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RE: [Bklist] short feedback
by Lloyd Ruddock 14 May '08

14 May '08

I was told by faculty at the start of the new system that students no longer have the legal right to answer in Finnish. I understand that there is a legal case on this issue (was it in Helsinki?) at the moment. In all my exams I use the following: "Answers should be given in English, but where necessary Finnish words can be inserted in brackets e.g. discuss the (totta vai tarua) of the following statement." -----Original Message----- From: bklist-bounces(a)lists.oulu.fi [mailto:bklist-bounces@lists.oulu.fi] On Behalf Of Sakari Kellokumpu Sent: 14. toukokuuta 2008 15:33 To: bklist(a)lists.oulu.fi Subject: [Bklist] short feedback Dear all, Some comments also on my behalf on the issues discussed. I have tried to cut them as short as possible: 1) we have to get feedback from all courses, many of them are now missing Previously, I do not recall we have had a lot of problems with getting the feedback. I do not know how many are exactly missing now but think that we should not worry too much about this at this point. It may just reflect the new teaching program and its implementation/organization with increased/heavier/more demanding courses. Moreover, we should also not make everything compulsory - remember that the students are here on a voluntary basis and will also leave/drop biochemistry on their own will. 2) Biokemian menetelmät I should be the first, and Biomolecules after that. The problem here as I understood appears to be the work load combined with lectures and teaching in english during the 1st year. If neither the order nor the language of the courses can be changed (based on comments)then there is nothing left besides complaints. I think this is not we want. Perhaps the easiest way to resolve the issue would be to reverse the order of the two courses. The students may not really be as "ignorant" as we think and perhaps will understand the methods course without having a prior course on Biomolecules. Jari perhaps would be the best person to give comments on this. Nevertheless, we need to respond to the complaints in some way- otherwise the students stop giving feedback totally. 3) Finns should teach in Finnish, not in English and 4) English teching is OK, if it is supportive, not pressing too much We all know that english is the working language of Science. The only problem in my mind is that it comes too early for our students (remember feedback day) and makes first things taught more difficult for them to understand. Furthermore, we should also keep the right to teach students in finnish, especially if only finns are around. Otherwise - as in one of my previous courses when a foreign student assigned for the course but never appeared - the whole teaching session kept in english was disturbing (not only because of my english) for all of us. Finally, just to remind that there is currently a lot of finnish used in written exams, tests (kypsyysnäyte) and pro gradu theses as well as in various administrative reports. I have understood that finnish students have a legal right to use finnish in all of these. This means that finnish must remain as an alternative teaching language. best Sakari _______________________________________________ Bklist mailing list Bklist(a)lists.oulu.fi http://lists.oulu.fi/mailman/listinfo/bklist

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Feedback discussion
by Lloyd Ruddock 14 May '08

14 May '08

Dear all, Student views are very important for the discussion, but you may not be able to post them to the staff bklist. If you send comments to me I will forward them to all. Please remember to make comments constructive and not destructive. VBW, Lloyd

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Another forward response from a student
by Lloyd Ruddock 14 May '08

14 May '08

-----Original Message----- From: Janne Petteri Capra [mailto:jannecap@mail.student.oulu.fi] Sent: 13. toukokuuta 2008 18:37 To: Lloyd.Ruddock(a)oulu.fi Subject: Re: [Histoni] RE: [Bklist] more about feedback "the third major timetabling issue is the lack of practical classes in the 3rd year. As discussed at feedback day in part this arose due to no practicals on the Cell Communication courses this year. However the major reason is that it was planned this way so that students could have the maximum flexibility for choosing their optional courses from other departments. With few practical classes and the large amount of self study in the BSc thesis we thought that students could have the flexibility to really do what they really wanted to do. We could balance the number of practicals between the years, but this would mean a serious loss of timetable flexibility in the 3rd year. Please could 3rd year students respon on this issue." A giant amount of text, again, so I'm just quickly replying for the above part before I start reading to an exam. As mentioned earlier, we only had a half day to quickly scrap together some opinions about the BSc as a whole. There were couple of mentions about the amount of practicals in the third year but personally I rather disagree. Many students feel that their already inferior lab skills get rusty immediately if they have a little longer break from practical working. And at the start of every lab course they feel lost and have to think every move twice. I feel this too, but I felt it last year, where there basically was labs after labs. So I do not think that more practicals (after labs for Cell communications are added) would make much difference. On the other hand, we do not have many chances to do optional courses we want due to the robust structure of the degree. The third year is excellent for that, and I would not change it. At least not too much. But students just love their practical courses so much, they are addicted to them. Thinking is hard work, especially after a lab day (NB; which we love and want more. This is either masochism or an example of the passion you mentioned in your text), so I do not have anything else to add right now. Yours, Janne

