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FW: Some feedback (1st year)
by Lloyd Ruddock 22 May '08

22 May '08

To be forwarded, not anonymously: Some thoughts from the perspective of a first year student with earlier studies in software engineering, or information processing science as the official translation goes, hereby referred as SE. Most of what what I would say has been said already in earlier discussion so I will only highlight a few points in a comparative sense. The most important points are in the latter half so please don't feel bad about skipping most of this wall of text! Firstly, I would highlight that the software engineering department is huge compared to us with an intake of around 200 students a year. As a result combined with harsh economic problems the whole degree up to BSc feels like a total mess. Thus the teaching is very lecture oriented with very little sense of academia in it. This is where our department really shines: we are immersed to an environment where independent thought and reasoning is a must from the very first year, aside from the chemistry department courses shadowing it a bit - they have room for very little creativity. Tuomo's brilliant exams in Metabolism I are a good example. One really has to understand the subject and make the connections to be able to answer the questions, promoting what I feel is the right kind of learning instead of remembering a book line by line and answering "What does person X say about subject Y in book Z?" On the subject of disappearing/transferring students we are not doing so bad as one might get a sense of. In SE the amount of students who shift to full time work (the industry literally absorbs them out), transfer elsewhere or simply disappear is staggeringly high even in relation to the intake. It is more of a hub for entry into university than we for entry into medical school ever was. I unfortunately can not find any statistics to back this up at the moment - this is educated guessing/feeling. Our education system gives perhaps far too much leeway too little high school tutoring for drifting around without purpose, which is unfortunate and most likely the reason for this phenomenon to exist; looking at myself it took me four years to end up through the system where I wanted, here. Concerning the intake and the amount of applicants I feel giving presentations in high schools around the Oulu region would be very important to attract the interested among the young. I think very few have even the slightest clue what biochemistry is about when choosing where to apply; I didn't. I was in such a program in SE and I can say based on those experiences it helped me understand the outlines of the subject better when explaining it in addition to maybe making it clearer to the high school students. Maybe it would help our students too, since we've heard the comments that it isn't entirely obivious during the first years what biochemistry is all about. We worked in pairs and were provided a set of overhead slides from which to compile the presentation, in addition to being paid a small sum of money for lunch and necessities along with bus/train tickets to the target town. I hope such a program can be implemented. The subject of the first year course timing has been bled dry already, I don't have much to add. Suffice it to say I personally didn't find the arrangements displeasing. On the big picture on the whole BSc degree structure I am unable to comment having seen only what the first year offers. Lastly, I have suggestions for the tutoring of first year students. I remember a slide being presented in the first introductory session which outlined the relation of all the courses. It was of course a total blur to me and, dare I say, everyone else. It might be productive to give short popularized descriptions of the courses as it could very well make the stucture clearer, and not a bit less importantly, could spark a fire of true interest in the new students, especially for those who are not quite sure what they've got themselves in to - having something concrete to look forward to. Of course alot of it is described in the study guide but it really doesn't give a hands on picture on the subjects. Maybe we could even have interested students prepare short, legible presentations on some of the courses. It might help integrate the new students to the student community as well from the very beginning - the older students don't necessarily bite. At least not very hard. All in all, our first year here has been challenging but personally mostly pleasing and I would like to thank all the lecturers and assistants for a job fairly well done! ------------------------------------- Juho Yliuntinen Email: juhopett(a)mail.student.oulu.fi Tel: +358407524079 ------------------------------------- Many thanks for such lengthy and useful comments. Just to add my comments: 1) From next year there will be a 1 hour session timetabled in at the start of the 1st year, the 2nd year and the 3rd year where we discuss the classes which will come in the next year and outline better the choices/options available and to try to show how things fit together. This will be run by me next year (as Head of Teaching), but if better options are available we can try those in future years. 2) We have agreed that we will have more visits to schools (from students and hopefully from staff as well) in late Autumn / Early Spring. As of 5 minutes ago Viivi Majava agreed to coordinate this. Those of you who saw Viivi in action on Science Day will know that this is in good hands (but remember she is COORDINATOR, she is not supposed to do everything, so students and staff please help out). Expenses is another issue. The department agrees that we should cover the expenses, but the faculty rules about money use is very strict (and in my opinion very odd in places) and Kalervo will check with the faculty what we are allowed to cover. 3) I hope that we will have an optional "teaching for biochemists" course runnning from next year to provide pedagogical training for 3rd year students and have them demonstrating in small groups to the 1st years. This helps with many different problems, but there is a lot of work still to do to see if it is possible in practice and then to plan and implement it. The Teaching Development Unit of the University has already agreed in principal to do the pedagogical part.

