October has been dark, wet and cold. Are you tired yet? Is it dreary? Don't worry, because the education policy team is back with another textual pick-me-up for the darkening autumn afternoons.
Meetings, again?
Yes, as meeting pros and, believe it or not, even some kind of meeting enjoyers, we've been back to chatting a bit here and there with fidget balls and Café Bit baguettes.
Computer science planning group 8.10.
This time, the main topics discussed were recognition of prior learning (RPL), course feedback and the weighting of the sections of the entrance exam.
The weightings for the mathematics and problem solving and logical reasoning sections of the new entrance exam are 50/50 by default and after discussion the weighting was considered to be acceptable. So don't worry, not even computer scientists will be able to get rid of maths.
The wonderful world of RPL is a bit murky, especially for programming courses, and this is about to change. The aim is to have a new clear set of guidelines for RPL.
There is still far too little feedback on courses, which makes it difficult to improve them. The solution to this is to make course feedback mandatory, unfortunately our beloved SISU is currently unable to cope with this. I bet none were surpised by this.
ITC education steering group 10.10.
The October steering group was a perfect way to brighten up the Happro day and there was an unusual amount of content in the meeting. A coincidence? We don't know.
The essential takeaway from the meeting is a discussion on annual planning.
In terms of annual planning, there were discussions on ways to improve graduation, on the objectives of the next curriculum and the allocation of resources, and on increasing cooperation in teaching, both internally and between universities. The broader objective is to improve the profitability of education.
Mathematics and statistics planning group 11.10.
The most important point of the meeting, which included a lot of preliminary discussion, was certainly the now classic discussion about the excessive workload of the Programming 2 course. Other courses have also been identified in the faculty's degree programmes as acting as "bottlenecks" to graduation.
MTT-TIE kahvit 21.10.
As we chatted, a few potentially very relevant issues came up, the most important of which was the surprisingly high number of participants. Great!
The university has tightened control of EXAM rooms and as a result we recommend avoiding excessive messing around in and around the exam rooms in the future. You have been warned!
Text message as a means of multi-factor authentication will be phased out in November, so quickly get rid of this disgusting ancient relic quickly, if you are still using it.
And what else?
In October, we also enjoyed not just one, but two, education policy events. Unbelievable, right?
The first was Kopo x Tutor international, which was finally realised in collaboration not only with the tutor team but also with the events team. The event was definitely a hit as we almost had to rely on the fingers of two hands to count the audience. Despite the crowd, the panel discussion itself was very successful and the notes from it will arrive for reading in an as yet unknown timeframe.
The audience for minor subjects panel was much more massive as the event attracted upwards of 50 eager listeners. Despite the intimidating freshman crowd, the event went very well and there were plenty of questions!
Afterpary?
Yes, the already trilogy of education policy news will arrive again in November despite no one asking for it. In addition to the fun stuff, the education policy team will also be cooking up KOPOGLÖGIT for you in November! Information about this incredible sauna event, which will be held for the second time, will be coming soon!
Sunny thoughts in the midst of this darkness dear readers and remember, kopo@luuppi.fi!