We aim to answer important questions like these:
- In what ways does teaching make a difference in student learning and engagement across subject areas?
- How does it make a difference in mono-lingual as well as multi-lingual contexts across the Nordic countries?
- How can classroom videos be used as effective resources for preparing teachers’ pre-service and enhancing in-service teachers’ professional development?
- How can video technology and other digital resources generate new forms of collaborative research between researchers and practitioners?
Nordic schools – one practice?
Nordic welfare states and their educational systems are often described as homogeneous, but studies indicate that significant differences emerge when researchers observe the actual practices of teachers and interactions between teachers and students in classrooms.
There is a need for systematic and comparative research efforts that dig deeper and more broadly into these patterns. Research should also take into account the changing context and landscape of Nordic schools, such as the digitalization of learning processes and the ever-growing multicultural profiles of schools.
QUINT addresses these issues by bringing together excellent researchers from Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden. By conducting video studies on both a large and a small scale in classrooms from grades 5–7 and 8–10 and by logging on-line, digital interactions between students and teachers, QUINT’s researchers will produce new insights into the characteristics of high-quality teaching in Nordic classrooms.
Financing
QUINT is financed by NordForsk as a Nordic Centre of Excellence within the program Education for Tomorrow. Additional funding partners include the Academy of Finland, the Swedish Research Council, the Research Council of Norway, the Ministry of Education, Science and Culture (Iceland), and the Danish Agency for Science and Higher Education.
Video of the Centre Director Professor Kirsti Klette speaking about QUINT's research focus.
