Viva Dydaktyka - once again, the Centre for Didactic Improvement and Tutoring UG summed up a year of its activities with a festive meeting for those wishing to learn about new teaching methods and those interested in developing higher education. 

This year's VIVA DYDAKTYKA began with a lecture by prof. dr hab. Marlena Lembicz from Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań entitled 'Didactics in the process of exploration'. The biologist shared her experiences of giving lectures and preparing an Oxford debate with bioinformatics students.

- Didactics is searching for and creating keys to communicate with the next generation. That is why it has such power - said the speaker. - If we communicate with young people, we will win. We need to explain the world to them from different perspectives, and we will only do that with didactics.   

After the lecture, a conversation ensued between prof. Marlena Lembicz and the VIVA DYDAKTYKA participants about the need to publish theses as articles. Questions were also raised about new decisions taken by Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań regarding the use of artificial intelligence by students.

Next, CDDiT Director dr Ewa Szymczak, prof. UG presented a report on the Centre's last year of activity. The unit conducted a series of meetings for academic teachers, including a Didactic Jam Session, Tutor Café and Ideas for Academic Education. CDDiT also organises courses, training, and webinars and publishes the journal Tutoring Gedanensis, in which essays by students and tutors, among others, appear.

- Short training courses, which last between four and a dozen hours, are very popular. This year, we offered as many as 35 proposals - said prof. Ewa Szymczak. - Many topics concerned technology, teaching methods and tools, but also the general well-being of an academic teacher.  

Dr Beata Karpińska-Musiał, Deputy Director of CDDiT UG, discussed the new journal 'Horizons of Academic Education'. The journal is intended to represent the diversity of didactics. It contributes to practitioners and theoreticians and features scientific and popular science articles.

- We are also active in the MINDtheGEPs project led by prof. Ewa Łojkowska, which aims to implement gender equality at the University of Gdańsk - said dr Beata Karpińska-Musiał. - Our centre was invited to discuss what equality changes to introduce in science and teaching.

One of the activities related to this project was individual mentoring sessions for people at different levels of their academic career (pre-doctoral, pre-habilitation and pre-professional), which CDDiT organised in November 2022.

After presenting the unit's activities in the 2022/23 academic year, CDDiT staff, together with the Vice-Rector for Student Affairs and Quality of Education at UG, dr hab. Arnold Kłonczyński, prof. UG presented diplomas to graduates of Level I and II tutor training.

- According to our calculations, we can afford about 10% of the teaching staff at the university, not including foreign language teachers and physical education trainers. It is essential that this group constitutes the core for constructing academic didactics - says prof. Arnold Kłonczyński. - On the other hand, we should care for the quality of didactics at our university. CDDiT is doing everything to ensure this is the case, as seen by the impressive results of this year's work. So thank you very much for this whole year.

The organisers of the event, as well as scientists and employees from other UG units and faculties, prepared as many as 12 teaching stands that presented new teaching tools or methods. Strolling between the stands, visitors could learn, among other things, about the use of AI in education, educational cubes, simulation games or the Escape Room at the UG Library, as well as borrow books selected from the BUG collection.

During the second part of the event, dr Beata Karpińska-Musiał led a panel discussion entitled. 'Routine versus surprise: why do we train and what do we bring with it to the culture of the university?' attended by: dr Dorota Dykalska (WNS), dr Beata Kowalczyk (WPiA), dr Leszek Reszka (Faculty of Economics), dr Monika Mazurowska (Faculty of Management), dr Helena Draganik (Faculty of Philology). The event concluded with a debate from the Ideas of Academic Education series 'Why, what for and for whom a university?' moderated by dr Jarosław Jendza from CDDIT UG.

Viva Dydaktyka took place on June 21, 2023.