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Computing Sciences

Cultural adaptation of Brainwolk walking meeting

— aino.ahtinen@tuni.fi
People walking indoors in a walking meeting

The changing weather conditions set challenges for the conduction of outdoor walking meetings in January. No worries, ad hoc cultural and contextual adaptations are possible. Read further to get to know how we made a walking meeting in Cross-Cultural Design course to manage with the slippery January street conditions!

For some time already I have been part of the Students on the Move programme at Tampere University. The purpose of the programme is to build network around physically active ways of studying, to promote physical activity for university students and staff, and share the good practices around these topics. My role is to promote, train and conduct walking meetings, among other activities.

When biking to Hervanta, I got an idea to conduct a Brainwolk walking meeting together with Cross-Cultural Design course students without any preparation or even warning for the students. I just planned it when biking, and the following things became clear in my mind. First, I wanna conduct the walking meeting during the lecture break with the ones who attend face to face. The online participants I would encourage to have a physical break as well. Second, the theme of the walk would be Q&A. While walking, the students could ask any questions from the teachers. The questions could related to cultural topics (topics of the course), or practical topics (e.g. assignments).

As the students started to enter the classroom, I heard (even before presenting my ad hoc activity for the day) that it was very slippery outdoors. So, I need to re-think. Should I postpone this or what shall I do. Then one student suggested us to to the walking meeting indoors. Hey why not? It would actually be a nice cultural and contextual adaptation for the walking meeting concept. Also, TAU Hervanta campus premises offer nice route from Sähkötalo to Konetalo (and back) though several building. That is great idea!

People walking indoors in a walking meeting

So, on the lecture break, we walked together from Robostudio Sähkötalo to Konetalo. It took about 10 minutes. I got a chance to chat with two students and we had nice chats about cultural stuff, walking meetings, novel ways of teaching etc. All students looked happy after the chats and I heard that the students chatted about the course projects and all that kind of things. After this small physical activity we felt refreshed and it was good to continue with the latter part of the lecture.

Stay tuned for more of these cultural adaptations of Brainwolk!

Written by Aino

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