Exchange report - incoming teachers
Home university: Universidad de Chile
Study programme: Occupational Therapy
Exchange programme: Linnaeus-Palme
Semester: Autumn semester 2009/2010
Duration: 24
Name: Jean Gajardo Jauregui
Email address: jgajardo@med.uchile.cl

Accommendation

Accomodation was arranged by the international coordinator and the administrator of the room in where I stayed.
I stayed in Jägargatan 20, in södermalm. I think accomodation was ok, but I felt it wasn't the best location, I would have prefered staying closer to T-Bana or in a more urban area (Jägargatan is surrounded by Södersjukhuset, hospital) so sometimes I felt there was lack of possibilities for going out or spend some time outdoors during free time.
The best fact was having the Södra station close to home, which makes it much easier to make the way to KI in Huddinge.


Language and Culture

Teaching was conducted in English. There wasn't any barrier when communicating with the rest of the teachers or the students. However, as I know some Swedish I could try a little bit with the work team. They were supportive and patient about me trying to learn the language!
This was not my first time in Sweden, so I knew a bit about some common cultural facts. My main reflexion es that, even Swedes seem to be, and actually ar more reserved than we Chilens are, once they know you, they show themselves as caring and really warm people.

Leisure time

I could join several social activities, including 2 typical Swedish celebrations: the surströmming festen and the crayfish dinner. They were amazing! I notice so many differences comparing Swedes and Chileans when celebrating, it was faboulous.
Also I could attend dinner meetings with other exchange teachers, which was a good way to meet other colleagues and networking.

I would suggest to accept every invitation! Social activities are a really good way to get to know country's culture. When attending, you must be open minded and try the differences!

Miscellaneous

I think the exchange experience has completely filled my expectations. It's been an useful way to know a different way of doing things, and a really good one. There's a lot of ideas I can come up with while arriving in Chile that can be so useful for both students and teachers.
The team at the University was warm and caring about my time in there. I really appreciate this experience.

Other activities

During the exchange I carried out study visits to different health institutions that are clinical fieldworks for students, which was useful to think about the different approachings on developing practical skills in students.
Also, I could meet several researchers from other countries, and that possibility of stablishing contact has been useful for me as a junior academic and researcher.

Preparation

I knew about the existing agreement between Karolinska Institutet and Universidad de Chile, when I got the chance to apply, I thought it would be a great possibility for me to get involved with a different and prestigious setting of work such as KI.

Preparation was easy to follow. I was iconstantly informed by the international coordinator in order to prepare accomodation, and other aspects. I was informed of the requierments for exchaging and the activities I was suppossed to carry out.


Reflections

I think I should start by saying “Tack”, for the amazing and useful experience that I’ve been just through.

The possibility to exchange points of view and different approaches has absolutely contributed myself in growing both as a junior researcher and teacher, and of course, in a personal way as I was able to “work” daily with such a professional and excellent team of persons at KI.

 

Regarding goals, I’m deeply satisfied and think they’re accomplished. It was a constant and mutual feedback and interaction, that has promoted in myself different reflexions on how can we keep on the way of try to make things better in our academic world.

 

I think this time has contributed on the tools that I have as a junior researcher and teacher, and this may of course have an impact on the academic activities that I’m in charge of, and that is, at the same time, a contribution to the development of my home school, university and country.

 

I’m looking forward to plan and think of other ways of cooperation with KI after this exchange experience.

 

Thank you.

Teaching

I could participate in the following teaching acivities:

a) Lectures for undergraduate students.
I think Swedish and Chilean student-teacher relationships are quite similar. I noticed the importance of a reflexive and participant learning for both institutions.
I could see that Swedish modality tends to use better the different sources to get information. Students are constantly asked to report and justify their ideas using theoretical references.

b) Seminars for master and PhD students.
This is a modality that we don't have yet at the Occupational Therapy School of Universidad de Chile. It was really interesting having the chance to cooperate in seminars for postgraduate students, in which I could discuss and express my professional opinion regarding the issues under talk. It was useful to observe the way students are supported to carry out different activites during their master or PhD programs, for instance, discussing and analyzing researching projetcs or articles for further publishing.

c) Supervision of exchange students in practical fieldwork.
I arranged supervision meetings with Chilean students, in order to evaluate the way they had been getting adapted to thw Swedish context and if goals for the practice were being carried out.
I had also to support theoretical questions and promote access to references.

Teaching hours

1. LESSONS/SEMINARS.

 Lecture: “Occupational therapy in Context”,
for students in first term of first year.

Through this lecture students may have an approach to current definitions of Occupational Therapy, discuss about the common difficulty to define Occupational Therapy. We could also discuss about differences of OT in Chile/Southamerica and Swedish/European. Lenght: 3 hours.

Lecture: Occupational Therapy in Geriatrics.

The lecture gave theoretical background to understand the process of Occupational Therapy in Geriatrics.

I could also refer some Chilean research and publishing that we have done at School.

Also, I could show my current experience as a practitioner Occupational Therapist in a Geriatric Unit.
Length: 3 hours. 

Lecture: “Occupational Therapy researching in Chile”

For students in the first term of third year. Within the course of Researching,  I could explain some basic concepts regarding researching and scientific methods. Through the lecture I could also show the students some aspects of researching in Chile, and Occupational therapy.
Lenght: 2  hours.

PhD student seminar.

I could join this workshop with other teachers and students in order to discuss about a paper/article under construction. It was interesting to see the way of working and analyze the paper from diverse points of view. Length: 2 hours.


Visiting scholar, professo Virginia Dickies’ seminar , named: “Explaining occupation: a transactional perspective”. My role in the seminar was to contribute as a discussant. Dr. Dickies is well known in Occupational Therapy because of her more traditional way to analyze Occupational Therapy and also, because of her innovative ways of creating new knowledge on occupational science. Length: 1 hour.
 

Narrative Researching course.

This seminar/course is supposed to give the students of PhD and Master a chance to acquire tools for qualitative researching using a narrative approach. I participated both as a student and as a disussant regarding the experience of researching in Chile and in a Southamerican perspective. Length: 14 hours.

Total hours of lessons/seminars: 25 hours, 83,3% of total time.

2. SUPERVISION/BEDSIDE TEACHING.

Academic supervision.

Meeting with Chilean exchange students for clinical guideness. Lenght: 5 hours, 2 visits. 16,6% of total time.

 

TOTAL HOURS: 30.

 


 

 


 

 

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