas. 
Students stay with one teacher or mentor from grades one through nine, 
moving freely about the building—which is centered around the school 
library, or “pedagogical center.”

Assessment

In the Danish system, the notion of grading is a foreign concept, with 
competitive grading postponed until high school. Students are judged in 
relation to their own growth, rather than that of others, and they are 
continuously evaluated. Teachers also write individual learning plans 
for each student after these evaluations.

Project-based learning begins in the first grade, and teachers work with 
students to structure their learning through a process described by one 
educator as “dialogue and trust.” Assessment is achieved primarily 
through a dialogue with each student, as is communication with parents 
about their child’s progress.

Exams tend to be limited as exit criteria to grade nine, along with a 
project-based assignment that requires students to plan, research, 
present, and create around a broad theme.

Finland, which does not use standardized exams, reformed its educational 
system in the 1990s to remove the European school inspectorate system of 
accountability. According to Walker, “Students use progressive inquiry 
and are educated through questions and problem solving.”

The change occurred because teachers felt the system stifled them and 
hindered creativity in the classroom.

One school in Helsinki, Aurinkolahti School, believes that learning 
should let children “have fun and know the joy of life.” Educational 
technology is used to create a community of learners who build knowledge 
together.

ICT abroad

It’s important to note that in all three countries, neither abject 
poverty nor ostentatious wealth are manifest, webcast participants 
heard. This is owing to strong traditions of social programs that 
provide young people and their families with a robust support system. 
“Therefore,” explained Krueger, “there is no great digital divide like 
in the U.S.”

About 98 percent of homes in all three countries have computers and 
broadband internet connections. The communities in all three countries 
also frequently have media centers where students and teachers can 
receive help from qualified professionals.

Because of this high degree of home connectivity, Sweden has decided 
that the government is not in charge of implementing technology in its 
schools.

So, home connectivity does not necessarily translate into widespread, 
sophisticated use of ICT in schools. Said Krueger, “We did not hear 
expressions about the need to make a deep-level change in the nature and 
structure of schooling in the three countries … nor did we get the sense 
that ICT was provoking efforts to reconstruct the nature and role of 
school in an extensively wired society.”

However, connectivity for all schools is still a goal in Denmark, and 
its widespread implementation is encouraged through district 
competitions for winning technology prizes. Denmark also has a national 
social-networking portal and is a leader in terms of Web 2.0 applications.

Yet, none of the three countries has implemented classroom technology to 
the scale of the United States. Said Ann Flynn, director of educational 
technology for the National School Boards Association, “Technology is 
less visible in all classrooms—technology such as whiteboards, student 
response systems, students laptops—they’re just more focused on personal 
productivity.”

Technology tools, such as computers, have been given primarily to 
teachers as a way of supporting their instruction—but there are few 
student-focused ICT initiatives, such as one-to-one computing programs.

Nobody’s perfect

Tuurala said that Finland, though ranked highest on the PISA exam, still 
“doesn’t have a clear vision as a nation as to what constitutes our 
national education policy. We need to ask ourselves, ‘What do we need in 
order to succeed in this global employability market?’”

A reoccurring theme in all countries was the need for policy makers and 
education administrators to have a clear vision of how technology can 
improve teaching and learning.

“We heard this in nearly every meeting, whether it was being identified 
as the reason for a success strategy, or its absence highlighted as a 
core reason for lack of progress,” said Krueger.

He continued: “There appears to be less focus on the use of ICT for 
innovation. Clearly, it takes strong and visionary leadership to promote 
new uses of technology or other strategies, when you have succeeded with 
traditional high-stakes measures.”

The webcast concluded by emphasizing that even though these three 
countries are succeeding in student achievement, they also grapple with 
some of the same questions encountered in the U.S.—how to ensure 
high-quality learning, how to use technology more effectively, how to 
gain digital maturity, and how to reenergize the use of technology in 
schools on a continual basis.

Link: Consortium for School Networking http://www.cosn.org/

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