Education blog

The spring term 2017 is in full swing. The degree programmes of medicine and dentistry are busy with their ongoing course reform and our medical family gained two new members at the turn of the year, when the degree programmes of psychology and logopedics joined the family comprising medicine, dentistry and the Transmed Master’s degree programme. I wish all psychology and logopedics students, teachers and other staff a warm welcome to our faculty!

Today, uniquely in Finland, our faculty offers a wide range of human sciences aimed at understanding and caring for people and treating all of their conditions and illnesses. This provides all of us with a wonderful opportunity for shared learning, studying, research and influence. By sharing experiences and best practices, we will be able to teach and conduct research more intensely while looking ahead to the future. This presents us with the opportunity to reflect on how we will view the world ten, twenty or fifty years from now: what kind of a world will our current students work in, will our teaching even then be based on continuously updating scientific research, and will we continue to have expert, professional, developing and innovative teachers and researchers among our resources?

The new year involves challenges. The new training programmes will move into the Meilahti campus in the autumn. As well as careful planning and clear policies, we will need good will and flexibility to ensure smooth everyday activities and that we get along.

Managers and management teams have been appointed for the years 2017–2020. It is great that the teachers, professors, other staff members and students in our faculty are motivated to develop their teaching. All of you play a role in developing our education. A range of feedback mechanisms also play a key role in the achievement of our objectives. For this reason, I would like to remind all students to remember the importance of feedback: respond to feedback requests and make your voice heard through the related channel.

People – staff and students – are our key resource in the implementation and development of education.  We are passionate about the well-being of our students and staff. The year 2016 was a tough trial, due to the cuts and structural changes we experienced. We aim to further develop the mechanisms by which we can best support our students in their studies and, in the spring of 2017, will implement a “Studying and well-being” survey in our faculty. I sincerely hope that those of you who receive an invitation to participate in the survey respond and help the faculty with this important task!

Tiina Paunio

Vice-Dean in charge of teaching