Today we had online session, as usual three different teams were asked to prepare the teaching materials on different topics. The different topics that we discussed were as follows:
- Current research, development, and innovation (RDI) in own field of education
- Teacher’s RDI skills
- Research on research (finding research community, suitable journals for publication, and so on)
What happened during lesson planning, what went good, what went bad, and what did I learned?
This time our team prepared teaching materials on the topic current RDI trends in our field of education. Specifically, we tried to find the information to following three questions:
- What are the current RDI trends in our field of education?
- Where can one find information about them? And
- How do Finnish universities and universities of applied science benefits from the publication written by their teachers?
Like the previous assignment our team followed predefined group matrix, in the group matrix we define who does what and how the final work will be combined. I actively participated in literature search, power point presentation, and also in making final review of the teaching materials. This time our team decided to conduct the teaching session a bit differently than the previous session. Therefore, we developed a pre-task for other team members through Padlet. The knowledge of Padlet was new to me, I had heard about it but never used in practice. Now, I know the use of Padlet in teaching, in the future, whenever there is possibilities I will use it in my teaching and learning. Our decision of doing something different was really good, this gave me an opportunity to learn about Padlet.
I did not noticed anything went bad, but I wish there could be more contribution from team members.
From my previous experience I was a bit familiar with the current research trend in my field of education i.e. operations management. Also I am a bit familiar with reach practices of Finnish universities. In this sense the topic was not new to me. However, I had never went through the official documents or followed the view point of RDI practices by Finnish universities. When I came across the RDI practices of Oulu University of Applied Sciences (OUAS) and the Oulu University (OU), I learned new things, for example, that RDI trends in OUAS is mainly concerned with regional and local development while RDI trends in OU is mainly concerned with global challenges. I learned that the priority of university of applied sciences and the university are different, even though I am a former student of university of applied sciences, I was not aware of this facts before or I had not realized it. Maybe this information will help me in my future career as teacher, for example, in the future I can decide which direction I want to shape my research i.e. on the regional and local issues or on the global issues. Now I know depending on my priorities I can choose which university to choose from. However, I also understand that these are not the abstract things i.e. the research priorities can be in either side from both type of universities.
What happened during online teaching session, what went good, what went bad, and what did I learned?
Today’s online session was very interesting, every team presented their findings. First session was led by a member from OWL. During the first session we discussed about university teachers RDI skills, the use of Flinga.fi was really interesting, I was not aware of this site before. I found it to be a handy tool for group work, both for online and contact teaching. Second session was led by our team BASTU, we discussed about current RDI trend in our own field of education, and we presented our experience with the other participants. They appreciated the information we shared. Finally, a team member from TREE presented their view on research on research. This session was almost like the summary to previous sessions. We did not planned but fortunately the sequence of session was really interesting i.e. first team talked about teachers RDI skills, second team talked about current RDI trends in own field of education, and finally the last team presented research on research (finding research community, suitable journals for publication, and so on). As I am involved in research work, I knew most of the things beforehand. However, it was a good revision for me.
During the session, we had some technical issues, sometimes the sound quality was not good, but in general it went fine.
I learned that, as a teacher RDI activities is very important, as it keeps us updated i.e. what is going within the field of our education. So that we can have better teaching and learning working experience. I keep on doing research as a life learning process.
Individual task
During the online teaching session we cited examples from Oulu University of Applied Science and the Oulu University. I came to know that University of applied sciences (UAS), in general, focuses on RDI activities related to local and regional issues, while universities focuses on RDI activities related to global community. This was something new to me, I had assumption that both type of universities has similar research priorities, but now things are a bit clear. However, it does not mean that UAS cannot focus on global issues and vice-versa, I can say this is from my experience at UAS (as a student) and University (both as student and employee).
Regarding the time that a teacher can spend in RDI activities depends on the role of an individual person. Some of the staff members are working as a full time researcher and some of the staffs are working as a full time teacher. However, every teaching staffs are encouraged for research activities. For example, some of the teachers spend most of the time doing research (80 % time of work contract) with less teaching hours (20% time of work contract) while some teacher spend most of their work time in teaching (80 % time of work contract) with less hours for research (20% time of work contract). From my personal experience senior professors usually spend most of their time in research activities and less time for teaching.
Yes, the RDI activities is very important to the organization that I am working with. For example at the University of Vaasa there are different research groups: multidisciplinary and discipline specific. Each teaching and research staffs belongs to one of this group and works together towards the own group’s research themes.
My Journey to Vocational Teacher Education 2019-20 