Satakunta University of Applied Sciences
About our Organization
SAMK, is the leading university in Satakunta region. The university of 400 experts and 6000 students is located in four municipalities, with the headquarters in the capital of the region, in Pori. The Pori campus, built in 2017 expressly for modern higher education, has a Simulation Centre for students in the Faculty of Health and Welfare, that develops group work skills and encourages taking a distinctive role in an urgent or surprising situation. In addition, simulation situations teach cooperation between different professional groups (e.g. nursing, physiotherapy, rehabilitation, social services). SAMK is known for its quality of education.
According to the annual national survey in the tertiary level education institutions, SAMK has three times in 10 years been ranked as the best, and otherwise among the top three universities of applied sciences in Finland. Employment of the graduated students is the highest in the country external to the metropolitan area. The Finnish Education Centre Karvi has audited SAMK. All programmes are accredited by Finland’s Ministry of Education. The DNV Business Assurance has awarded SAMK an ISO 9001:2015 certificate with auditing revision in 2019. As required by the lately updated law of universities of applied sciences in Finland, SAMK is an Ltd, which is owned by regional municipalities and public institutions, and completely funded and supervised by the Finnish Ministry of Education and Culture. As the first Scandinavic and third European university, SAMK degree programme of Physiotherapy was accredited with conditions by the World Confederation for Physical Therapy for 2020-2025.
Why we are Participating in the Project
SAMK is involved with Erasmus+ -projects: Innovative Rehabilitation Education – Introduction of new master degree programs in Ukraine (2018-2022), #Guidance – Digital tools and Method development (2021-2023), HEALINT4ALL – (2020-2023). In all these projects the development of distance teaching or guidance and use of digital tools are key aspects. Also development of education material and recoding webinars, streaming teaching onsite and supporting accessibility of the material are in the core of the working plans of these projects. SAMK was also involved with the national project From Steps to Learning towards Working life (2018-2021), which was to support the later-stage studies and employment of students with Finnish or foreign Romany background. In order to improve their employment, the project organized multicultural training for professionals in different fields. SAMK has already been developing distant education and tools for several years, also with some curricula carried out in multiple learning environments (on-site & on-line). Since early 2020, all education programmes have successfully been offered partly online and all the systems have been developed also supporting hybrid-education. The dynamic interaction between an active learner and the learning environment is central in physiotherapy education. In the teaching and learning process, special emphasis is placed on the learner’s self-direction and critical reflection over one’s own learning. In the teaching and learning the role of the teacher is to combine the expertise in the subject matter and the psychological skills to accommodate the needs of the individual within a group. Studying is based on the application and production of evidence-based knowledge and critical reflection. Web-based learning is used to strengthen the student’s learning skills and professional competences.
Our Role in the Project
What is your organization contributing to the project? Which parts of the project is it contributing to? Please avoid project-speak. Explain your role to an external with no knowledge of the project.
We will produce together with the others culture sensitive e-learning course in movement analysis and therapy. We are preparing the methodology through to developing knowledge, communication skills and professional competences in movement analysis and therapy. We will give our input to the content of the e-learning course and its implementation plan. We are responsible to carry through the preparation and publication of the self-study manual for the e-learning course. We will be active to translate the e-learning course and self-study manual into Finnish. In the end we are piloting the e-learning course nationally and internationally and giving guidelines and recommendations for the implementation.
Marika Kiviluoma-Ylitalo
Marika Kiviluoma-Ylitalo is experienced lecturer in multicultural student groups and is experienced in RDI-projects. She is a Chairman of Board in FAP developing national physiotherapy education and promoting cooperation between actors in the field of HE. Her passion is physiotherapy and mental health care.
Johanna Vähä-Jaakkola
Johanna Vähä-Jaakkola has a great culture sensitive competence and she is experienced teacher of multicultural student groups. She is experienced to work in RDI-projects. Her primary fields in physiotherapy are paediatric and neurological physiotherapy.
Mari Törne
Mari Törne has a long experience of working with multicultural student groups. She has been working in several international and national projects. Her teaching areas are cardiopulmonary physiotherapy, exercise physiology and geriatric physiotherapy
Sinikka Kyngäs
Sinikka Kyngäs has years of experience in international projects and has taken care the financial management and other administrative tasks of several international and national financial projects.
