Keynote presentation at eLearning Korea 2018 conference, Seoul

1. Reform of teacher training on
software education in Estonia
Mart Laanpere, Ph.D.
Senior researcher at the Centre for Educational Technology
School of Digital Technologies, Tallinn University, Estonia

2. Population: 1.3 Million
Size: 45 227 km²
Capital: Tallinn (pop. 450 000)
Language: Estonian
Ethnic Estonians: 69%
Member of EU: since 2004
Information society index:
#1 in Europe (public e-services)
Strong ICT sector (employs 5,3%)
The startup nation: the highest
number of IT-startups, Skype
Home of EU IT Agency & NATO CDC
Educational statistics of Estonia
Number of schools: 530, including:
- 351 basic schools (grades 1-9)
- 143+21 high schools (grades 1-12 or 10-12)
50% of high schools have <100 students
Number of students (K-12): 143 713
Number of teachers (K-12): 14 581
International Olympiad of Informatics (ioi.org):
- Estonia participated 26 times since 1992
- 5 gold, 19 silver, 32 bronze medals

3. Estonian schools are among the best in Europe
Science Reading Mathematics
OECD PISA 2015
Estonia Finland Slovenia IrelandHolland
Success factors:
- Qualified teachers
- School autonomy
- Use of IT in learning
- Low impact of SES
- Smallest share of
low-performing
students

4. Coding as the second literacy in Soviet Union 1985

5. School informatics in Estonia
• 1991-1996: no curriculum, complete freedom, many schools continued to
teach programming, some tried new ideas (web, multimedia)
• National curriculum 1996: informatics as an optional subject in grades 10-11,
4 courses (similar to ECDL); IT as cross-curricular theme
• National curriculum 2001: no separate subject of informatics, IT and media as
cross-curricular theme, national test on ICT skills in Grade 9
• National curriculum 2011:
• 2 optional informatics courses (35h) with standardised curriculum in grades 5 and 8;
• 5 optional courses in grades 10-12 (data analysis, coding, robotics, geoinformatics, 3D)
• cross-curricular themes “Technology & Innovation” and “Knowledge environment”
• Proposed changes in 2020: turn towards software education
• Coding, robotics, digital safety, digital media topics in Grades 1 - 9
• Software project in Grade 11, preceded by 1-2 optional courses (Coding 1&2, Software
analysis and testing, Prototyping and design, Information systems)

6. The new informatics curriculum for K-12 (2020)
Grades
1 - 3
4 - 6
7 - 9
10
11
(12)
Coding Digital safety Digital art
Programming Digital hygiene Digital media
SW project Cybersecurity Web design Animation
Programming
SW engineering Prototyping
& design
SW analysis
& testing
Information
systems
Collaborative software project, teams of 4-6 students
(1-2 programmers, tester, UI designer, project manager, PR)

7. Informatics curriculum change dimensions: the pendulum
Input-based
Independent subject Integrated
Pragmatic
Outcome-based
Theory-driven
1986 1996 2001 2011 2020

8. Informatics teacher training today
• Since 2002, informatics teachers are trained according to European
Bologna system: 3 years BA in ICT + 2 years MA in Teacher Education
• Tallinn University: MA Teacher of Informatics and School IT manager
• University of Tartu: MA Teacher of Mathematics and Informatics
• Problems:
• Attracts only a few candidates; teacher’s profession is not popular – while less
than 10 persons enrol to informatics teacher MA program, 1000+ enrols to BA IT
• High drop-out rate (the students are working full time while studying)
• Less than half of the graduates actually become informatics teachers
• Study programme is not relevant to new informatics curriculum in schools
• Graduates cannot find full position (schools are small, informatics is elective)

9. Survey of schools about informatics teachers
• Survey was conducted in all basic (K-9) and high schools in May 2018
• Research problem: the current state of informatics as a subject and the
need for informatics teachers
• Responded by 22% of all schools in Estonia (28% of high schools), mostly
by principals and informatics teachers
• Results:
• Only 2 high schools offer all 5 informatics courses, 9 schools offers none (reason:
no qualified teacher can be found)
• 80% of high schools have at least 1 compulsory informatics course
• 46% schools would hire immediately a part-time informatics teacher
• 38% of schools have hired an unqualified teacher
• Only 2% of high schools have no plans for offering additional informatics courses
• IT hobby circle supervisors are wanted more than informatics teachers by schools

