At the Faculty of Science, teaching aims at giving our students a broad scientific knowledge, and the skills to apply their knowledge in many ways in different areas of society. Our researchers teach and instructors carry out research, so teaching always has its finger on the pulse of science.
Our teaching combines theory and experiments in many ways. We instruct during lectures, in tutorials and laboratories. Many modules include field courses or working at our research stations. We combine remote and in-class instruction flexibly. We also use VR instruction on campus. Many students complete their theses as part of working in a real research group. The multi-disciplinary research carried out in Kumpula also generates entirely new courses.
Courses and recruitment events organised in cooperation with companies act as support to the employment of our students. Over 1,000 students and dozens of companies annually participate in the Kumpula Potentiaali recruitment event organised by the students on campus.
In our MOOC centre, we are developing new ways of teaching open and scalable online courses. We have a large selection of open online courses that can be included in a degree, but can also benefit others, such as employees wanting to upgrade their working skills. Our most popular course is the award-winning Elements of AI, with over a million users world-wide.
The clubs and camps offered by the science education of the University of Helsinki inspire children and teenagers to learn science, and our teacher students act as coaches. The work in science education is constantly being further developed on the basis of research. We have the first professor in natural science education in Finland. School classes and groups of pupils can acquaint themselves with our research and instruction during field trips to the LUMA science classes. We even throw birthday parties in the science classes!
We inspire growing scientists in collaboration with the science education of the University of Helsinki by offering upper-secondary students science courses and models for scientific work in many disciplines. Our cooperation with the upper-secondary level is deepening even further now, with the Helsinki Science Upper Secondary School opening on the Kumpula campus in autumn 2023.
We support the professional skills of our teaching staff with many kinds of pedagogical training and online pedagogical support. There is training for e.g. planning instruction, evaluating learning, and counselling. Our instructors create their own plans for pedagogical development. The aim is for every instructor at the faculty to develop both as a researcher and a teacher. You can read more about support and development of instruction in the ScienceEd team's blog (in Finnish).
All the degree programmes have their own taskforces developing their instruction, and we also organise shared development events and workshops. The network for top instructors, the Teachers' Academy, is active at Kumpula.
The Faculty of Science is a diverse community for working and studying, where we support and help each other. One third of the staff are non-Finnish, and altogether we represent 60 nationalities. There is a large number of exchange students on campus, and we also offer our students many opportunities to go abroad for an exchange period at a foreign university.