Getting ready for workshop in Coventry!

The final adjustments for the workshop are now under development, and the program can be published soon. The themes for this workshop are: 

• continuing education for staff - inclusivity, peer tutoring
• group work - inclusivity, diversity of learners
• curriculum development, teacher identity
• leveling and assessment - values and pedagogy
• peer tutoring - inclusive staff, academic advisors

The questions that TAMK and Tampere University participants are interested are:

Continuing education for staff –  inclusivity, peer tutoring

1.   How to get staff motivated in developing their (pedagogical) competence and their own work? Are people ready to change their work and working methods, and how to support the motivation for change?

2.   How does the university support implementing new working methods and creating new teaching cultures (for example salary, technical systems or arrangements etc.)?

3.   Is there an obligatory pedagogical course or studies in Coventry University that new university teachers should participate and if there is, what does this contain and how is it organized? (organized by Coventry University)

4.    University teachers’ pedagogical competence: does Coventry University require pedagogical studies from the university teachers?

Group work – inclusivity, diversity of learners

5.    What kind of operations and practices has Coventry University created to be able to operate in such a multicultural and inclusive environment, including both students and staff?

Curriculum development (and continuing education), teacher identity

6.    How does the curriculum define the work of university teachers?

7.    Describe the background and implementing the process of curriculum work in Coventry University in general?

8.    How do you define participatory pedagogy and does Coventry University support this (and if it does, in what ways)?

Leveling and assessment – values and pedagogy

9.    coming up later...

Peer tutoring – inclusive staff, academic advisors

10.  What kind of peer tutoring practices and models for teachers do you have in Coventry University?

 

Happy New Year 2014!

Happy New Year to all DIP -project's partners and actives! Last year was made of interesting and inspiring things. Luckily we had a chance to have a little break during Christmas time and New Year, and now the project team and partners are ready to continue the work with inclusivity and participatory pedagogy.

The project team and project participants from Tampere University of Applied Sciences and Tampere University are now preparing for the next benchmarking workshop in Coventry University. The workshop will take place 28th - 30th January. The themes for this workshop will be 1) Continuing (pedagogical) education for university staff - inclusivity, peer tutoring 2) Group work - inclusivity, diversity of learners 3) Curriculum development, teacher identity 4) Leveling and assessment - values and pedagogy 5) Peer tutoring - inclusive staff, academic advisors. During the next few weeks the themes will be specified and some information exchange will be made between the Finnish and British participants. It now seems, that this will be the last benchmarking workshop in DIP-project: the rest of the project time - which by the way might be until the end of this year - will be spent in terms of promoting the rooting of the results and practices created in the project.

Second Benchmarking Workshop held in Budapest 25.-27.11.2013

Our workshop took place in Budapest University of Technology and Economics (main building in the picture above, other building below). The surroundings for our workshop was excellent and we were very well taken care of. The discussions were interesting and it is always useful to compare and discuss some "hot topics" concerning university pedagogics and curriculum design anddevelopment.

On the fist day we introduced our universities a little bit and of course we also started to discuss the workshop themes as well. The themes for the first day were curriculum work, design, implementation and development.

 On the second day the discussions continued with themes: pedagogical competence, participatory pedagogy and fostering creativity and innovativeness and supporting international students.

The last day was spent in terms of exploring the paths to becoming a vocational teacher in Finland and in Hungary as well as closing discussions and developing future project ideas.

The collaboration between Tampere University of Applied Sciences, Tampere University of Technology and Budapest University of Technology and Economics continues with the workshop themes in our home institutions. After final exchange if information, knowledge and good practices, all the partner universities can then self analyse what practices to furher develop and what kind of actions to take in the future. We hope to see as many of the Budapest colleagues as possible in project's closing seminar in May 2014 in Tampere.

 Photos: Pekka Kalli

Participatory pedagogy and fostering creativity and innovativeness

  There is a tension between Creativity and Innovation. They are like two Dogs in their play: sometimes it is hard to say if they are fighting or playing a rough play or game. Some times it seems for me that we can not see world in all it´s colours. Of course there is allways a realm of economics and necessities. But there is and should be also the realm of culture, art and freedom to create.

But how to foster creativity and innovativeness? I attended three years of higher education project, which is called "Campus Conexus". The central result of the project closer to the idea of participatory learning and engagement to learning. It is not a narrow pedagogical theory but a broader idea of ​​democracy and people's ability to develop themselves, their society and culture. This pedagogy has its roots in John Dewey's "partisipatory pedagogy" and Freire and bell hooks' "engaged pedagogy ". Also, Bereiter´s and Scardamalia´s thoughts support the idea that genuine participation in community activities enables an in-depth knowledge and adoption of individuals and groups in a creative exchange of information and knowledge production.

Student engagement has been suggested as an indicator of quality of teaching. In turn, work engagement models among teachers appear to emphasize the significance of a sense of vigour, dedication and absorption as the key elements of job satisfaction. So far, however, teacher engagement has not received much attention in the context of higher education. Therefore, if engagement is seen as a predictor of students’ success in their studies, it can be assumed to be a good descriptor of teachers’ work engagement.