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Liikuntavuorojen käyttäjille
by Olli Niemitalo 14 May '08

14 May '08

Anon Histonille harjoitusvuoroja ensi lukuvuodelle, ja tätä varten pitää arvioida harrastajamäärät sukupuolen mukaan eroteltuna. Koska muistini on hatara, voisitko ilmoittaa minulle, jos kävit lukuvuoden 2007-2008 aikana Histonin liikuntavuoroilla. Minkä päivien vuoroja olet käyttänyt? Myös KE sulkisvuoro lasketaan. Vastatkaahan reippaasti heti! -olli

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Feedback
by Kalle Pehkonen 14 May '08

14 May '08

Hello, Seems there is interesting depate going on about feedback day issues. First I wish to thank for the very quick response on missing information about new master`s degree. Now even that it`s not complete yet, it gives us good insight what to expect in the future, thank you. When it comes to this language issue, yes it is true some first year students might feel it difficult. Still I think it is good to bring it in as early as possible, becouse we can`t hide english language forever. What we should do is to encourage students to use the language. We finns easily think, that we are not "allowed" to use the language before it`s fluent and almost perfect. I guess this way of thinking is just in our culture. Thats why many people feel it awkward or even embarrassing to actually use the language they do not fully master. Only way to get over it is to just use the english, even if its not that fluent. Next semester this might become easier, as new international master`s students come. I hope there will be interaction between nationalities, not separate two groups; we and those others. Medical school, yep people want there, some actually manage to go there. There are numerous of reasons why we lose students to medics, here is some: 1. Unfortunately biochemistry is a number 2. plan for those who try to get into medical school, and yes indeed we give good preparation for entering exam. ( actually biophysics gives even better preparation, they are dealing same problem?? ) 2. People are afraid of their future, what happens after graduation. Do we get any job? If yes, do we get any salary? As for graduated from medical shool, nowdays you get a job, you get very good income. And if you want, you get to do partially same kind of work as graduated from here. 3. High school graduates do not know that biochemistry exist, those who apply to medical school get to know it along the way as they read on entering exam. What could be done to prevent the loss. Setting our own entering exam on same day as medics is definitely bad idea, as we lose lot of good applicants right away. At this stage we can get advantage of our highly international department. We should advertise ourself; tell those high schoolers, that we can provide world class education on international level in biochemistry. Also make it clear at the very beginning, that some courses will be in english. This could be told already on high school visit, as the fact that this is not an easy way to go. This way we get students that are searching for challenges, and come for biochemistry, not for the plan 2. Yep these are just thoughts of a first year student, and regrets for those language mistakes..;) ~ Kalle

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Another forwarded sets of comments from a student
by Lloyd Ruddock 14 May '08

14 May '08

A forwarded email, with a couple of specific comments removed (as requested by the sender). "Yes, more feedback is required. Other departments have different ways of collecting feedback. Some collect feedback during lectures(they provide 15 min from the lecture for students to write feedback and everyone should give feedback before they are allowed to leave). After that during the next lecture there can be a discussion based on the given feedback. English department is going to include course feedback to Weboodi so that students would not get their grades before they have given feedback. This would stay anonymous even though it?s written in Weboodi. But if this would be carried out in our department if should be announced clearly that the feedback stays anonymous!! So students would get depressed or something.. :D About Microbiology course. Can we cooperate with Medical campus with this course? They obviously have a microbiology course and maybe it would be more of our level than the one with Process Engineering?? I found the opinto-opas of Medicine and they have a Microbiology course in their second year (spring). The course is 9.5 op which is quite large. But if they have lectures + lab course we could only do their lecture part and have our own lab course.. What is said in course description (quite harsh translation): Microbiology and immonology. Basic information about microbes causing diseases, their characteristics, methods how to study them and the immunological mechanisms in our body. Bacteriology, virology, mycology, parasitology(?) and immunology. There are some lab work and demostrations and some seminars. There course is held in Finnish. So this could be one option? My opinion is that there should be at least some flexibility in third year to do some extra courses. Also about the English language, it?s ok and improves your skills when more courses are held in English. But when there is a Finnish teacher speaking in English it should be emphasized that there are exchange students or the reason why it is held in English. I think last year some people commented on Biomolecules (Tuomo?s part) but I think that only some of the people new that there were exchange students taking the course. During this year there has been at least two sessions where real biochemists have told about their careers(research, other fields). I think it really has giving us new perspective on what we can do in the future. But of course everyone will not participate.. There has also been similar sessions during firs year tutorial sessions. Maybe more could be involved in these tutorial sessions (pienryhmäohjaus) because 10 sessions are compulsory to first year students. Well, here something.. Best regards, Tuija" A lot of excellent suggestions. My comments to add would be that however we collect it feedback must be annonymous and that the problems with organising a course jointly with the medical campus are connected with timetabling and transport. Perhaps if Jari could find out how the medical campus course is organised and we can investigate. Still in an ideal world we would have the microbiology teaching in house.

