Biography
I work as a university lecturer in special education at the Department of Education. I am a qualified special education teacher and English subject teacher. I have worked as a special education teacher and teacher educator in both Finland and the Netherlands.
I currently teach separate studies for special education teachers and courses related to, among other things, learning support, multiprofessional collaboration and diversity in schools. I also supervise master's theses and doctoral dissertations.
I am also an expert member of the Matriculation Examination Board and a textbook author.
I am a docent in foreign language didactics at the Department of Teacher Education, at the University of Turku, specializing in differentiated language teaching.
In my teaching and research, I specialize in differentiated instruction and have published extensively on the subject also in professional literature aimed at teachers, including the book How to succeed in differentiation, co-authored with my colleague Jerker Polso https://www.hachettelearning.com/teaching-strategies/how-to-succeed-in-…
Research interests
My research interests:
differentiated instruction
learning support
early foreign language teaching
foreign language didactics
intercultural education
bilingual education
I mainly use qualitative research methods, especially interviews and visual methods.
I am currently leading a project funded by the Emil Aaltonen Foundation called "IDEAL - Longitudinal study of individual differences in early foreign language learning." The project focuses on the individuality of students in early foreign language teaching by following their English language studies from 1st grade to 3rd grade.