Teaching portfolio

2010

Tommi Himberg  
 
 G O A L S

As a teacher, my aim is to create a learning environment that is inspirational,

fuels students’ natural curiosity, encourages dialogue and fosters critical think-
ing and a sense of responsibility.
According to the constructivist view, learning is about building new knowledge
on existing schemas. While it is a good idea to keep this in mind when com-
municating scientific findings or when teaching students, I believe university
studies are often (and should more often be) cognitively disruptive and make
long-lasting and wide-ranging changes to students’ identities and ways of think-
ing.
One part of this is realising one’s own potential, the opportunities in the world,
and the wealth of knowledge out there. A good teacher can guide students in
such a way that these feel like positive possibilities, not an intimidating sea of
infinite choices where one is lost.
To become a better researcher means becoming a better teacher, as well.
Communication should be at the heart of what researchers do. And even if we
sometimes call the general public an audience, with students it is crucial to re-
member that communication goes two ways; it is a conversation.

R E S P O N S I B I L I T I E S

My first experiences as a university teacher are from Cambridge, where I super-

vised undergraduate students in Introduction to Music and Science and Percep-
tion and Performance –courses. The Oxbridge model of small-group (2-4 stu-
dents) supervisions produces great results, and I hold that as an ideal that I still
try to emulate as much as possible. However, the student-teacher ratio is so
much greater in for example Jyväskylä, and thus this often becomes unfeasible
due to time limitations. But I’ve tried – although in my position (assist-
ant/university teacher), a person should have app. 35% teaching, I estimate this
to have been closer to 85% especially in the first years, as I didn’t have experi-
ence and could not rely on materials or plans from previous years.

COURSES

The table details the courses I’ve taught while in Jyväskylä. In addition to these
courses, I’ve been responsible for supervising the Personalised Study Plans of
the first year undergraduates since 2009, and the essay component of the musi-
cology entrance exam since 2008.

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 COURSES
STU-
YEARS TITLE MODULE CONTENT ECTS
DENTS*
First year course, introduction to dif-
2007, 2008, Introduction to music Basic ferent approaches to musicology, their
2009 research studies basic premises, main questions and
2 40
findings.
Introduction to cognitive approach to
Points of view to
Basic studying music: basics of acoustics,
2007, 2008 musicology (cogni-
studies psychoacoustics, music perception,
2 15
tive) cognition and performance.
Introduction to cognitive musicology:
Foundations of cogni- Basic basics of acoustics, psychoacoustics,
2009, 2011
tive musicology studies music perception, cognition, emotions
4 15
and music performance research.
Foundations of scien- What is scientific research? How to
2008-9, write a report? Students research a
tific research (first Basic
2009-10,
year seminar) + scien- studies
paper (autumn semester), present and 3+3
2010-11 process them in a seminar and write a
tific writing report (spring semester).
Seminar supporting the preparation of
2007-8, BA theses, instruction about scientific
Subject
2008-9, BA Seminar
studies
research and science communication. 10 15
2009-10 Convenor of the seminar also super-
vises the research projects.
Music perception, music performance,
Subject
2007-8 Music Psychology
studies
music & emotions, social cognition, 3/5 40
musical taste, development etc.
Advanced Methods course for students who do
Empirical musicology studies empirical research, experiments, sur-
2007-8
– methods course (master’s veys, computational analysis and use
5 10
level) quantitative methods.
Music psychology, interdisciplinary
Advanced music research, empirical musicology
2008-9,
studies – colloquium for students and staff to
2009-10, Colloquium
(master’s discuss ongoing projects and recent 5
2010-11 papers. Focus on master’s students’
level)
own thesis projects. In English.
In-depth look at psychological and
Advanced neural processes and mechanisms be-
hind interaction and communication;
Social cognition of studies
2010-11
music (master’s
joint attention, joint action, shared 5 25
intentionality, theory of mind, mirror
level) neuron systems etc, and how it all
relates to music.
Advanced Methods course for those BA and mas-
Advanced methodol-
studies ter’s students working on experiments,
2010-11 ogy – experiments
(master’s surveys and using quantitative meth- 5 5
and surveys ods.
level)
Lectures at MMT Advanced
Social cognition, cross-cultural ex-
courses (Music Psy- studies
2007-11
chology, Music, Cul- (master’s
perimentation, experiment methodol- 15
ogy. Teaching in English.
ture & Cognition) level)

Music psychology Basic and Courses delivered in the Sibelius

2008-2011 (Music Therapy basic subject Academy Open University and other 5 30
and subject studies) studies institutions.
*approximate average number of students enrolled per year

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INDIVIDUAL STUDENTS

I have supervised the BA theses of all the musicology students taking part in the
BA seminar. There have been 12-18 students per year. The BA thesis is an inde-
pendent research project, sometimes empirical, sometimes literature-based. The
written report has to meet the department’s criteria for these, both in terms of
their form and content. The typically 25-30 page reports are published online at
the university digital archive.
I have consciously tried to encourage students to take on empirical projects ra-
ther than just literature reviews. This has meant a considerable investment of my
time for extra supervisions and helping in setting up experiments, or hands on,
one-on-one lessons in data analysis.
Examples of completed thesis topics: metrical schemata and resisting en-
trainment; entrainment and personality; use of social media as PR by opera
houses; creativity and greed in recording industry; free jazz and human rights;
collaboration between music festivals in Finland; economic impact of music fes-
tivals; capoeira as a ritual; role of auditory feedback on tuning and timbre in
saxophone players; music in computer games; unconventional use of major and
minor modes in Ennio Morricone’s music for The Good, The Bad and The Ugly;
music in TV commercials for children; gender representations in music of TV
commercials; musicality tests; music and movement in contemporary dance;
gangsta rap, music and identity.

