Teaching practice

As a department of the University of Helsinki’s Faculty of Educational Sciences, we are responsible for the basic and continuing education of teachers. The Viikki Teacher Training School is a school that educates teachers by organising teaching practice for students pursuing the qualifications of a class teacher, a subject teacher and a special needs teacher.

One of our core duties is to serve as a school that enables supervised teaching practice for student teachers of our University, the University of the Arts Helsinki and, to a lesser degree, other Finnish universities. Almost all of the teachers of our schools are teacher trainers, a qualification earned by completing a training module coordinated by the eNorssi network and/or the University of Helsinki teacher training schools. Many have also distinguished themselves by obtaining a doctoral degree as well as through involvement in research, textbook authorship as well as other development efforts and national curriculum work. The practice is divided into three main lines: subject teacher practice, class teacher practice and special needs teacher practice, whose content as well as annual scheduling and duration vary. Supervised teaching practice is regulated by training curricula that have been drawn up in collaboration with our parent faculty, the Faculty of Educational Sciences.

When necessary, development groups for subject teacher and special needs teacher practice as well as class teacher practice contribute to the development of class teacher and subject teacher practice as well as provide operational support. The groups are headed by the coordinators responsible for subject teacher and class teacher practice, who receive compensation for their coordinating duties. The group members will be paid compensation in the case of more extensive development of teaching practice.

Further information about teacher training is available on the shared website of the University of Helsinki teacher training schools.