Functional pedagogy

Haaga-Helia is a private university of applied sciences that provides education for professionals and specialists in business and services.

Competence criteria

As a vocational teacher, I use and develop learning-centered tutoring, teaching and assessment methods, collaboratively with industry representatives, students and colleagues.

• My actions are determined by the competence my students need in the world of work.
• I am familiar with the concept and practices of personalised vocational education and I design study processes which are personalised and negotiable.
• I assess my students through tutoring, and on the basis of their competence.
• I am proficient in tutoring, teaching and assessment in different types of learning environments.

Competence demonstration

Familiarize yourself broadly with the concept of functional pedagogy implemented in the field of education and its modes of operation. For example, art-based methods (e.g. drama, music, visual arts, writing, light and film, dance), adventure and nature education, exercise, play, gamification, cooperative learning, group guidance methods and so on.

Familiarize yourself with the background and starting points of functional pedagogy by studying relevant pedagogical literature. If possible, familiarize yourself with practical activities.

Choose a context in which you apply the functional pedagogy of your choice. The context can be, for example, a project, course, part of a degree or training for working life.

Describe the exercises, techniques and methods used in functional pedagogy. Apply the approach of functional pedagogy in the context of your choice with pedagogical reasoning.

Analyse the successfulness of your experiments. What was successful and why, what was inspiring, what left you thinking, what would you change, what would you like to know more about?

Document your findings and experiments. Try using methods such as image, sound, movement, poetry, comics or animation in the documentation. Review the decisions you made using vocational education research and pedagogical literature.

Assess your own competence in relation to professional competence requirements and competence criteria.

Reflect on how you will develop your competence in relation to the use of functional pedagogy in the future.