INNOVATIONS AND TEACHING MATERIAL

Mapping Research Methods – online resources for students in the Humanities.

During 2009-2010, I was a member of a project group who developed online
resources for research methodology teaching and learning in the Faculty of
Humanities. The resource was named “Mapping Research Methods”, the Eng-
lish version is here: <https://webapps.jyu.fi/koppa/avoimet/hum/menetelmapolkuja/en> In
this project, we created a “navigator” and descriptions of the research process,
philosophies, data collection methods, analysis methods and approaches, so
that students across the faculty could find methods that would best suit their
master’s projects. The materials are in active use by students as a self-learning
resource, and are used in a number of advanced studies courses across the fac-
ulty. I was the “quantitative guy” in the group, as qualitative methods under-
standably are more common in the humanities.

BA Seminar Student Poster Exhibition

I initiated and organised an exhibition of student posters, for the first time in
2009. This was made a part of the BA seminar last year. The objective is to en-
courage students, strengthen their identities as experts in their own fields and
show that their research is an important part of the research activities of the de-
partment. Students are given a theoretical and a practical session on posters,

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and the department prints their posters for the exhibition, that all the staff mem-
bers are supposed to visit in a conference-like poster session.
Student feedback has been overwhelmingly positive even though preparing the
posters is time consuming and many are sceptical about their own ideas at first,
belittling the significance of their work or their results.

Use of IT tools in teaching

I want to provide students with some experience of the web-based tools that
they are likely to use in their future working lives. Many people see Facebook or
Twitter as toys, something that belongs to free time rather than work, or see
Wikipedia as a cool but unreliable project that has no place in academic envi-
ronment. I beg to differ, as I have initiated and set up Facebook pages for the
music department and for musicology, to help in marketing and alumni affairs,
and to promote collegiality among our current students and alumni. Twitter is
an indispensable tool for accessing and enlarging my personal learning network
(PLN).
New technologies, such as social networks, wikis and microblogs provide ways
of collaborating and creating things socially. Wikipedia’s role in education, and
especially at universities, has mostly been discussed from the perspective of
whether information scoured from Wikipedia can be used in assignments. I
wanted to turn this debate about reliability of information around, and so we
started producing high quality content for Wikipedia as course assignments. The
first experiment in this was the Points of View –course in 2009-2010, where
students formed groups and produced 6 new articles about topics ranging from
computational musicology to music and emotions. Students were thrilled to
learn how Wikipedia really works, and they were happy to realise that they are
experts in their fields, and can already in their first semester produce publish-
able content. Many were excited to see that if they had problems in formatting
their text to meet the Wikipedia standards, someone from the Wikipedia online
community would soon fix things they couldn’t. The articles they created started
to live their own lives outside the classroom.
The university provides a wiki platform, and I initiated and coordinated the ad-
option of the platform at the Music department, providing some training for staff
and some setting up work. The most active user group has been the Teaching
Development Group, a department working group that consists of teachers and
students from all disciplines, responsible for drafting all sorts of documents,
from plans about student counselling to drafts of new curriculum.
I have published many of my lectures online using SlideShare
(www.slideshare.com/tijh) or MindMeister, a mindmapping tool. I have written
a blog about my research and teaching, and have posted my slides or other ma-
terials online regularly, to mindsync.wordpress.com. The blog has had a total of
app. 10 000 visitors. I write in Finnish and in English, in an effort to promote
music psychology as a research discipline and also the research and education
of our department.

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CURRICULUM DEVELOPMENT

It is said that you only know something when you teach it to others – I would
say that you only know teaching when you design a curriculum. During the
term 2008-2009, we did a major overhaul to the curricula in all disciplines of
the Music Department.
All courses and modules were described through Learning objectives, instead of
the old vague descriptions of content areas. In addition, great care was taken to
design a curriculum that would be clear, allow cross-disciplinary degrees and
where accumulation of knowledge would work logically from the basic studies
through subject studies to advanced (master’s level) studies.
I find that this LO-based curriculum and the process in general has increased
my focus on learning, and compared to earlier content-based course descrip-
tions, helps focus on relevant content, level of detail, and relevant thought pro-
cesses.

E V A L U A T I O N S  

The department does not have a department level evaluation system or feed-
back system in place yet, although the Teaching Development Group is already
working on it. Instead, I have collected student evaluations myself after the
courses. Many of the evaluation results are posted in my blog, although time
constraints have prevented the publication of them all.
The feedback has been very positive, and overall ”grades” for the courses been
4/5 or even better. The teaching materials, lecture visuals etc. have received the
highest marks, while the criticisms often have to do with there being quite a lot
to absorb during the course. As a result, I have developed the content of my
courses by for example leaving out less relevant material. The student feedback
had also influenced the curriculum, as for example the credits given for the
Points of View –course have been doubled, as here the content was found very
interesting but the course format restricted and the amount of credits awarded
too small.
Being a member of the evaluation group that conducted a national evaluation of
the master’s programmes in Finnish universities (a project by Finnish Higher
Education Evaluation Council, in 2002-2003) was a very useful experience, as
we made evaluation visits to a number of Finnish universities, interviewing stu-
dents, staff and administration. This national evaluation, the curriculum devel-
opment project and the individual course evaluations, have helped me to see
the continuum from individual courses to degrees, to a national HE system.

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