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- Principal lecturer (RET) Auli Guilland, Ph.Lic (FIN), M.Sc, has profound international and multicultural experience a... morePrincipal lecturer (RET) Auli Guilland, Ph.Lic (FIN), M.Sc, has profound international and multicultural experience and has worked in private and public sector organisations in Finland, Germany and France and also successfully run a private SME for several years.edit
In recent years, Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) have been sought as one of the means to bridge the knowledge gap in the world we live in. Within MOOCs, the barriers of time, space, location, and accessibility have been overcome... more
In recent years, Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) have been sought as one of the means to bridge the knowledge gap in the world we live in. Within MOOCs, the barriers of time, space, location, and accessibility have been overcome compared to traditional means of learning. MOOCs have taken the education community by storm with their unprecedented high student enrolment numbers. The adoption of well-reputed and well-known academic institutes like Stanford, MIT, Harvard and others persuaded many academic institutes worldwide to jump into this trend. However, when looking at the success of MOOCs, only completion rates were seen as the key success metric to this new pedagogical medium. But many recent academic studies have shown that completion rates are a misleading indicator of the success of a MOOC, due to the fact that learners have different aims and motivations. Some learners come with the aim of updating their professional knowledge to match the market needs, some come with the aim of socializing with like-minded people while others simply enjoy the pleasure of learning and expanding their knowledge on topics they did not know before. The need then arises to go beyond completion rates to gain a clear understanding of the obstacles, problems and issues facing students while learning within MOOCs. An empirical and exploratory study based on service science was performed on the first and biggest Arabic MOOC platform named RWAQ. The aim of the study was to understand the customer value of the service and promote student engagement in the online learning environment represented by MOOCs to help answer the following questions: How to understand student engagement in MOOCs? How to promote student engagement within MOOCs using gamification? The study was based on service design and gamification methods. This made it possible to gain a fresh look at the learners' aims, motivations, and needs and resulted in proposing solutions to enhance student engagement. Moreover, creating a collaborative, learner-centric and purposeful learning experience was accomplished. Acknowledgements: I wish to express my great pleasure to have had the occasion of working together with my late student, [Mr Mussab SHARIF]. His wish was to present personally this paper in the EduLearn2015 conference. I am very grateful to my colleague, [Ms Jutta MEURONEN], who assisted me after the sad and unexpected death of my student and supported me in final steps by doing the language check and necessary corrections.
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Considerable technological changes have modified our world during the last centuries. Jobs and their content evolve with such a space that anticipation of future skills requirements is extremely challenging. Huge expectation are set on... more
Considerable technological changes have modified our world during the last centuries. Jobs and their content evolve with such a space that anticipation of future skills requirements is extremely challenging. Huge expectation are set on education in bringing the appropriate solutions. Especially higher education (HE) should assure that graduates are agile, have a solid understanding of how the workplaces work. Graduates should be prepared see how their skills fit into to the changing environments of working life and for moving across jobs and sectors. The challenges of higher education are not limited to the changing requirements of working life. Also the learners and their expectations and practices have changed. Most adult learners benefit from internet to find and make use of information on their own. People tend to avoid long, drawn out courses that take time to work through, and prefer to use short pieces of content – both instructional and informational – and share ideas and information with others. Learning happens much outside the class room by being immersed in work or in social networks, gradually assimilating new ideas and experiences, in many instances unintentionally and without even realising it. Formal learning should adapt to the wave and adjust the offering to the real-life context of the learners. Digitalisation including eLearning needs to be developed as an essential part of higher education. The goal of this study was to increase knowledge on the competences needed in different working environments of nurses and to improve nursing students' employability skills. Nineteen private, public and third sector nurses' employers were interviewed in Southern Finland. The EntreComp Framework was used in the interviews which were audio-video recorded. The most essential competences of nurses turned out to be: 1) mobilizing recourses (e.g. evidence-based nursing and clinical nursing skills), 2) mobilizing others (e.g. interaction skills), 3) taking the initiative (e.g. initiative, independency, and professionality), 4) coping with uncertainty, ambiguity and risk (e.g. decision making, acting under pressure and stress) and 5) working with others (e.g. team-working, cooperation). In the future the special attention needs e.g. language skills, technological skills, knowledge searching skills, multicultural skills, ability to comply with changes, interaction and guiding skills and knowledge to care for different patient groups. To succeed in answering to the changing requirements of working-life, business and universities should share the responsibility and create awareness on both sides of the complexities of the other. This collaboration should also enable development of internships which really enable students to develop their skills in various aspects and learn to take over responsibilities. Students should recognise their own role and responsibility and take an active role in learning and develop their ability to assess their performance and match it to those of the field where they wish to work. Higher education should act as a facilitator of learning in the collaboration where all partners, education, business and learners, assure their active role and responsibilities. This is this only way how the challenges of future working-life skills can be assured efficiently.
