Make your mark on the future VIA University College
Signatures
Professional degree programmes
we’re proud of
VIA educates and further educates professionals who solve key societal duties and develop professions and industries. Distinctive traits characterise the way in which we educate – several signatures we can be proud of. We present these signatures here.
The signatures can serve as a starting point for a constructive conversation between managers, leaders, educators, teachers and their collaborative partners about what makes a good bachelor degree programme. At the same time, the signatures invite dialogues on how bachelor degree programmes should develop and look in the future.
It is through dialogues and the development of a shared framework of understanding that the distinctive nature of bachelor degree programmes becomes clearer. To us, to the students we educate and to the world for which we educate.
Signatures
For professional degree programmes we are proud of
VIA has a strategic ambition to strengthen the professional expertise and profile of our degree programmes and research. We do this, for instance, by formulating what is common and interdisciplinary in VIA’s more than 40 professional bachelor degree programmes. And also by discussing the special ways in which we organise our education programmes and meet students.
A broadly composed resource group investigated and analysed how professional expertise is expressed in VIA’s education programmes. Interviews were carried out with students, examples of the variation in teaching methodologies in different professional environments were collected, and research perspectives were applied. The knowledge gained therein forms the basis for the constructed narratives presented after each signature.
Here you will find five signatures of our professional degree programmes that
we are proud of. They are based on thorough work and offer a shared framework for understanding the distinctive educational practices of our professional degree programmes. These signatures are an invitation to you, your colleagues and your partners to a joint conversation on what makes a good professional degree programme – and on how we continue to develop professional degree programmes we are proud of.
Behind the five signatures of our professional degree programmes that we are proud of lies thorough preparatory work. Scan or click on the QR code to read the paper on that work, which explores the justifications and theoretical perspectives behind the formulation of the five signatures.
1Professional degree programmes we are proud of contribute to developing your professional identity
This happens, for example, when our students:
– see, understand and develop themselves as professionals through diverse and manifold meetings and exchanges of practice
– develop a professional language for what they know, can do and want
– have the courage to fully enter professions and industries
– develop the professional expertise and skill to exercise professional discernment in practice.
A production engineering student shares:
During my first semester as a student, I encountered “practice”. I was solving issues with companies even before I started my internship. This allowed me to experience from the very beginning the practice that I am on my way to being a part of. I see myself in the profession and am developing an understanding of myself as a professional through meetings with practice and knowledge about it. I’m learning how professional production engineers work and collaborate, but I’m also learning meeting discipline, the social conventions of the profession and how knowledge is translated and implemented into practice. I can feel myself developing a professional identity and that is enabling me to understand myself as a production engineer.
2
Professional degree programmes we are proud of create purpose and coherence
This happens, for example, when our students:
– experience a clear progression through education programmes that are aimed at professions and industries
– actively connect knowledge with experiences and can continuously follow a common thread through the different arenas of the education programme
– meaningfully bring an up-and-coming professionalism into play in professions and industries
– experience the transitions of the education programme as understandable, manageable and meaningful.
A continuing education student shares:
At the primary school where I work, the entire teaching staff is being further educated in sustainability. This is being done through theory building, test measures and shared reflection. I’m working together with my colleagues on concrete projects and on implementing our new knowledge directly in our meetings with the pupils. Together, we are investigating how learning about sustainability is increased in different subjects and with different methods.
3
Professional degree programmes we are proud of alternate between theoretical practice and practical theory
This happens, for example, when our students:
– work with multiple and diverse examples of real-life issues in professions and industries
– are given the opportunity to move around reflectively in practice and form practical syntheses
– contribute to solving issues and developing professions and industries by actually connecting what they have learned to professional practice
– experience how professions and industries take co-responsibility for bringing together and connecting diverse knowledge.
A nursing student shares:
I enter VIA’s simulation laboratory. Here, we experiment with taking blood pressure on each other and on the human-like dummies in the improvised hospital ward. I get to test out the skills that are important for taking a patient’s blood pressure, and at the same time, I get to apply the theoretical knowledge I have on blood pressure and blood pressure measurement.
4
Professional degree programmes we are proud of contribute to both learning and education
This happens, for example, when our students:
– experience the dual purpose of our education programmes, which focus on both the development of professional expertise as well as the formation of independent and democratic citizens
– engage with professional icons and skilled didactic teachers and, through collaboration and self-determination, take responsibility for their own and others’ learning processes
– take a critical and constructive approach to the social function and purpose of professions and industries – and experience how they can make a difference.
An animation student shares:
On the animation education programme, I am part of a physical work community. I have my own workstation and work with a specific product over an entire semester. The environments here are reminiscent of the design studios and work communities we will experience in our internships – they’re less like classic classrooms. This education and working approach shapes and educates me for practice while teaching me to take responsibility for both my own and others’ learning processes. Some things are controlled and set in frameworks, other decisions are up to me as a student. That means I need to have an independent attitude towards the degree programme, its content and how I use it.
5
Professional degree programmes we are proud of are driven by a living flow of knowledge
This happens, for example, when our students:
– engage with practice, development and research knowledge that has been created in the interaction between current issues in professions and industries and the knowledge needs of the education programmes
– act as co-researchers and gather, test, analyse and disseminate knowledge about and in collaboration with professions and industries
– know best practice and can contribute to the development of next practice based on a complex and flexible understanding of knowledge
- encounter knowledge that is developed in close and binding collaborations between the educational institution and fellow educators in practice.
A student teacher shares:
I am a co-researcher on a development project where practice and education are integrated. With my fellow students, I participate in labs and development projects with our teachers. Here, we test, gather, analyse and disseminate the knowledge we develop. I’m gaining concrete experience with research-based development work. And I feel like I’m part of a project that is aimed at understanding and developing practice. In this way, I’m being educated to take responsibility for both “best practice” and “next practice”.
The interactive work in developing professional degree
programmes we are proud of
The five signatures can be the starting point for important joint conversations on professional bachelor degree programmes we are proud of. The goal is to highlight what is distinctive and important about bachelor degree programmes and to translate that into action. Such conversations can take place informally between colleagues or in a more structured and facilitated way at employee meetings or in-service days –with the aim of inspiring each other and practising together.
The five signatures can also actualise and frame dialogues on good professional degree programmes
with key fellow educators and other collaborative partners. This could, for example, take place on education committees, as part of internship collaborations or in dialogues with companies.
Regardless of how the signatures are brought into play, they are an invitation to talk about what we do, how we do it – and how we can become even better at developing and offering professional degree programmes we are proud of.
Inspiration for dialogues on professional degree programmes we are proud of
How are the signatures already evident at VIA?
What do the signatures mean for the skills we need as educators and co-educators?
How do we make the signatures more clear-cut for our students?
How can we work with the barriers standing in the way of the signatures being more visible in our education?
How can we use the signatures in the further development of our education?
How do different professional disciplines contribute to the signatures being more perceptible in our everyday practice?
Is there another signature we need? “Professional degree programmes we are proud of …”
Signatures
Professional degree programmes we’re proud of