MingleMeals
Photo: Engin Akyurt
The MingleMeals -project co-creates an innovative learning course focused on enhancing the social sustainability of mealtime care for the elderly.
The 30ECTS course brings best practice and innovation from research into teaching materials for students in nursing, social work, elderly care, tourism, and catering degree programs.
This is what we do!
Focus in the role of food and nutrition
The course will contribute to increasing the number of skilled professionals in elderly care and clarify the importance of working with nutrition, food and wellbeing among the elderly.
Nordic collaboration
Each country contributes with specific knowledge, and it creates an opportunity for students as well as teachers to be inspired by each other. The study course qualify them as professionals to support and innovate rehabilitation programmes and good meal experiences for the elderly with a focus on nutrition, wellbeing and sustainability.
Measures
Partners have monthly online meetings to plan and modify the content of the study course.
Workshop 1. Denmark, Nov 2024.
Workshop 2. Norway, Feb 2025.
Workshop 3. Finland, April 2025.
.
.
Copenhagen workshop 7-8th November, 2024
Copenhagen workshop was held on the 7-8th November 2024 and the team consisted of: Kai V Hansen, Michelle G Petersen, Lise Justesen, Riitta Tuikkanen, Annele Urtamo who were the main partners, and with the pedagogical and technological expertise of Jakob Hedegaard and Helge Suneson.
During the workshop, we got introduced to the learning platform ThingLink which is focused on the visual representation of the educational materials. This tool provides immersive learning on any device and is built in an easily accessible manner for all kinds of students. the platform.
Together, we developed the backbone of our course and decided to divide it into modules which are time and pace flexible for the sake of accessibility for international students with different schedules. We were very keen on the idea of Togetherness as the umbrella concept for the whole course. Under this agenda, we have created following modules: Nutrition, Gerontology, Meals, Loneliness. Each module has a responsible actor on the development stage.
Incorporated into the course was the learning design that we call ABC: Arena Blended Connect.
It includes the steps necessary for effective and inclusive studying of the subject: Acquisition, Investigation, Practice, Production, Collaboration and Discussion. Each step is a comprehensive learning experience helping the students develop certain academic skill. For example, during Acquisition students learn the information from listening to lectures or studying materials, while during Investigation they will compare, research and evaluate materials. Practice entails the students applying their skills to achieve their goal; for example, the information that they learnt on how to create sustainable meals, could be applied for building a diet for an elderly person for a week. Feedback on the Practice stage may come from peers, self-reflection or the teacher, and it helps in development of the result. Production is the next step of Practice where students actualize their work in form of presentation, seeking the way of applying their skills in the real world. Collaboration is an invaluable step which contains Discussion, Production and Practice and implies working together in groups. Learning from each other is always a useful experience for any learners. Discussion is the process of brainstorming a problem sharing opinions and insights which motivates open-mindedness.
Now we are faced with an interesting challenge: how do we achieve our Learning Outcomes, e.g., the skills learnt having implemented steps like Discussion, Production and Practice, in a course that is a 100% online? This is a great topic for us on our upcoming meetings.
brainstorming with the team
in dire need of a coffee break
backbone of the course ready
satisfying job
Stavanger workshop 13-14th February, 2025
The Stavanger workshop took place in the modern University of Stavanger in the atmosphere of internationality and mutual respect. The first day began with a word from the Head of the Department of Leadership and Service Innovation after a quick breakfast. She presented us with a short speech about the educational programs available at the faculty.
Workshop chairperson was Kai Hansen of the Stavanger University. Our international team consisted of: Riitta Tuikkasen and Annele Urtamon from Finland, and our colleagues from Copenhagen: Lise Justesen, Michelle Gundal Petersen and Helge Mørch Suneson. Together, we kicked off the main discussion by catching up on our work since the last online meeting.
Helge was our irreplaceable guide in navigating the creative bulk of the workshop: visualisation of the educational material. Using Canva, we shared our ideas and realized them immediately. Important points of the brainstorming process were the visual style of the educational modules, their structure and their availability for the students. It was inspiring to see the result of our ideas in the form of the main page of our course on the learning platform ThingLink. We put further discussions into the detailing of the modules.
The second day of the workshop saw us trying our hand in Canva; we created pages on our own and received important insights about the accessibility.
The Stavanger workshop provided us with important and fruitful exchange with our Nordic colleagues and was an important threshold on the path of making our course easy and understandable for a wide variety of learners.
meeting for a brief city walk
view of the evening Stavanger
lunch with the team
happy to have conquered Canva
Mikkeli workshop 24-25th April, 2025
We had a fruitful discussion during our third workshop where we polished the length and evaluation criteria of our MingleMeals course. Importantly, we have settled on the final name of it: MingleMeals, Meals and Togetherness for Older Adults, which reflects on the values of unity, mutual help and support.
Other points included defining our target groups and fleshing out the desired outcomes of the learning process. The 100% of the course will be held online: this format makes it easier for each university to implement its own schedule. Students can also take the modules in any order because, as we have established in the previous workshops, they are flexible in structure.
We continue working with Canva, aiming to transfer all its templates into our ThingLink platform and make the learning visual, appealing and engaging.
We also are currently working on the general MingleMeals course description.
reuniting at the campus in Mikkeli
lunch at the restaurant Talli
working on target audiences and desired outcomes for the course
latest workshop engaging process
Experiences and articles
Blooming in Finland: A Guide to Career Opportunities for Immigrant Women in South Lax
Xamk’s Procurement Specialist Nuutti Teräsalmi: “I Feel That I Am Trusted”
Six journeys towards a more equal game industry
Exploring Entrepreneurial Futures in Kymenlaakso
Facts
MingleMeals: Connecting Kitchens and Institutions for Nutritional Social Wellbeing for elderly in the Nordic Communities
Info
Budget
Project partners
Contact:
riitta.tuikkanen@xamk.fi, tel. +358407723385