Coming up: Nera Congress, closing seminar and e-learning course

The year 2014 has started very busy with Disseminating Inclusive Practices project. Although the project is now operating its last year, the themes and planned actions seem to get more and more interesting. At least I'm quite excited!

The checklist for inclusive learning environments (created in DIP -project) is presented in Nera congress 5th - 7th March, in Lillehammer, Norway. DIP -project actors have a poster session here. The theme of the congress, Education for sustainable development, sounds interesting and hopefully we will get new insights and thoughts for the rest of our project's active working time. The congress is a yearly meeting-place for educational researchers of all kinds of special interests in the Nordic countries.

DIP -project's closing seminar is held 8th May in Tampere and it is part of Tampere UAS, School of Vocational Teacher Education's international week (6th - 10th May). Closing seminar will include key note presentations, visits to different educational institutes and a workshop. More information and the program for the seminar will be published later.

Collaboration between Tampere University of Applied Sciences, Tampere University of Technology and Budapest University of Technology and Economics has led to an idea to create an e-learning course with the theme "Participatory e-learning". This course will be created, planned and implemented in collaboration with all universities mentioned above and the participants will be representing the same institutes. The planning and organizing will take place this spring and the course will be held in autumn 2014. More information about this will be given later.

Coventry 28.-30.1.2014

The third and final workshop in DIP -project took place two weeks ago. The feeling I had after the workshop was enthousiastic and inspired. We had some interesting covnersations and we got to know each other's universities more.

Photo: Our lovely host Christine Broughan in action.

The themes for the first workshop day were student well-being, model for pedagogical development, values and pedagogics, evaluation and feedback as well as the proncipals for activity-led learning.It was interesting to hear and discuss about the term "community of learners" that is been used in Coventry University: this community includes both the students and the staff members. It was also interesting to learn about the pedagogical development that has been and is still done in Coventry University. 

Ian Dunn, Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Student Experience)

 Tracy Cullis, Director of Student Services

Liisa Marttila, TAMK and Gurnam Singh, Principal Lecturer

Our Finnish delegation had the opportunity to discover the principals behind activity-led learning. We also met with students from Coventry University, who told some experiences about studying in Coventry University and by using activity-led learning. These students were also very active in different kinds of student support roles, as they worked as student advocates and proctors. Activity-led learning has among other things increased the inclusivity and engagement in studies.

We were challenged to do a "spaghetti and marshmellow" competition when we were introduced to activity-led learning. In the picture below you can see the winning team and their result. Congratulations Päivi Karttunen and Katja-Maria Miettunen!

The second workshop day was spent with the personnel from the Centr for Academic Writing (CAW). The support and activities that CAW provide both for Coventry University students and staff sounded really interesting and important.

Lisa Ganobcsik-Williams, Head of CAW, presenting the actions and principals of CAW unit. In the afternoon we had the oppertunity to participate in one of Coventry University's staff development course held by Jude Carrol with the theme: Teaching culturally diverse groups: emphasis on group work. This workshop day truly gave us something to think about in terms of our university's own practices in these fields. We also had time to see the physical learning environments around the university (photos below).

On the last day we discussed about multidiscliplinery study programmes and courses ("Hollie" was introduced to us), curriculum development, teachers' pedagogical development, peer tutoring (for both teachers and students) and evaluation. Some videomaterial from the last  day of the workshop will be published in the blog later.

Photo: Farewell dinner