Safety

My teaching place took place in Oulu University of Applied Sciences. OUAS has multiple campuses. I was teaching on Kotkantie campus. In this post I will address on how students’ physical, social and psychological safety are ensured in OUAS.

Rules and Regulations of OUAS promote general safety and occupational and educational well-being and endorse equal treatment. Rules and Regulations in OUAS are outlined on OUAS website and consist of the following sections:

General orderliness and safety
Behaviour
Intoxicants and smoking
Communications and data security
Disciplinary measures and sanctions
Parking and rescue routes

Physical Safety in OUAS

To ensure the physical safety of the students and staff OUAS has a rescue plan and specific regulations to follow in the situations that are threatening to physical well-being.

Rescue Plan. The purpose of the rescue plan is to guide, instruct and assist the responsible management and other personnel of OUAS in preventing accidents, hazards and injuries. The institution has devised such measures to promote preparedness so that rescue from danger can be carried out without delay. The measures are based on the assessment of the potential threats and accidents and the ways to manage them. The rescue plan is primarily intended for the orientation of staff and students working on Kotkantie campus and it ensures a safe working and study environment.

According to the Finnish Rescue Act 379/2011 section 14 the owner and occupants of a building and the business and industrial operators shall for their part: 1) prepare to prevent fires and other dangerous situations; 2) prepare for the protection of persons, property and the environment in dangerous situations; 3) prepare for extinguishing fires and taking other such rescue action which they are capable of performing independently; 4) take measures to ensure safe exit during fires and in other dangerous situations and to facilitate rescue operations.

The obligation to prepare a rescue plan is based on the requirements of sections 8 and 9 of the Rescue Act and sections 9, 10 and 15 of the Rescue Decree on self-preparedness.

The central legislature behind the OUAS safety plan is:
Rescue Act: 379/2011
Section 4 Duty of care
Section 9 Fire and exit safety of buildings
Section 10 Building exits
Section 11 Property escape routes
Section 14 Self-preparedness
Section 15 Rescue plan

Safety Decree 407/2011
Section 1 Obligation to draw up a rescue plan
Section 2 Content requirements for the rescue plan

Occupational Safety and Health Act 738/2002
Section 44 Handling of dangerous substances
Section 45 Safety of working conditions
Section 46 Employer’s duty of care
Section 47 Organization of rescue measures

The rescue plan provides contact information of people in charge of the educational units and departments in the OUAS Kotkantie as well as contact information of people responsible for safety.

Exit and lockdown instructions are provided in the rescue plan.
Exit.  In order to secure the exit of persons and to facilitate rescue operations, exit routes are indicated on the school premises by sign lighting or reflective exit road signs. The signal lighting is constantly on. Routes to the exits are also guided. Exits from buildings take place from the nearest marked exits. The meeting places are the south and north parking areas of the campus.

Lockdown in school. The alarm can instruct to take shelter indoors, depending on the situation. In this case, the unit’s management will instruct the measures in detail on a building-by-building basis. The instructions given by the authority according to the development of the situation must be followed. When the danger and threat are over, the authority orders the exit from the building and the gathering in the assembly areas.

The plan provides detailed instructions on how to act in various threatening to physical health situations, such as: fire, illness or injury, water damage, theft, robbery, situations of violence, armed person, bomb threat, suspicious object or threat letter, gas hazard, radiation hazard, power outages.

As a person working on campus, I need to know how to act in a situation potentially harmful to my students’ physical well-being. When starting work in a new place or coming for substitution, a teacher needs to familiarize themselves with the rescue plan of the building he is going to work in and know how to protect themselves and students in case of danger, where to find exits, where the gathering spot is, where to shelter and how to minimise the risk of getting harmed. Teacher must have the contact information of people in charge of safety and make sure his phone works and is available during the working day.

