One year of active working in EduEnvi is behind now and in the end of January EduEnvi project group met in the Mid-Project Meeting in Shymkent, Kazakhstan.

Curriculum Content Planning Workshop

Auezov South Kazakhstan University hosted a meeting including sessions related to Curriculum Content Planning. The modules that the group concentrated this time relate to comprehensive risk assessment in waste management, biotechnologies for waste utilization, Non-energy technologies to waste utilization and life cycle assessment and life cycle costing. The courses were jointly developed as used to in EduEnvi project: the teachers responsible of the courses presented the course plans and workshop participants were able to comment and give feedback from the content and the pedagogical point of view. Also practical classes were carried out as demonstration. This way the teachers are able to test how the chosen pedagogical methods work in real life.

Midterm of the project

As the midterm of the project is coming closer, it was also valuable to have a week devoted for group work and checking the status of the project: “Where are we now”. In the workshop sessions themes such as Sustainblity of the project and Dissemination were discussed very practically.

To help the project implementation the National Erasmus officers from Kazakhstan and Russia have conducted advisory monitorings in the last few months. After these advisory monitorings the Erasmus officers gave practical recommendations for the project implementation. The EduEnvi project group found these recommendations very productive and helpful for the continuation of the project. During the meeting in Shymkent the project managers representing all the partner organizations gathered into a circle and deeply discussed these recommendations and made concrete plans on how to improve the project implementation.

All in all, the week in Shymkent was efficient and productive for EduEnvi. Though the project team has been working hard past few months developing the 8 online modules, everyone sees that the coming period is crucial on how the project succeeds. Sprint in the module development is needed. Refining all the online courses and preparing the piloting stage challenges all the project partners. However, the atmosphere is good and common goal is clear for all: Improving the education on Sustainable Waste Management for making better future.

Text by Pedro García (UVa), Ella Kallio (TAMK)

Photos from the meeting:

Opening of the meeting at M. Auezov South Kazakhstan State University

Project group visiting the university museum.

Project partners from Spain, Finland and Kazakhstan.

Excursion to wastewater plants in Togus.

Workshop on project dissemination.

Read here the report of a survey that was carried out in the spring of 2018 before the project participants had started planning online courses.

The aim of this survey was twofold: 1) to gather information about the participants’ online teaching experience and their expectations of the upcoming two-week pedagogical workshop in Tampere, Finland, and 2) to investigate participants perceptions of online teaching and learning.

The latter aim sought answers to two questions :
How do the participants perceive a successful online course?
What are roles of teacher and student in their imagined course?

Author: Sisko Mällinen, TAMK Principal Lecturer, Professional Teacher Education

A part of EduEnvi project is to build the capacity of university teachers from Russia and Kazakhstan in e-learning pedagogies and tools. The project coordinator, TAMK, organized a hands-on workshop for creating online modules on 1-12 Oct, 2018 in Tampere, Finland.

All together 13 workshop participants represented different areas such as biotechnology, business, economics, physics, waste management and tourism and came from six different universities. Jarmo Vihmalaakso from TAMK Floworks showed in the workshop how to make the course structure development and how to build an online course. One of the models used in TAMK is the five stage model –framework of Professor Gilly Salmon to build the online course.

Russia needs online courses and more skills on waste management

In the interview of Ms Irina Sergeeva, Dr of Economics and Professor of the Faculty of Technological Management and Innovations in ITMO University and Ms Olga Sergienko, PhD and Assosiate Professor of the Faculty of Food Biotechnologies and Engineering in ITMO University was found that there is a huge need for the curriculum change and curriculum development work. The complete and comprehensive curriculum in sustainable waste management is missing in Russia and Kazakhstan totally. There are courses and pieces of studies somewhere, but the comprehensive curriculum is still needed. Also the knowledge and use of e-learning is requiring some further development, that is why this project is so important to Russian and Kazakh university partners. Especially the need is for a Master level online course. The ITMO University wants to make these online courses flexible and free choice courses, which are then available for hundreds of students. This is a unique pilot in Russia.

“If we succeed in this course, then later we hope for the government funding. Russia needs more information and skilled specialists on waste management and environmental issues. In this course it is important to take into consideration also the economic view and the business process. This project wants to promote also entrepreneurship in the area. This cooperation includes also companies in Russia and we need to get the feedback from Russian companies as well. Companies represent environmental business such as waste plants. We need to update the skills and knowledge in environmental issues and waste management urgently in Russia.

This course needs to be practically oriented – learning by doing.”

• comment Dr Sergeeva and Dr Sergienko

Text by Ursula Helsky-Lehtola, TAMK, Project Communications

Photos by Ella Kallio, TAMK

Jarmo Vihmalaakso from TAMK working with Olga Sergienko and Irina Sergeeva from ITMO

Partners from TAMK and Al-Farabi Kazakh National University

Partners from Shokan Ualikhanov Kokshetau State University and Ural Federal University

View from the workshop venue, TAMK

On 30th of August, two teachers from UCL University College, Ellen Houmøller and Elisabeth Agerbæk, went to the University of Valladolid, Spain, in conjunction with the EduEnvi project. During their two-day stay, they met up with Silvia Bolado Rodriguez and Pedro A. Garcia Encina, the Spanish representatives tied to the project, to discuss what the future online courses, which will focus on sustainable waste management, should contain.

Both parties were able to share and benefit greatly from each other’s knowledge and expertise, and the visit allowed them to get one-step closer towards finalizing what the content of the aforementioned online courses should be. Silvia Rodriguez and Pedro Encina both hold PHDs in chemistry and are experts within the field of sustainable waste management. Ellen Houmøller and Elisabeth Agerbæk, on the other hand, are very experienced when it comes to collaborating with industrial partners and utilizing a more practice-oriented approach in the classroom.

One of the project’s core goals is to train university teachers from Russia and Kazakhstan in the concept of sustainable waste management and university industry cooperation, the latter being the focus of Ellen Houmøller and Elisabeth Agerbæk. It is therefore essential that an overall exchange of expert knowledge has taken place in order to increase the feasibility of this goal and make future learning sessions for Russian and Kazakhstani teachers as productive as possible.

EduEnvi’s Kick-Off Week was organised at TAMK on 21- 26 January 2018.

The project group in the photo.