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Age experiences are constructed in the way we address a certain age-group. People easily self-stereotype and depersonalize themselves. " I am too old to learn " or " old dogs cannot learn new tricks " , are comments often heard in the... more
Age experiences are constructed in the way we address a certain age-group. People easily self-stereotype and depersonalize themselves. " I am too old to learn " or " old dogs cannot learn new tricks " , are comments often heard in the context of technology in use. One of the largest issues today is the reshaping of the population pyramids and the rapid proportional growth of the senior population especially in Japan and Finland. The ageing phenomenon is also interesting because of its role as a change agent in the society. The nature and meaning of being senior is changing. Cohorts approaching the somewhat stigmatized old age today do not fit the perception of previous generations. Future seniors are described to be healthier, better educated and more active, have more money to spend and be more open to digital technologies than the previous generations. The so called " baby boomers " are expected to have an important impact on the global economy. They can also be trailblazers in reshaping stereotypes and attitudes related to seniors as learners and users of digital technologies. A promising trend reveals a change in the generational gap in technology use. While computers still remain the most used devices to access Internet among seniors, tablet computers have bridged the generational digital divide substantially. According to a global mobile consumer survey, adoption of tablet computers among people over 55 years has risen remarkably. Interestingly this same age group is the fastest growing demographic segment on social media sites. This article is a part of an EU funded study called AHEAD that addresses seniors in five countries. The article will elaborate upon the following issues: seniors as innovative technology users, social elements are essential in the learning process among seniors; creation of an experiential context encourages seniors to learn to use digital technology.
Research Interests:
More and more young people are unemployed. Young European graduates face severe difficulties in finding the first job. At the same time, employers have problems in finding the suitable people. Huge expectations are set on education in... more
More and more young people are unemployed. Young European graduates face severe difficulties in finding the first job. At the same time, employers have problems in finding the suitable people. Huge expectations are set on education in offering the demanded solutions. Especially higher education should be capable of assuring that their graduates have the necessary skills such as, e.g., be agile, have a solid understanding of how the workplaces work, be prepared see how their skills fit into to the changing environments of working life and for moving across jobs and sectors. The situation becomes complicated through the substantial transformation taking place in education. It changes the position of higher education radically. Increasing number of students actively search for attractive learning opportunities and complete traditional formal instruction in various on-and off-line learning environments. A growing trend is also to complete the higher education diploma by chosen certificates which together gain substantial importance in the eyes of employers. This paper presents the results of a study on the skills' requirement set by employers and the means of assessing them among the candidates in the recruitment. The results were analyzed using the qualitative content analysis with the "Entrepreneurship Competence Framework" as a theoretical background. According to the results, much emphasis is set on entrepreneurship although only occasionally any measures are taken to confirm their presence or absence among candidates through the recruitment process. The paper discusses various approaches to solving the skill-mismatch. Digitalization which modifies working life can genuinely bring also the best solutions for solving the problem.
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Age experiences are constructed in the way we address a certain age-group. People easily self-stereotype and depersonalize them self. “I am too old to learn” or “old dogs cannot learn new tricks”, are comments often heard in the context... more
Age experiences are constructed in the way we address a certain age-group. People easily self-stereotype and depersonalize them self. “I am too old to learn” or “old dogs cannot learn new tricks”, are comments often heard in the context of technology in use. One of the largest issues today is that the reshaping of the population pyramids and the rapid proportional growth of elderly especially in Japan and Finland. The ageing phenomenon is especially interesting because of its role as a change agent of society. The nature and meaning of being senior is changing. Cohorts approaching the somewhat stigmatized old age today do not fit the perception of previous generations. Future seniors are described to be healthier, better educated, more active, have more money to spend and are more open to digital technologies than the previous generations. The so called “baby boomers” are expected to have an important impact on the global economy. They could also be trailblazers in reshaping stereotypes and attitudes related to seniors as learners and users of digital technologies. A promising trend reveals a change in the generational gap in technology use. While computers still remain the most used devices to access internet among seniors, one technological development has bridged the generational digital divide substantially; tablet computers. According to a global mobile consumer survey, adoption of tablet computers among 55+ people has risen remarkably. Interestingly this same age group is the fastest growing demographic segment on social media sites. This article is a part of an EU funded project called AHEAD (Training High Tech seniors for Discovery) addressing seniors in six countries and aiming at promoting use of tablet computers for sharing travel experiences. The article will elaborate upon the following issues: • Seniors as innovative technology users • Social elements are essential in the learning process among seniors • Creation of an experiential context encourages seniors to learn to use digital technology Keywords: Seniors, stereotypes, baby boomers, trailblazers, learning, social elements, experiental context