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Feedback
by Lloyd Ruddock 22 May '08

22 May '08

Dear all, Another email to ensure that I never win a "Mr Popular" contest. General levels of student involvement in trying to improve the quality of the degree is disappointing. Some students do a lot, many do nothing. Having got all the feedback forms back to look at, there are 9 of our courses with no feedback forms at all and the rest have an ever decreasing % of feedback returns. There has also been a very vigourous debate recently about teaching issues, some of it very useful, some of it less, but nearly all of it was members of staff. The top 20 people who know our degree system include: Me - I designed the whole bloody thing and try to ensure that it works as a coherent whole Tuomo - he gets to teach a stupidly large proportion of it Jari - he gets the nearly impossible task to try to turn the theoretically "perfect" timetable into a practical one with no timetable clashes despite the best efforts of staff and other departments to mess it up. 17 students. The next 20 will also all be students. You are the only people who have been in every course. You are the people who know the degree the best. You may not have all of the information on the big picture, on why we make compromises where we have to, but still you know best of all how it is on the ground. We need to do an evaluation of the whole degree now that the phase in of the BSc has finished and the MSc starts. We need to make it the best we can within the limitations we have. We need your input into this. Tuomo, Jari and I work damn hard to try to get it to work, to provide a system in which it is possible for one 3rd year student to be doing their 3rd summer placement in a real research group and another to be doing their 2nd, this time in a research group in another country. It is a tough degree but remember our students in the old system were highly regarded and I believe that we prepare our students far better in the new system. That requires effort from you as well as from us. There has been some good feedback from students and those I would like to thank, but there has been too little of it. I believe that we have got 90% of the new system right 1st time (within the compromises we had to make) and where we got it wrong (e.g. 2nd year timetabling last year) we corrected it as quickly as possible. I am very biased though (and also loud mouthed, opinionated and demanding - in short I'm British) and we need feedback from the people who have been through it. How does it work out in practice? Is it coherent? Is it developmental? Do we give the right skills at the right time? What skills should we teach that we don't already? What should we consider dropping? What is good and what is bad? How does our teaching compare with that from other departments? Is there anything we can learn from them? Is the timetabling working? Does keeping the 3rd year open to allow choice of courses from other departments work? Etc etc. There are changes next year - Biomolecules becomes more compact and finally gets to split the practical classes in two groups as we finally have enough demonstrators, there may be a new "teaching for biochemists" course, we have 6 new MSc level courses coming on line including integration into a research group and many more smaller changes as well. There has been some excellent feedback from students, but there needs to be much more both from current students and ex-students (once you see other places or the "real world of work" feed back ideas on what we did right or what needs to be made better). Please take the time to think about this and either drop in to see me (I don't bite - at least not often) or send an email. Remember though to be constructive not destructive in your critisism i.e. try to make suggestions for improvements rather than just saying "this is bad" (polite version). Also please remember to say what works, what is good, if we only focus on the bad we can lose sight of what is good and may end up losing that in any changes we make. If you send to histoni (and cc to me) I will take your feedback as public. If you email to me or see me in person I will treat it as confidential. Please be honest (remember good things as well as bad things though). Do not be afraid of voicing your opinions, honesty I rate very highly, apathy though is a terrible thing. We give you more of chance to influence your degree than many other departments. As with so many things in life it is use it or lose it. Have a good summer everyone. Lloyd

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Histonin sivut uudella palvelimella / new server
by Olli Niemitalo 22 May '08

22 May '08

Histonin kotisivut sijaitsevat nyt SuniSoft Oy:n sponsoroimalla palvelimella, ja käyttö voi jatkua normaalisti. Osoite on vanha tuttu: http://histoni.yehar.com Histoni home pages are now sponsored by SuniSoft Oy, who provide hosting for us. -olli

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Away
by Lloyd Ruddock 22 May '08

22 May '08

Dear all, I will not be at work for the first 3 weeks of June so anything you need over that period (for example approval of Pro Gradu Study plans) should be done in the next week or so. Best wishes, Lloyd

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Fwd: melontaa
by Olli Niemitalo 21 May '08

