What does not make a seminar-day annoying? After the last seminar, it seems that the right mix might contains the following ingredients:
presentations with a purpose: we all (presenter and audience) knew what is each presentation going to be about and what does a presenter want to achieve.
some interactive session: we had Jussi’s and Andrés’ contributions this time. Jussi asked the audience to scribble down and return their opinions about his questionnaire, while Andrés made us to try to design a new logo. Carolina won.
expert’s advice: while the presentations aimed to discuss own research constitute the grounds of the seminars (great Tuomo’s talk), we could improve sharing the experiences accumulated in the group. This time, Justus disclosed his insights about how do we write (132 errors in 81 sentences makes a nice 1.6 e/s rate). Who else, from the edtech group, shall be talking about this?
shared responsibility: the rotating chair concept will improve the seminars. For the next turn, the command was handed in over to Justus.
an-innovation-per-seminar: it is absolutely fantastic experience when someone comes with an innovation (in the terms of the video-presentation we had: innovation is an original idea that has a value) and presents it. Matti introduced a wiki that shall guide the phd-students in their last steps towards graduation.
boss is talking: at least to me it seems that without the supervisors/seniors listening to what their hope-to-be-phd-one-days gibber the seminars miss one important dimension. The opposite flow of information in this channel is critical as well. This time Erkki summarized the preceding year: while Matti’s phd was the highlight, the intake of students continued to drop (80 positions open, 60 admitted, 30 sign-in, 23 at the first lecture, 15 in the evening of the first week). I wonder about causality of these two :) As for the upcoming year, there will be several new initiatives that shall improve both the motivation of people already in, and also the interest of students yet out. There were some other interesting ideas, but those perhaps do not belong to this blog.
Thanks to all presenters for making the day enjoyable!