Equality and non-discrimination policy of OUAS

Equality and non-discrimination matters shall be transparent in all activities in OUAS. There is zero tolerance for bullying and harassment in the institution. The staff and students must know about the equality policy and operational model when facing harassment.

Equality plan of the Oulu University of Applied Sciences 2020-2022 outlines the main goals of the equality work in the institution. They are:
– to promote equal treatment and non-discrimination of all students in spite of gender, age, ethnic or national origin, nationality, language, religion or conviction, opinion, political and labor union activity, family, health, disability, sexual orientation or any other personal trait, and to prevent discrimination based on gender identity or gender expression

– to plan and implement the needed measures for the advancement of equality

– to provide guidelines for the implementation of equality work and practices – to increase awareness of equality work

Accessibility of study environment. Accessibility includes the idea of environment being accessible for different people. The university environment can be divided into three elements: physical, social and psychic.

Web accessibility. Environment being accessible online.  The objective of the web accessibility is to make it easy for students to access online services, digital content, learning materials. When web accessibility is endorsed, different students will be able to use online services independently, which allows for better inclusion and autonomy of people with disabilities or with special needs.  

Physical accessibility goals and measures:

– Inclusion of aid equipment and facilities as part of the equality planning (banisters and support handles, wide corridors and accessible routes, for example doorsteps, slopes and possibilities of using an elevator and door automatism);

– Ensuring the accessibility of electronic communications (accessibility of the electronic information channels, internet-based study environments);

– Taking care of the accessibility of learning materials (teaching, study materials, assignments and study environments are being made accessible for all students in Oulu UAS; equipment can be used by all students);

– Ensuring good possibilities to study for all types of students;

 – Support measures and special arrangements when needed (organizing support activities according to the needs of the student).

Accessibility of social environment goals and measures:

– Diverse learners (for example students with dyslexia or other learning challenges) shall be recognized as part of the university community and the developmental needs must also be recognized;

– Teaching and counseling shall be accessible for everyone. Study welfare should be present in the whole university environment and cover all actors inside Oulu UAS. Responsibility of guidance is part of every employee’s work in Oulu UAS;

– Supporting the teachers in the planning of pedagogical solutions to advance accessibility.

Accessibility of psychic environment goals and measures:

– Advancement of valuing and accepting diversity.

The prevention of discrimination on the basis of gender identity and gender expression goals and measures:

– Developing the study environment to be safer for all genders;

– Intervening to discrimination based on gender, gender identity or gender expression;

– The usage of terms used by person belonging to gender minorities;

– The gender diversity, shown in teaching and study materials, will be developed;

– Students and staff should be spoken to without assumptions of their gender or use adapted speech, if needed;

– Creating practices which are meant to prevent discrimination in for example student admission;

– Providing gender neutral premises;

– Ensuring the possibility of changing personal name and gender information in the certificates and transcripts of study records.

The advancement of internationality, multi-culturalism and multi-lingualism goals and measures:

– Integrating internationality to basic operations and activities;

– Advancing the multi-lingualism in the study courses and the content of teaching;

– Equal treatment of students in student exchange and internship programs;

– Taking care of communication in English language (more resources provide information in English language);

– Supporting a multicultural society.

When faced with bullying and harassment the first contact in student feedback can be for example the Degree Programme Teams and feedback surveys.

The working groups deal with issues according to the case at hand. The list of the working groups can be found in the Equality Plan of Oulu University of Applied Sciences brochure.

A short guide on whom to contact in case of harassment can be retrieved here: https://www.oamk.fi/opinto-opas/en/welfare/equality.

Cyber safety. Working in an online environment we need to always keep in mind cyber ethics, cyber safety and security. We need to educate our students about cyber hygiene, how to stay safe in the internet, how to manage problems that might arise in a virtual setting, how to wisely use and store personal information on the internet, so its not violated. We need to also promote equality in our virtual learning space, which means that we cannot discriminate against our students’ preferences for online tools and platforms we use, we need to democratically approach the choice of methods and tools for learning, taking into account students’ views and preferences.  As teachers we need to be fully prepared to handle the situations of cyber bullying just as much as we need to do it in the actual classroom. We need to be law obedient when creating and using the materials in our virtual classrooms with the regard to copyright laws, seeking permission from and acknowledging the authors whose visual work we might use for own educational purposes.

