Tavastia Vocational College

 

Hi, everyone

Today I and Giani share with you our experience about the visit in Vocational College Tavastia in Hameenlina, this college with its 363 Personal (Service personal, directors and teachers), 2363 students and 20 buildings is one of the biggest upper secondary colleges of its kind in Finland, maintained by Tavastia Education Consortium. It provides vocational qualifications in 41 educational fields.

 

 The six sectors of education provided by the college are:

            Culture

            Natural Sciences

            Social Sciences, Business and Administration

            Social Services, Health and Sports

            Tourism, Catering and Domestic Services

            Technology, Communications and Transport

With the upper secondary "general education" schools in Hämeenlinna the college offers a wide range of optional - vocational as well as general - studies to the students. The students of the college also have an opportunity of choosing upper secondary school studies leading to the matriculation examination. The duration of studies leading to vocational qualifications is three years. Majority of the students are 16-19 years. The college provides apprenticeship training both in youth and adult education. The expertise, up-to-date facilities and equipment give excellent possibilities to plan tailor-made training to face the needs of enterprises.

 

 

Vocational education for adults - Further and special vocational qualifications - Education for unemployed people - Day and evening.

 

The three-year program involves 120 credits. Both vocational and so called general subjects - such as Mathematics, Finnish, English, Swedish, Civics, Physics, Chemistry, ADP, Arts and Culture, Sports - are included in every program.

The college provides apprenticeship training both in youth and adult education. The expertise, up-to-date facilities and equipment give excellent possibilities to plan tailor-made training to face the needs of enterprises.

The Tavastia Vocational College also organises separate preparatory training to immigrants for basic vocational education (MAVA). The training begins in August and ends in June. You will learn Finnish and English languages, how to use a computer, mathematics, biology, history as well as other subjects.

The duration and study program varies a lot on the bace of students' knowledge , competence and work experience. Education is organized in close cooperation with the local work life. There are 65 different study programs with 7 fields, include special vocation qualification.

 

 

The college reception  the group very well, organized the coffee break, showing the buildings and allowed for the group did interaction with the students. This was a good opportunity to change experience with the Finland teachers.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

RESEARCH SEMINAR

Hi, everyone!

Today I and Giani are writing for share you our experience about the Research Seminar in Visamäki, Hameenlinna- Finland at Monday 18 may 2015, with Hamk experts, Brazilian experts and Hamk’s international partners. The seminar offers a platform to sure research ideas and ongoing research projects as well as to discuss on different topics about education. In the beginning Dr. Essi Ryymin opened works speech a lithe bit about the presentations and theme of workshops. After, Mr. Petri Tuomela aboard the theme Innovation in Education. He start your presentation with “bom dia e bem vindos” for honor Brazilians teachers, it allowed a "break of ice” and discuss about your projects, this work have a success and he stay very motivated with the outcomes. We like your work a lot because it’s applied innovations, research and business integrate with university. He shows the fases of the project step by step, in this topic about course creation (photo 1).

 

Photo 1- Course creation by Mr. Petri Tuomela.

 

Continuing the participants going to in the lobby area for presentations posters, this moment was excellent for shared research ideas with colleges and others professions. The sections was split for thematic area which allowed more interactions, but the time ins very short for discuss. There was many posters very interesting.

 

 

Photo 2- group interact during sections posters 

 

There were six different interesting themes workshops, in this moment we had a difficult to choose only one specific work to watch, because all themes is very important to us. But we choose the work managing Education change by Building Learning Community with the facilitators Ms. Irma and Ms. Sheylla, Hame University of Applied Sciences. The presentation was collaborative and the end had a  dynamic group applied the technique think, pair, square and share.

This theme brings together a diverse ensemble of keynote speakers and attendees to forge new relationships and strengthen existing ties for more meaningful teaching and learning enhanced by technology.

 

 

photo 3- collaborative work

 

 

 

 

 

Finland: first impressions

 

City

When I arrived in Helsinki it was night and wow it was very cold (around -2ºC and the wind was strong). It was amazing to think that on the day before I was wearing lightweight clothes under a 35ºC summer sun.  I went to the bus stop outside the airport and then I took the bus to Hämeenlinna. The snow was covering everything outside.

 

When I arrived in Hämeenlinna I observed that it’s a very small city, but it has welcoming people. It is a place to find peace of mind and quietness. No visual pollution, all electrical wiring is under the ground. The city has a big lake and many squares. On the lake (it’s frozen), people can walk, or simply sit and observe the nature with its many birds, varied of vegetation and beautiful lake, in addition to the fresh air. It has very old wooden houses, but they are very beautiful.

 

Education

Everyone has access to internet provided by the government. The Finnish language is very difficult. The first word in Finnish that I learned was: “kiitos” (thank you). But communication is very easy, since almost everyone speaks English (supermarket cashier, bus driver…). Everyone communicated in English. Perhaps, because the English language teaching at school is really efficient.

The people are concerned with the environment and sustainability. The markets have machines to collect recyclables and every can or PET bottle has the value printed on them which can be received when returned to one of these machines. Bottles have a value on the package itself.

 

---