For the third time this spring, TAMK is organising the Eye on TAMK international week. The first time took place in 2021 in the middle of the pandemic in an online format, and the second event was carried out face to face in 2022. This year, Eye on TAMK will be bigger than ever, as Educational Leadership Forum has been merged with the international week, constituting one of the two tracks of the event. This blog post will focus on the other one, Teaching & Education track.
Traditionally, TAMK has organised a big number of international weeks each year. There used to be an international week for health care, social services, business, hospitality, engineering, languages and communication, teacher education, media, etc.
Eye on TAMK is an umbrella under which all these former international weeks are gathered, and this was also reflected in field-specific tracks in the first two Eye on TAMK weeks.
A rich programme for all
This year is going to be different. All these different tracks have been merged into one track called Teaching & Education. The content of the programme is relevant to a larger audience across several fields, for both teachers and students. This is clearly visible in the afternoon sessions in the Teaching & Education track on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, where the track has three simultaneous sessions to choose from and the topics are an interest of teachers and students from various fields. Thursday’s programme offers slightly more detailed content for different fields and hence have more simultaneous sessions, but again the participants can freely choose which sessions they take part in.
The Teaching & Education track programme on TAMK main campus is available here.
The Teaching & Education track programme on TAMK Mediapolis campus is available here.
Some changes might happen, but for the most part the programme has already been fixed. As you can see, there are three types of sessions: presentations, workshops, and round-table discussions.
The workshops and round-table discussions have a limited number of seats, and as the registration has now ended, there is a separate form through which the participants can choose which sessions they would like to attend.
This year, the theme of the week is (Re)connecting Professional Networks. It is a wide theme on purpose, as we wanted to have a theme that would be able to accommodate a number of various topics. We received a record number of submissions through the Call for Sessions in November, and it was really interesting to go through them and see what kind of themes would arise from them within the big theme. It seems that this time topics such as Artificial Intelligence, virtual exchanges, and the future of teaching and learning are strongly present in the programme of the week.
The experience of organising a big event
Organising a huge event like this is always something that is bound to inspire you but also take up a big chunk of your work time. There are dozens and dozens of details to be taken care of, and still, most likely, when the week starts, you will probably realise that there was something that you had forgotten to do; like preparing the name tags, placing guiding signs, etc.
Event organising is also something that gets better the more you do it. Every time you organise an event, it is a new possibility to take the things that worked really well in the past, but also to try out new fun things (such as this year’s Speed Networking on Monday!).
We are really hoping that this year, the event will be the best we have organised so far, and that everybody at TAMK would take full advantage of the possibilities an international event like this offers. There is so much to gain, so just dive in head first!
Text and photos: Henri Annala – TAMK Senior Lecturer in Pedagogic Innovations and Culture and head coordinator for the Teaching & Education track on Eye on TAMK 2023
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