Mental well-being. Student life is full of stress. High expectations from the family and from oneself, relationships with peers, relationships with teachers, exams, projects, deadlines, job market demands- all put students under a lot of pressure on daily basis. The likelihood of students experiencing feelings like anxiety, agitation, fear, which can consequently lead to depressive states, is high. Students can loose faith in themselves and their prospects, and, most importantly, lose the sight of their purpose and role in community, turn to substance abuse and drop out of school. The goal of any educational institution, including OUAS, is to not let that happen and provide help in critical situations as well as organise preventive measures. OUAS student welfare works to provide students with the help they need. Students can get timely help from the study councillors and study psychologist services and get confidential counselling.

To deal with substance abuse OUAS has its policy on interventions in harmful use of intoxicants. The guide provides information to staff and students on the following matters:

• What to do when we suspect a student in use of intoxicants
• How the substance abuse can be prevented in OUAS
• Key cooperation partners and their role in control and prevention of the substance abuse.

A teacher in his daily work has to make students feel mentally safe in their classroom. For that purpose, they need to build safe learning environment in their classroom, build good rapport with students based on respect, ability to respond adequately to students’ needs and inquiries, ability to guide and help effectively through the tasks at hand.  A teacher needs to be able to communicate to students that they are out there to help when students need help and make them feel that it is okay to ask for help. Also, a teacher needs to get to know their students as mush as possible and know what kind of situations can be of potential danger of mental distress for students. For example, pairing up students for project or activities with someone they do not see eye to eye.  Most importantly, teachers need to be aware of themselves and their treatment of students. Certain remarks, tone, intonation, sarcasm can become a cause of distress and reduce psychological safety of students in the classroom.

When a teacher realises that addressing a certain situation is outside of their area expertise it’s their duty to guide and direct a student to seek help and guidance from people who will know what to do, be it psychologist, social worker, doctor, etc. The school is responsible for making these services available to students and providing information on how to use them. The student welfare professionals of OUAS are ready to provide that help and guidance. Students can also contact student union OSAKO’s professionals and well-being tutors.

TAKING SAFETY INTO ACCOUNT DURING TP

During my teaching practice in OUAS, I did not face many issues concerning students’ physical, social, and mental safety apart from the spread of COVID-19. Part of my teaching practice took place in a physical classroom and the other part in an online classroom.

Physical. When I started teaching in a physical classroom, I made sure to go over the campus safety plan, save the phone numbers of the people responsible for safety on Kotkantie, as well as my guiding teachers’ numbers. I walked around the building and outside quite much to memorize well the layout of the building, where the stairs and the exits were, where the campus rally points were. I knew where the closest exits from the building to each of my classrooms were. I kept my phone always on in case I needed to contact someone urgently.
I had a talk in the beginning with my guiding teacher on the measures needed to be taken in case of a dangerous person in the building or in the classroom; a student with an unstable behavior in the classroom; a person under the influence of alcohol or drugs in the classroom; discovery of drugs on the school premises. The teacher described several situations from her own and my other guiding teacher’s practice and how they handled those situations and whom they contacted. The actions should be taken according to the safety plan measures and the needed authorities needed to be contacted timely in order not to let the situation get out of hand.
With the beginning of the spread of COVID-2019, we all found ourselves in the situation when we needed to promote preventative measures among the students to ensure their physical safety. While still in the physical classroom, at the beginning of the classes I encouraged short discussions on the corona situation and the measures student were taking or needed to take to lower the risks of getting infected, underlining the importance of hand hygiene. I brought hand sanitizer to every class making it available to students if they needed it. I also showed a CNN video where the importance of the preventative measures was highlighted.

