Laura Hirsto

Professor Hirsto’s main research topics include the study of learning environments from the perspectives of learning processes and teaching and pedagogy. In recent years, Hirsto has led an extensive project funded by Business Finland related to learning analytics and learning analytics pedagogy, which has studied the learning of basic education students, university students and vocational education students with the help of diverse learning analytics data. The project has built learning environments that support self-regulated learning through a variety of pedagogical approaches (such as phenomenon-based learning and flipped classroom). This study has been built on intensive collaboration with researchers of computer science and educational sciences, and it has utilized institutional-level data and traditional log data in conjunction with extended learning analytics data, as well as observation of teaching and learning contexts and interviews with teachers and pupils/students.

Hirsto worked as a university lecturer at the University of Helsinki’s Faculty of Theology and Faculty of Education for numerous years. Since 2015, she has worked mainly in the School of Applied Educational Sciences and Teacher Education at the University of Eastern Finland, first on the Savonlinna campus and then on the Joensuu campus. In 2020, he was elected as the Professor of Education at the Faculty of Philosophy of the University of Eastern Finland. He holds the title of docent in educational psychology at the University of Helsinki.