21 May '08

Hei! Tässäpä tietoa yliopiston tukemista melontamahdollisuuksista Oulussa: MELONTA KESÄLLÄ 2008 MELONNAN ALKEISKURSSI 28.-29.5. Kuvaus: Kurssi kestää noin kuusi tuntia ja jakautuu seuraavasti: Keskiviikkona 28.5. klo 17-20, teoriaa ja tekniikkaa Torstaina 29.5. klo 17-20, tekniikkaa ja melontaa. Ilmoittautumiset: ma 26.5. klo 16 mennessä: aki.hentila(a)oamk.fi Ilmoittautumiseen nimi, yksikkö ja omat yhteystiedot (puhelin ja sähköposti) sekä maininta omistaako Sporttipassin. Ota päällesi lämmintä, ei kosteutta keräävää vaatetta ja mukaan varavaatteet. Kengiksi käy hyvin esim. lenkkarit. Paikka: Nokkalan ranta, Oulujoella (Rautasillan vieressä). Hinta: Kurssimaksu Sporttipassilla 10EUR, muuten 30EUR . Maksut kerätään paikan päällä ennen kurssin alkua. Yhteyshenkilö: Kurssin järjestää melontaseura K&C ry, netissä www.kc.fi YLEISÖMELONNAT Keskiviikkoisin klo 18:00 (4.6.2008 alkaen) - Saavu Nokkalan veneilykeskukseen Oulujoelle (Rautasillan vieressä) mukana Sporttipassi (lukuvuosi 07-08), uimataito, varavaatteet ja halu oppia uutta. - Merkitse nimesi Oamkin ja yliopiston yhteiseen listaan ja näytä Sporttipassi ohjaajalle (passilla osallistuminen on ilmaista, muuten 5 euroa). - Seura tarjoaa varusteet, ohjaaja antaa pikakurssin ja pian oletkin jo vesillä. - Vesillä muiden seassa on kokeneita melojia, jotka neuvovat tarvittaessa ja ovat valmiina mahdolliseen pelastusoperaatioon. Tarkoituksena ei ole opettaa täydellistä melontatekniikkaa, vaan antaa mahdollisuus tutustua lajiin. Yleisömelonnan avulla uusien harrastajien on helppo aloittaa. Lisätietoja aki.hentila(a)oamk.fi tai www.kc.fi Terv. Markku Saarela Liikuntasuunnittelija Oulun yliopisto Opetus- ja opiskelijapalvelut PL 8100, 90014 Oulun yliopisto puh. 08-5534029 telefax: 08-5534051 s-posti: markku.saarela(a)oulu.fi

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[Liikunta] Pesistä kesällä sunnuntaisin
by Kari Oikarinen 20 May '08

20 May '08

Sigma ja FOK järjestävät yhteistuumin kesällä 2008: PESÄPALLOA SUNNUNTAISIN klo 18 ALKAEN PAULAHARJUN KENTÄLLÄ Ensimmäinen kerta on 25.5. eli tämän viikon sunnuntaina. Tarkoitus ei ole pelata hampaat irvessä eikä verenmaku suussa, vaan kaikki ovat taitotasosta, killasta ja sukupuolesta riippumatta tervetulleita. Myöskään omat välineet eivät ole välttämättömiä, sillä kentällä on lainattavana yliopiston räpylöitä, palloja ja mailat. Kaikki mukaan! Kentän sijainti: http://kartta.ouka.fi/web/Default.aspx?layers=Opaskartta&cp=16844,70125&z=5… T: Kari Oikarinen, FOK:n luistava ATK-avain (liikuntavastaava)

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Animal help
by Lloyd Ruddock 20 May '08

20 May '08

Dear all, I'm trying to piece together the overall picture of the BSc. The Koe-eläinkurssi is listed as 80 contact hours, but no split is made in the course description between practical work, lectures, seminars etc. Could somebody give me some idea of what the split is. Many thanks, Lloyd

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More feedback from students
by Lloyd Ruddock 19 May '08

19 May '08

> Hi > > There's been a lot of discussion among the 2nd year students about the > possibility of being able assist in the Biomolecules labs. It seems > that everyone is really excited about the idea and none of us is > against. Of course this requires good familiarising for us, timetable > checking etc. but anyway. I just wanted to say that the general idea > is really positive towards this. > > Many of us would also be interested in going to talk to schools. > Especially to our old high schools. > > > Elina I have also had at least three other people write emails wishing to be annoymous or say to me in the corridor that they support the student teaching idea. I have heard no negative comments on this from students. I will try to see Asko Karalainen about the possibility of having an optional 3rd year course this week.