Research Interests:
In recent years, Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) have been sought as one of the means to bridge the knowledge gap in world we live. Within MOOCs, the barriers of time, space, location, and accessibility have been overcome compared to... more
In recent years, Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) have been sought as one of the means to bridge the knowledge gap in world we live. Within MOOCs, the barriers of time, space, location, and accessibility have been overcome compared to traditional means of learning. The creation of collaborative, learner-centric and purposeful learning experience have been approached. MOOCs have taken the education community by storm with their unprecedented high student enrollment numbers. The adoption of well-reputed and well-known academic institutes like Stanford, MIT, and others persuaded many academic institutes worldwide to jump into this trend. When looked at the MOOCs success, completion rates can be seen as the key success metric to this new pedagogical medium. Nevertheless, many academic studies have shown that completion rates are a misleading indicator of the success of an MOOC, due to that learners have different aims and motivations. Some learners come with the aim to update professional knowledge to match market needs, some come with the aim to socialize with like-minded people while others simply enjoy the pleasure of learning and expanding their horizon about topics they did not know before. Going beyond completion rates to get clear understanding of the obstacles, problems and issues facing students while learning within MOOCs is needed. In general, enhancing customer engagement helps to elevate services to be more satisfactory and fulfilling, and increase the customer value of services. An empirical and exploratory study based on service science was performed on the first and biggest Arabic MOOC platform named RWAQ. The aim of the study was to understand the customer value of the service and promote student engagement in the online learning environment represented by MOOCs to help answer the following questions: How to understand student engagement in MOOCs? How to promote student engagement within MOOCs using gamification? The study was based on service innovation and design and gamification methods. The study realized as a part of the Master Program in Service Innovation and Design at Laurea University of Applied Sciences, enabled to gain a fresh look at the learners’ aims, motivations, and needs and resulted in proposing solutions to enhance student engagement. Keywords: Massive Open Online Courses, Gamification, Service innovation and Design, Service science.
Research Interests:
Educational programmes at all levels should consider and reflect authentic real life applications. In modern working world, net-and team-working skills are considered as important as job-related knowledge. Continuous assessment of team... more
Educational programmes at all levels should consider and reflect authentic real life applications. In modern working world, net-and team-working skills are considered as important as job-related knowledge. Continuous assessment of team work and the input of individual members (throughput) together with related response are essential in enhancing successful team work and learning. Assessment is traditionally understood as grading and often concentrates even in HEI on the outcome. However, assessment can be progressive and develop throughout the teaching and learning process, a study unit, and guide the student in the learning process (formative) instead of purely limiting to a giving a grade (summative). Even the summative assessment of team work requires the assessment of the individual student's throughput and learning, not only the team's final output. The aim of this paper is to bring new elements in the discussion on team work assessment and especially concerning the challenges related to continuous assessment of learning in HEI. We discuss challenges of promoting and developing formative assessment and use of peer-assessment as a tool. Supportive assessment culture and the teachers' positive attitude towards continuous assessment together with adapted tools enhance students' engagement and learning. Peer-assessment can be a useful way for teachers to learn about the team work, the dynamics of the group, about the individual student's engagement and input as well as the team work processes including roles and tasks, respect of timetable, communication and conflict management. Feedback seeks to make self-and peer-assessment visible so that both the student and the evaluator can interpret on an equal footing. Continuous supervision is necessary for students to realise the importance of assessment and feedback in guiding the students in the learning process. This also helps the team to understand the role of the team in the individual team members' learning process. This paper is part of a study called Innovaatiokompetenssien mittaaminen (Innokomppi) conducted in 2012–2014 with the European Social Funding (ESF).
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More and more young people are unemployed. Young European graduates face severe difficulties in finding the first job. At the same time, employers have problems in finding the suitable people. Huge expectations are set on education in... more
More and more young people are unemployed. Young European graduates face severe difficulties in finding the first job. At the same time, employers have problems in finding the suitable people. Huge expectations are set on education in offering the demanded solutions. Especially higher education should be capable of assuring that their graduates have the necessary skills such as, e.g., be agile, have a solid understanding of how the workplaces work, be prepared see how their skills fit into to the changing environments of working life and for moving across jobs and sectors. The situation becomes complicated through the substantial transformation taking place in education. It changes the position of higher education radically. Increasing number of students actively search for attractive learning opportunities and complete traditional formal instruction in various onand off-line learning environments. A growing trend is also to complete the higher education diploma by chosen certificat...