10. 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%
Meie kool vajab juurde täiskoormusega kvalifitseeritud informaatikaõpetajat
Meie kool vajab juurde osakoormusega informaatikaõpetajat
Meie koolis on sobivad õpetajad olemas, kuid nad vajaksid informaatikaõpetaja diplomit
Meie koolis on kvalifitseeritud informaatikaõpetajad olemas, kuid nad vajaksid täiendõpet
Meil leiduks sobiv inimene, kes võiks õppida informaatikaõpetajaks Tartu või Tallinna ülikoolis
Meie kool vajab juurde IT-valdkonna huviringi juhendajat
Meie koolis pakutavate informaatikakursuste arv kasvab lähitulevikus
Mõned informaatikakursused on meie koolis õpilastele kohustuslikud juba praegu
Kohustuslike informaatikakursuste arv meie koolis kasvab lähitulevikus
Informaatikakursuste arv meie kooli õppekavas kasvaks, kui leiduks kvalifitseeritud õpetaja
Meie koolis pole plaanis informaatikaõpet laiendada
Õpetajakoolituse magistriõppe kontakttundides saaks meie kooli õpetaja osaleda vaid nädalavahetustel (R, L,
P)
Informaatikaõpetajate täienduskoolitus peaks toimuma üksnes nädalavahetustel või koolivaheaegadel
Jah, kindlasti Pigem nõustun Nii ja naa Pigem ei nõustu Ei, kindlasti mitte
Our school would hire full-time inf.teacher
Our school would hire part-time inf.teacher
Our school has unqualified inf.teacher
Our school has qualified teacher, who needs CPD
We could find a candidate to pursue qualification
Our school needs IT hobby circle supervisor
Our school plans to add new IT courses
Our school has compulsory informatics courses
Our school plans to add compulsory IT courses
New IT courses cannot be added without teacher
Our school does not plan to expand IT courses
Our teacher can attend training only on weekends
CPD for inf.teachers suits only on weekends
Agree Rather agree Neither Rather disagree Disagree

11. Round table workshop
• A round table workshop was organised in August 2018 to propose
solutions
• Ten participants: from two universities, informatics teachers
association, ministry of education, agency for IT education, teachers
union, schools, IT-industry, teachers’ weekly newspaper
• Method: Nominal Group Technique (structured brainstorm)
• Presentation of a concept paper, problem statement, open discussion (1 hr)
• Silent individual writing the key ideas (15 min)
• Presenting, explaining, synthesising and grouping ideas (1 hr)
• Voting
• Concluding discussion

12. Ideas from NGT workshop
PROMOTION FLEXIBILITY COMBINATION PRACTICE IT SECTOR ALTERNATIVES
Address new
target groups:
older career
shifters
Attract high
school students:
early teaching
program
Promote teacher’s
career to 3rd year
BA students:
SuperCourse
Make studies
more accessible
for different
target groups
thru e-learning
Teacher training
cannot be
delivered
100% online
Keep InfTeach
as major, offer
any other subject
additionally as
a minor
Combine InfTeach
with Educational
Technology MA
New MA: teacher
of multiple subjects
(2-3 majors)
Set up a nation-
wide network
of mentors for
school practice
Conduct practice
before theoretical
lectures in teacher
education
Classroom practice
cannot be replaced
by videos
Attract IT-
specialists to
teach part-
time
Offer teacher
education
teasers to
TallinnTech
Support high
school students
who like to teach
Engage student
enterprises in
teaching coding

13. International experience: breaking the
pattern of traditional teacher training
• TALIS 2013: “Teachers who report participation in professional development
activities involving individual and collaborative research, observation visits to
other schools, or a network of teachers, are more likely to use active student-
centred practices, such as practices that involve small groups, projects involving
ICT ”
• Innovative forms of teacher education (Vuorikari & Kampylis, 2018):
• Empowering learners to innovate & teach others: Young Coaches, Creathon
• Innovative school as a learning organisation: Leerkracht.nl, Innokas.fi, SELFIE
• Innovative formats of delivering the PD: MediaCoach, BlendedPD, MOOC
• Innovative partnerships to create the PD: Benchmarking, FYXXLAB MakerSpace, Oxfam
• Innovation within teachers’ networks: iKlase.lt, eTwinning
• Innovative degree programmes: Laboratory for future education (ES), DigitalTeacher (FI)

14. Living Lab: school-university partnership for
organisational learning and innovation
• Sustainable cooperation between
schools, research labs and other
stakeholders
• Co-designing new learning methods
and a research process
• Collecting data to establish evidence
of impact
• Scaling up research and innovation
Innovation
Research
Learning

15. INVENTING
INVESTIGATING
UPSCALING
SUSTAINING
Co-Creation in Research Projects
Engaging Stakeholder early in
research
Project Days
Open Days for local schools
Trialing new teaching methods
Trialing new research
instruments
In-Service Training Projects
Teachers as Researchers
Teachers and Museum Staff designing for
learning outside the classroom
Students participating in project days
Teacher Training for using robots in Math
Teacher Community Platform
eDidaktikum
Robomathematics
Teacher Community

16. Action plan
• New informatics teacher MA study programme (major) with upgraded
contents, possibility to add ANY other subject as minor
• Teacher of multiple subjects MA (multiple majors, including IT)
• Interdisciplinary software project ELU (6 ECTS) as compulsory course
• Making MA studies more flexible (for moms and full-time workers)
• Promoting informatics teacher’s career in wider circle
• New partnerships: community of mentors, industry links, startup sector
• High school students as teachers: early teaching programme

17. Conclusions
• Removing coding and more theoretical computing topics from school
curriculum 20 years ago and making informatics a subject of low
priority, it is difficult to teaching higher-level informatics in all schools –
mainly due to the lack of qualified teachers
• Even if our maximum targets in increasing informatics teacher
education will be reached, it will take 6-8 years to meet the demand
for informatics teachers in Estonian schools
• Involving wider community (students, parents, hobbyists, IT industry)
might help to make the change faster and more sustainable
• Radical change of formats and contents of teacher education is needed