Saija Tanhuanpää profile picture
Saija
Tanhuanpää
Open University and Continuous Learning
Doctoral Researcher, Department of Teacher Education (Rauma)
University Teacher

Contact

+358 29 450 3564
+358 50 524 3613
Seminaarinkatu 1
26100
Rauma

Areas of expertise

Early Childhood Education
Special Education
Participation
International Child Development Programme

Biography

My career as an Early Childhood Education teacher started already in 1981. One year later I started my ten-year lasting job as a chef in a Kindergarten. After my Special Education studies, I worked 17 years consulting Early Childhood Education teachers in the town of Rauma. I interrupted my special education teacher work for one year because I was establishing a Day Care Center to the neighbor municipality. After completing my Master´s degree I worked for two years in a national welfare project "Kaste" as a project planner. The purpose of that project was to develop psychosocial services to children under 18 years old in an area of four municipalities. In Rauma we succeed to develop a model of Family Center with a multi-professional group of professional workers in the area. The Family Center started to work three years after the project ended. During this project, my interest in children´s participation grew and I made my study plan to the University of Turku. Soon after the acceptance to the University, I got a place of a doctoral candidate. In another area in the welfare project "Kaste", in Parainen, there was introduced International Child Development Programme. I started to study the principles of ICDP and now I´m an educated ICDP teacher. Now I´m working as a University Teacher. Half of my work is Special Education and working as a teacher tutor to the students. The other 50 % is the work of Project Manager in a project of InnoPlay (2019-2021) which is a project of the Ministry of Culture and Education. It concerns developing Craft and Technology Education and Digitalization. I have coordinated teacher collaboration between the University of Turku and the University of Namibia in the Department of Teacher Education (2018-2019) due to the voluntary work I have made with Namibian students at the same time. My mixed-methods study (monography) concerning children's´, teachers´, and parents´ participation in Kindergarten is waiting until I finish the InnoPlay project.

Teaching

Early Childhood Special Education, International Child Development Programme, Craft and Technology Education and Digitalization

Research

Participation (monography, coming), International Child Development Programme (one municipality in the south-western part of Finland), Special Education (students´ reflective thinking)

Publications

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Outdoor Learning in Early Childhood Education : A Narrative Review (2021)

Techne Series: Research in Sloyd Education and Craft Science A
Lindfors Eila, Rönkkö Marja-Leena, Kiviranta Leena, Yliverronen Virpi, Tanhuanpää Saija, Grönman Satu
(Vertaisarvioitu alkuperäisartikkeli tai data-artikkeli tieteellisessä aikakauslehdessä (A1))