Accessibility. I did not have any students in my group who required special equipment in the classroom. I made sure that the fonts and contrast on my PowerPoints were accessible. I paid attention to the light in the class making sure it was appropriate for all activities. I brought headphones for listening tasks with me to every classroom, so those who needed could use them.
When using online resources and textbooks I made sure to give very detailed instructions on how to access and use the resources and provided personal assistance to everyone who struggled to do so. I used only reliable websites and learning platforms, that have a good reputation. I didn’t use any web resources that were of shady nature and required personal information from the students. When implementing a Facebook learning activity, I made sure I got consent from all the class participants before running it. I also gave opportunities to students to use backup software, like WhatsApp for example, if they had technical problems using the main software.

Copyright. All my learning materials were taken from the textbooks which were also in students’ possession; created by me or taken from TeachThis website, which grants me as its member the right to use the materials in the classrooms. Most all images for my presentations were taken from pixabay.com, which is the site for the sharing of copyright-free images. No copyright was infringed. I did not run any activities that would require students’ finding and using images of graphics. If I had, I would have educated them first on the issue of copyright so that their online actions were safe and legal.

Social and psychological safety. There was no bullying detected among students in either physical or online classrooms. The work was handled maturely and responsibly by the students in both environments.
The students learn when they feel that the learning space is safe. I tried to do my best as a teacher to create the learning environment in my classrooms, both physical and online, that promoted psychological safety. I established a good rapport with the students early on, I was supportive and appreciative of their effort, gave them praise for doing the work productively and creatively; I treated everyone with respect and encouragement. At all times I tried to stay aware of what I was saying and commenting so that no one could be offended or insulted by my remarks. I want to believe that it didn’t happen during the teaching practice as I did not receive any feedback on that from either teachers or students, however, the possibility if it is always present, especially when you work in a multicultural setting.
COVID-19 has had its toll on our mental well-being. Our routines were disrupted, and teachers and students had to accommodate their lives to the new world situation. At the beginning of several of my classes, I tried to encourage students’ talking and sharing about their quarantine experiences with their peers, about the challenges of the new study and living routines. I aimed at creating the space where students could share their common concerns to find that they are not alone facing the same problems and they can get support in their community and in school.
I was frequently reiterating that I was around in both physical and online classrooms in case the students needed my help. I gave multiple ways of contacting me in case of any problem. I believe I managed to the best of my ability to create safe learning classroom environments, where everyone was treated equally with respect and appreciation.

Safety National Legislature and OUAS regulations:

Finnish Rescue Act 379/2011. Retrieved from https://www.finlex.fi/fi/laki/kaannokset/2011/en20110379.pdf

Safety Decree 407/2011. Retrieved from
https://www.finlex.fi/fi/laki/ajantasa/2011/20110407

Occupational Safety and Health Act 738/2002. Retrieved from https://www.finlex.fi/en/laki/kaannokset/2002/en20020738.pdf

Non-descrimination Act (1325/2014). Retrieved from https://www.finlex.fi/fi/laki/kaannokset/2014/en20141325.pdf

Oulu University of Applied Sciences board. (2015). Regulations. Retrieved from https://www.oamk.fi/opinto-opas/en/studying-at-oulu-uas/regulations#Rules

Oulu University of Applied Sciences Kotkantie rescue plan.

Equality plan of the Oulu University of Applied Sciences 2020-2022. Retrieved from https://www.oamk.fi/opinto-opas/application/files/3115/8557/6996/Tasa-arvosuunnitelma_240120_final_EN.pdf

Oulu University of Applied Sciences. (2012). Intervention is caring- Intervention in students’ harmful use of intoxicants. Retrieved fromhttps://www.oamk.fi/opinto-opas/en/welfare/intervention-in-harmful-use-of-intoxicants