Coming soon! International Week for Non-Teaching Staff 2013.

The fifth annual International Week for Non-Teaching Staff 2013 is approaching fast! The final preparations and finishing touches are getting done and the participants are counting days, some even hours till their arrival. The week begins in afternoon of Monday the 27th of May and lasts till Friday the 31st. The main topic of the week is "Intercultural Communication Skills", which should be interesting for everyone in the globalizing world of today!

The chaos under control.

Most of the programme at TAMK will be organized at modern premises of the Y-Kampus. Participants from all over Europe will work together and share their knowledge from their own expertise areas. The course will have seven different department expert groups: Library Services, Communications and Marketing Services, Financial Services, Project Management Services, Human Resources Services, Student Employment Services and last but not the least the IT Services.

Y-Kampus premises getting ready for the week.

The total amount of over fifty course attendees from 14 countries will work within their expertese group and with everyone else as well. Other organized events in the programme are for example a daytrip of work and Finnish culture to Maisansalo and a visit to Tampere University of Technology. Exciting!

 

The way we want our international guests to feel!

First things first.

Materials, what materials?

Text and photos: Panu Alanko

New Factory Open finalized the Demola season

The event called New Factory Open gathered several hundred people yesterday to see the best Demola projects from Finland and abroad, the New Factory start-ups and the speakers from different innovation sectors. The day climaxed with a pitching competition of three Demola teams that were selected to the finals out of all Demola teams the day before. The winner of the best Demola team award was chosen by an international jury.

A bunch of TAMK students have been working in Demola projects this season and TAMK was strongly presented also in the teams that made their way to the final competition.

The winners of the best Demola team award, including also two TAMK media students:
Rosanna Salminen and Erika Sangah Kim.

One of the three teams in the final competition was working on a project called "Visualize it!" for Yle, the national broadcasting company. The international TAMK group members, Joanne NH Wong, Lubos Rezler and Martin Kleinberns were happy for being a part of Demola community. After the last pitching, only one thing needs to be done with the project: to present their concept for Yle representatives in the headquarters in Helsinki.

The succesful Visualize it! team created a concept called Uncle Onni for Yle to attract young people. 

TAMK exchange student Martin Kleinberns giving a pitch

The event attracted lot of people to see what's going on in the innovation scene

 Changseok Kang ,TAMK exchange student in Chemical Engineering, and  Réka Hajdu-Rahkama,
TAMK degree student in Environmental Engineering, were happy to present their Demola project.

This was the end of Demola Spring Season, but applying for Demola Summer starts at week 24. If you, TAMK degree or exchange student, are interested to work in a multidisciplinary team to create innovative solutions for real-world needs, check out the Demola page for more information.

Text and photos: Kaisa Merilahti, International Services

International week for Nursing 2013!



International week for Nursing 2013 with the subject Family Nursing and Cultural Diversity of Nursing began on Monday with a cheerful performance by the TAMKvoice choir of staff and students.



TAMKvoice -choir with conductor Risto Hiltunen at the welcome event

Guests from six different countries gathered at TAMK's Kuntokatu 4 premises and started getting to know each other and the topics of the week. The guests will be having presentations about their own countries' interesting health care or nursing topics like Homeless attendance in Madrid or Nutrition in Kenya. The other events of the week consist of for example lectures, student presentations and a visit to the Tampere University Hospital.



Guests of the Internation week for Nursing



Text: Tuula Härkönen & Panu Alanko

Photos: Tuula Härkönen

Erasmus IP: See me! - Creative methods with youngsters at TAMK.

Erasmus Intensive Programme for Social Services studies has begun on Monday the 13th of May. In total, there are over 60 participants, both teachers and students from six countries: Lithuania, Spain, Hungary, Germany, Netherlands and Finland.

See Me! Erasmus IP participants during the introduction day

During the two week programme the participants will get to know each other, work and study together and familiarize themselves a little with Finland and it's culture as well. In the programme there are several different workshops, visits and a lot of international teamwork!

Course participants prepared some special treats and drinks as a greeting from their region for the students and teachers of other countries. How nice!

See Me! -learning style. Fun!

Teamwork for the win!

Students and treats from Sevilla

Here in Finland we have this thing called Letkajenkka

Text: Panu Alanko
Photos: Sanna-Maria Anttila & Eveliina Anttila

Exchange students visited a local school

Geting Zhu from Nanjing Forestry University discussing with the pupils in their English class.

A group of curious exchange students left TAMK for one day to visit Ylöjärvi Upper Secondary School. The exchange students took part in lessons, gave presentations to the pupils in different subjects and got familiar with the Finnish school life.

Nursing student Juan Riesgo Martín presented his home country in the Spanish lesson.

The exchange students appreciated the possibility to see how the school system and teaching methods differ from their home countries. The Finnish education system has been ranked among the best ones in the world but the students were critical enough to make their own opinions. Here you can find some comments from the feedback after the visit:

"I learn that study is not limited into some teaching ways .We should try more open methods that inspire students to learn instead of pushing them."

"Through the class, I felt Finnish school is too free but Japanese school is too strict and both of them has weak point to teach social rule."

"The most surprising thing for me became an appearance of this school. I understand that for Finnish people maybe it's ordinary but I was really amazed by the size, externality and facilities of school. Comparing to the Russian usual secondary school it is a palace. Also a big difference lies in relations between teacher and student. In your country teachers always refer to children and youngsters as to equal persons, don't show any superiorities and special rights which students don't have."

"The way of educating is quite different then in Belgium. We have lessons of 50 minutes and the students have their own classroom. Everybody follows the same lessons but if you want to do more science or more languages then you can change it."

"Next time I wish I can go to the sauna in high school with students there, haha..."

Ylöjärvi Upper Secondary School students were proud to present their brand new premises to the visitors.

The visit was a part of Erasmus in Schools project  that implements CIMO's (Centre for International Mobility) national program. The goal of the project is to offer the exchange students a chance to get to know a new aspect of Finnish society and culture, but also present their own country. Same time the visitors offer an international experience for the local pupils and encourage them to speak foreign languages.

Text: Kaisa Merilahti, International Services
Photos: Panu Alanko, Kaisa Merilahti

The first International Week for Language Teachers was a success

Tampere University of Applied Sciences (TAMK) and JAMK University of Applied Sciences organised together the first International Week for Language Teachers with the theme "Innovative Methods in Language Teaching and Learning". The week took place on 15-19 April, and the programme was divided between the two cities. This way, the international participants got to see two UASs and Finnish cities instead of only one, and also the organisers were able to share the responsibility and collaborate on several levels.

The participants were university-level language teachers from 12 different countries. The programme included extremely interesting and hands-on workshops and presentations on a wide range of topics and visits to different companies. Students were heavily involved in the programme: business administration students hosted the sessions, took care of the decorations and gave information to the participants; tourism students organised a city tour, and hotel and restaurant management students planned and prepared excellent dinners and served refreshments during the coffee breaks.

The week was very successful, and the participants received lots of fresh ideas and broadened their network of international colleagues. The organisers' experiences were also very positive, and we may possibly organise something similar in the future as well, so stay tuned!

Text: Henri Annala
Photos: Tarja Haukijärvi