Greetings from International Week for Engineering of TAMK 2014

The International Week for Engineering of TAMK was organised on 10-13 February 2014. This was the 4th International Week for Engineering at TAMK. TAMK welcomed 19 colleagues from 13 partner universities from eight countries.

The visiting professors met student groups from nearly all the 11 Degree Programmes in Engineering of TAMK. The two Schools of Engineering hosted their guests on one afternoon and the participants were also invited to attend the project workshops of the International Week for Research, Development and Innovation Services that ran simultaneously with that of Engineering. The social programme included a sightseeing tour in Tampere, visits to Molok.Ltd and Demola, a dinner, a sauna evening, and outdoor activities.

Text: Riku-Matti Kinnunen

International Week for Non-teaching staff 2013

International week participants at Pispalanharju.

TAMK International Week For Non-Teaching Staff ended on Friday the 31st of May and the 34 participants from all over Europe said their goodbyes to Finland, TAMK and new friends. The theme of the week was Intercultural Communication Skills and the programme of the week concentrated on it very effectively.

Finnish-German-French teamwork

The lectures of the week about intercultural communication skills were presented by international coordinator and PhD Ms. Irja Pietilä. During the week programme the guests and TAMK personnel got to study and work together in both theoretical and practical tasks. The group also visited another interesting university at Tampere, the University of Technology.

Irja Pietilä presenting her lecture about intercultural communication

Intense international teamwork during the lecture of Irja Pietilä. Can you find the positive Portuquese João in the picture?

One of the tasks was to draw together as a group, not as easy as it may seem like

A pair of finished group drawings by participants from Finland, France, Czech Republic and Germany. Stunning similarities!

During the programme at TAMK the guests and TAMK participants were divided into seven different Special Interest Groups (SIGs) for example to IT and Library services. During the SIG sessions they compared and shared information, knowledge and experiences of their own fields. Possible future co-operation and projects were also discussed, and hopefully this will be a start or continuation to useful and valuable partnership.

Human resources Special Interest Group discussion

Marketing and Communications SIG sharing information and experiences

After an intense start of the week of working and getting to know each other the participants got to enjoy the recreational parts of the programme as well. Tampere and Finnish culture were also playing a big part in the week programme and the guests got to know a bit about them for example from a sightseeing bus ride in Tampere and in the evening event at restaurant Kaisla located in the harbour Mustalahti. The number one culturally oriented event of the week was nevertheless the day trip to Maisansalo in Teisko, which is located only 30 minutes bus ride from Tampere.

Tuesday evening dinner at the restaurant Kaisla. Great setting and fantastic food!

At Maisansalo the week participants started the day with a lecture from Ms. Pietilä and after it was finished a delicious lunch was served. The lunch consisted of some traditional Finnish dishes, especially the fish dishes were fantastic. After the lunch the group got to try some Finnish summer games like croquet, mölkky and darts. Many visitors also tried nordic walking with our sports specialist from TAMK, Mr. Esko Tirkkonen. Big thanks to Esko for helping with the sports and games, because of him our guests managed to get to know a bit more about the Finnish culture!

TAMK representative Noora Kahra and the guests enjoying a beautiful summer day at Maisansalo

Croquet, a Finnish summer game, also playable in a wheelchair!

Action shot from a Mölkky game.

Most of the guests wanted to try the traditional Finnish smoke sauna offered at Maisansalo, what a nice and exciting atmosphere it was! The regular Finnish sauna also had many users, and the bravest also took a quick swim in the lake even though the temperature of the water was only 12 degrees Celcius. Relaxed smiles in sunshine after the experience were everywhere and the guests would have wanted to stay there for days.

 

A typical Finnish lakeside scenery and swimming after sauna were the favorites of our guests.

Relaxing after sauna

On the final day of the week the guests were asked to summarize what they had learnt about Finland and the topic of intercultural communication skills. The resulting presentations were both funny and full of information and smiling people. Judging from the teams' presentations and guests' feedback it was a really successful week in all aspects! Many thanks to our guests and participating TAMK personnel as well as the organizers and lecturers.

Aww, what a nice message.

A little overview of the week and the experiences of the participants

Summary of our guests' feelings on the last day

Text: Panu Alanko

Photos: Panu Alanko, Noora Kahra & Tuula Härkönen

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

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

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

TAMK's 2nd International Week in RDI

It's our pleasure to welcome you to attend TAMK’s 2nd International Week in Research, Development and Innovation which will take place in Tampere, Finland on 22-26 April, 2013.

The theme of the week is "Future Calls for Funding – Living Labs in Horizon 2020".

The international week is aimed at RDI staff of TAMK’s partner universities as well as for other partner organisations involved in RDI activities with TAMK.

The programme of the week will include interesting study visits as well as sessions and workshops on focus areas of EU’s future RDI agenda based on the interests of the participants, e.g.

• health and demographic change, senior services
• resource efficiency and sustainability
• intelligent industrial vehicles and machines
• inclusive, innovative society, including ICT, media and culture
• entrepreneurship, including wellbeing entrepreneurship.

The registration is still open until 15 March 2013.

Warmly welcome!

R&D and Education Services at TAMK
Contact person: Ms Ursula Helsky-Lehtola, ursula.helsky-lehtola(at)tamk.fi

The IWBAS final dinner

International week: Farewell dinner at Restaurant Eetvartti on Thursday 29 November

The idea was to arrange a dinner for teachers of Tampere University of applied sciences and their international guests. Number of participators was 70. Dinner’s theme was to spread some Finnish Christmas spirit and give a good sample of high quality Finnish food ingredients. The project team and working staff were hospitality management students.

As a group (2^nd year students of Degree Programme in Hotel and Restaurant) Management)  we first started to plan our theme and the atmosphere we wanted to create. It was important that we had enough space and supplies to organize dinner for 90 persons (number of participators at the beginning). The most important task of the dinner was to sufficiently inform the staff in order to be sure that everybody was on the same page.

Our menu was:

Amuse bouche:

White fish tartar and malt bread

Starter:

Beetroot soup and goat cheese mousse

Main course:

Turkey breast, cranberry sauce, potato-mushroom press and vegetables

Dessert:

Chocolate cake, sea buckthorn parfait, sea buckthorn syrup, lingonberry-vanilla jelly and lingonberry sauce

The IWBAS final dinner also offered some entertainment. First the students welcomed the visiting professors and TAMK staff. After a brief slideshow the guests were ushered downstairs to have dinner. There were some more welcoming speeches and a band playing Christmas songs in both English and Finnish. In the end the guests were also invited to join in and sing some Christmas carols. Judging by the applause and "We want more!" shouts the band was a huge success. 

After all our dinner succeeded beyond expectations. Because everything was precisely planned and our project team was very motivated from the beginning, it was easy to make the grade. Happy faces and empty plates of the guests were a proof of our good team work.

 

Text: Emmi Vihersaari ja Lauri Ronkainen

Photos: Riitta Brännare