A4 Refereed article in a conference publication
Solving Diversity Issues in University Staff Training with UNIPS Pedagogical Online Courses
Authors: Samuli Laato, Heidi Salmento, Neea Heinonen, Emilia Lipponen, Henna Vilppu, Henna Virtanen, Mari Murtonen
Conference name: IEEE Learning With MOOCS (LWMOOCS)
Publishing place: Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Publication year: 2019
Book title : Proceedings of Learning With MOOCs 2019 : "Enhancing Workforce Diversity and Inclusion"
First page : 138
Last page: 144
Number of pages: 7
ISBN: 978-1-7281-2550-3
eISBN: 978-1-7281-2549-7
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1109/LWMOOCS47620.2019.8939634
Web address : https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/8939634
Self-archived copy’s web address: https://research.utu.fi/converis/portal/detail/Publication/44006274
In Finland and globally, many university teachers are teaching without
pedagogical training. Employee training courses on pedagogy are offered
via contact teaching, thus excluding potential students who are too busy
to attend sessions at a specific time and place. In addition, majority
of teaching is in Finnish, even though, for example, in the University
of Turku, 10% of all employees are international. Due to limited
teaching resources, university pedagogical studies used to be only
available for university staff members who have teaching duties,
excluding the majority of doctoral students from the courses. The UNIPS
learning platform, developed by eight Finnish universities, was created
to solve these problems. The current study investigates the impact UNIPS
solution has on the above mentioned issues by looking quantitatively
(N=590) at (1) which departments participants come from? (2) Are
participants’ doctoral students or university employees and (3) what are
the age and gender distributions of participants? In addition,
participants’ perceptions of UNIPS studies are analyzed qualitatively.
Based on the findings, UNIPS courses and similar MOOCs seem a promising
way to support teachers’ pedagogical training. They can not only
increase the diversity of offered studies, but also help create a more
inclusive environment at universities.
Downloadable publication This is an electronic reprint of the original article. |  |
