During the current academic year, the 3AMK Universities community has made activity pledges with the aim of a more active everyday life in higher education. In the autumn, the 3AMK Moves project threw the balls to the higher education communities, and the message has been passed from one group to another in Laurea, Haaga-Helia and Metropolia. Student unions and associations, teaching staff, RDI actors and other staff, all the way to the management, have taken turns to make concrete pledges to add movement to the everyday life of their own teams.
“The teams have been actively involved in the creation of activity pledges and their implementation. Throwing the balls has served as a good conversation starter for increasing movement in several different teams. It has been wonderful to notice how small actions have already made a significantly large group of people increase activity in their everyday lives more consciously. Moving together has also brought a smile to the faces of the team members. In addition, we have been particularly pleased to hear that other higher education institutions and work communities have been inspired to try out the idea of activity pledges, too,” says Project Specialist Jenna Pennanen.
The whole community is needed to develop culture
Small everyday choices are made at the individual and team level, but in the higher education community, choices are also made on behalf of others. Especially in teaching and guidance work, up to hundreds of students are reached per week. In the everyday lives of teachers and students, physical activity can be increased by means of physically active learning. Introducing movement as part of teaching situations is an essential factor in building an active everyday life in higher education. Increasing physical activity is hindered by the familiar paradox: physical activity is known to be a prerequisite for the ability to work and study, yet the culture of sitting is deeply rooted in the practices of higher education studies and teaching.
“It is essential to develop a more active higher education culture to involve and commit the entire community and set an example. Everyone should take ownership of increasing physical activity. Of course, the university’s management plays an important role in outlining the operating principles of the movement positive culture. In addition, the lecturer is the key person in adding movement to the teaching situation by verbalising the importance of movement in learning and utilising various functional teaching methods,” says Nina Mäkelä, Senior Lecturer at Haaga-Helia, who is responsible for the development of physically active learning in the 3AMK Moves project.
The activity etiquette guides us to an active everyday life
The 3AMK Moves project aims to introduce practices that support physical activity and an operating culture that allows physical activity into all activities in higher education institutions. At the moment, there is an ongoing phase, where students and staff are invited to participate in the formulation of a common activity etiquette. The activity etiquette is a policy to be built together for 3AMK institutions, which defines how movement is implemented in the everyday life of higher education. Its most important aim is to guide and promote the well-being, learning and communality in the higher education community through movement.
Activity etiquette is a compilation of jointly drawn up principles that support active everyday life and will be implemented in the future as part of the study and working day. The design work is based on, among other things, the activity pledges collected during the year, the pedagogical development work, the activity bank compiled by the project, and the support and information of the Study on the Move network. The project’s recent social media campaign also challenges the general public to join in making their own activity pledges.