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First year student practials - suggestion
by Alexander Kastaniotis 14 May '08

14 May '08

Hi all, I just had a discussion about the issue of not having the staff required to have a good student:instructors ratio in the first year practicals. I have a suggestion to make; i don't know if this is feasible - there may be various reasons why this won't work in practice, but anyhow: (this would definitely require some input by people on the histoni list) Would it be possible to get third year students to participate as teachers in the first year practicals? Possibly this could earn them credits towards their degree; maybe there could be some nominal payments also. I think students as teachers/tutors this may be considered, as 1) They went through the course themselves not too long ago and remember the problems they had; generally they might still be more aware of things that need explanation (which others who have been in the field for too long regard as trivial) 2)It is wonderful extra training for the students, as we all know we learn best when we actually have to teach ourselves 3) First years may find it easier to talk to their peers than assistants (scary!) or professors (more scary). 4) This would up our potential teaching staff by about 10 to 20 people for the courses that require it most Input? Best regards Alex Alexander Kastaniotis, Ph.D. Department of Biochemistry and Biocenter Oulu P.O.Box 3000 FIN-90014 University of Oulu Finland Phone: +358-8-5531201 FAX: +358-8-5531141

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Kirjoittajan ABC-kortti
by Tuomo Glumoff 14 May '08

14 May '08

Hei kaikki, Laitoksen opetussivuilla on nyt linkki Kirjoittajan ABC-korttiin. Löytyy "Opiskelu ja opetus" -osasta kirjallisuustutkielman, seminaarien ja pro gradun ohjeiden yhteydestä - eli juuri sieltä, missä yhteydessä oikeinkirjoitusohjeita luulisi tarvittavan. Tuomo =========================================================================== Tuomo Glumoff, FT, Dos., Lehtori Tuomo Glumoff, Ph.D., Lecturer Oulun yliopisto University of Oulu Biokemian laitos Department of Biochemistry PL 3000 Box 3000 90014 OULUN YLIOPISTO FIN-90014 UNIVERSITY OF OULU Finland Kontaktitiedot / contact information: http://www.biochem.oulu.fi/henkilokunta/glumoff/ Tel. (matkapuh. / mobile) +358-(0)50-522 6136

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Correction
by Alexander Kastaniotis 14 May '08

14 May '08

hi all, it shoudld read: I have not met a single student form the old system that was not able to communicate on an APPROPRIATE level of english by the time they finished their Pro Gradu Sorry AlexAlexander Kastaniotis, Ph.D. Department of Biochemistry and Biocenter Oulu P.O.Box 3000 FIN-90014 University of Oulu Finland Phone: +358-8-5531201 FAX: +358-8-5531141

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Forwarded from a student
by Lloyd Ruddock 14 May '08

14 May '08

Forwarded from a current biochemistry student doing a Pro gradu who considered seriously doing a medical degree and is glad they did biochemistry: "I was browsing through the feedback-debate currently going on and I had a small idea regarding the flow of students to medical school. To me, biochemistry represents all the interesting bits of medical science. As everybody knows, there are several biochemists working in the field of medicine doing invaluable research. Perhaps it would be worth our while to give this perspective to first year students as well. This could persuade students interested in medicine that biochemistry is truly a fascinating alternative to medical school. Perhaps someone working in medical biochemistry could give their own presentation to the first year students at the beginning of their first semester." And "I would also like to add that I once considered myself the career of a medical doctor but the more I've studied biochemistry, the more I'm convinced that it's the right choice for me. Getting a pro gradu-postition among medical science has only strengthened my view. Here, a biochemist is a respected expert on research and I think it is something that should be brought to the attention of first year students considering a transfer to medical school." Views and ideas on how to implement? And a related question to the 1st year students: In an earlier email I suggested that presentations by groups on their research to first years might not be appropriate as they might not have the background knowledge to understand them - hence presentations by group leaders to 3rd year students instead. Since I take on 1st year students as summer students nearly every year I know this might not actually be a good reflection of the knowledge level/abilities of 1st years. When should presentations on research by group leaders to students be?

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