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Tiedepäivät - Science days
by Viivi Majava 18 May '08

18 May '08

Suuret kiitokset kaikille, jotka osallistuivat yliopiston Tiedepäivien 15.-16.5. järjestelyyn tavalla tai toisella. Erityisesti haluaisin tuoda esille Olli Niemitalon panostuksen. Hän päivysti lähes taukoamatta kumpanakin päivänä. Lainasi kannettavaansa ständille ja oli mukana ideoimassa ständin toteutusta. Kiitos Olli! Kiitokset myös ständillä päivystäneille opiskelijoille: (Lähes kaikilla muilla Tiedepäivien ständeillä oli laitosten henkilökuntaa paikalla, toisin kuin biokemian ständillä.) Outi Haloselle, Marjo Karppiselle, Olli Ahtolalle, Teemu Karvoselle ja Antonina Shevetsovalle (henkilökuntaa). Oli uskomatonta kuulla, miten hienosti osasitte esitellä biokemian ihmeitä yleisölle. Kiitos Outi Lampelalle, joka teki animaation ständille. Niko Pursiaiselle ja Satayan Sharmalle, joiden simulaatioiden animaatioita voitiin ihastella ständillä. Kiitos Kyösti Keräselle ja Jari Karjalaiselle laitepuolen hoitamisesta ständille. Kiitos myös Pirjo Mustaniemelle. Kiitos Sanna Partaselle, joka oli tehnyt posterin ständille ja oli myös ideoimassa ständin toteutusta ja Ilkka Ollakalle, joka auttoi minua animaatioiden tekemisessä. Omasta ja laitoksen puolesta kiittäen, Viivi Many thanks to all who participated in organizing our department's show on the Science Days of the Uni on the 15th and 16th of May. Especially I would like to emphasize the involment of Olli Niemitalo, who was actively presenting and explaining the wonders of biochemistry on both days, who also lent his laptop for the show and was involved in planning the exhibition stand. Many thanks goes to students who were actively presenting biochemistry and our department to visitors: (I noticed that at other exhibition stands it was mostly STAFF of the department who took responsibility.) Outi Halonen, Marjo Karppinen, Olli Ahtola , Teemu Karvonen and Antonina Shevetsova (Staff), it was amazing to hear how fluently you were explaining the wonders of biochemistry to the audience. Moreover, I would like to thank Outi Lampela who prepered an animation for the Science days, Niko Pursiainen and Satyan Sharma whose animated simulations got a lot of admiration, Kyösti Keränen and Jari Karjalainen who were taking care of the exhibition equipment, Pirjo Mustaniemi, Sanna Partanen who made the poster for the exhibition and was planning the show, and Ilkka Ollakka who helped me to prepare animations. Thanks a lot to all of you who contributed to the arrangements and made our share of the Science Days successful. On behalf of myself and the Department, Viivi -- Ms Viivi Majava, M.Sc. (Biochem.) Department of Biochemistry e-mail: viivi.majava(a)oulu.fi P.O.Box 3000 tel: +358 8 553 1207 90014 University of Oulu - Finland office: BK348

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More student views
by Lloyd Ruddock 16 May '08

16 May '08

Student 1: I'll make use of the opportunity presented and voice my support for the idea of 3rd years helping out in the 1st year labs. Most of us still remember the labs, the experiments and the problems that came with them or arose otherwise. It'd also be valuable experience for the future. I doubt any of us is expecting to get paid and even the credits may be seen as a bonus. Take me as a naïve idealist if you want to, but I'd do it just for the experience and for the chance to make the labs a bit more pleasant experience for the 1st years. But the idea presented that the assistance in labs could be done in a course-like format naturally gets my full support too. Other than that, I've got nothing to say on the feedback day issues that hasn't already been said really, just announcing my support for some ideas and opinions presented earlier. I've got no problems with a finnish lecturer speaking english to a finnish audience and think that asking the lecturer to prepare materials and lectures in both finnish and english is an exorbitant request. However, the requirement and necessity of english during the studies and in the post-graduation era should be made clear to high schoolers and others thinking of applying to biochemistry. Going to high schools to market biochemistry could and should step in here. Losing people to other departments or fields of science just because of the language issue is unnecessary and avoidable in every way. Student 2: you asked if there are students interested in helping the first year students in lab - I'm. (So just telling this to help you know if there are some) So that makes 5 students in favour (from 2nd to final year) and none against.

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