BLH3310 Aesthetics and Special Needs – Nordic Childhoods Course description

Aesthetics and Special Needs is one of the courses under Nordic Childhoods. It focuses on Nordic culture where nature plays an important role in society, aesthetics and in work with children. Joint events with the other Nordic Childhoods courses are integrated as overnight trips and outdoor excursions. We also visit schools, kindergartens and other institutions. We focus on play, learning by doing, experience and workshops.

Aesthetics has not been a common way of approaching children with special needs. This course tries to change this by focusing on the value of aesthetics for children with special needs. The course is interdisciplinary, and takes a holistic approach to the field.

Aesthetics are important for everybody, including children and young people with special needs. Through literature, storytelling, music, dance, drama and other aesthetic acts, we perceive and understand the world and ourselves. Through aesthetics, we perform and collaborate with others. For some children and young people who lack verbal language; have problems with emotions, communication and interaction or find it hard to take other perspectives; aesthetic communication is particularly important. The aim of this course is:

1) to enhance knowledge about and discuss the relationship between children and young people with special needs and aesthetic expressions,

2) to introduce ways of working in practice with different kinds of aesthetic expressions when targeting various kinds of special needs.

The course is interfaculty and explores different disciplines, and ways of conceptualising and practising aesthetics with respect to a variety of special needs.

Grade scale A-F

After completing the course, the student have acquired the following learning outcomes, defined as knowledge, skills and general competence:

Knowledge

The student

· has knowledge about aesthetics and different aesthetic approaches

· has knowledge about historical changes in the view upon children and young people, normality and deviance, inclusion and exclusion

· has knowledge about receiver orientation in communication and collaboration with children with special needs and media

Skills

The student is able to

· accomplish and perform an aesthetic project for children and young people with special needs

· reflect on work with children and young people with special needs

· communicate with children and young people through aesthetics

General competence

The student

· has a understanding of aesthetics and its value for children and young people with special needs

· has an understanding of the value of autobiography as a means of critically reflecting on one’s own learning

· is able to analyse and discuss how to understand and respond to children and young people with special needs

· Literature studies/theories

· Lectures and supervision

· Excursions, workshops and seminars

· Individual and group papers/performances

· Self-study

· Project work

· Digital blog

· Dramatisation

· Stop-motion animation

Radio theater

· Story telling

· Visits and practice in school, kindergarten and other institutions

· Interactive learning methods, including digital media

After completing the course, the student is expected to have achieved the following learning outcomes defined in terms of knowledge, skills and general competence:

Knowledge

The student

• has knowledge of the chemical and physical properties of pharmaceuticals and of their reactions and reaction mechanisms in a physiological environment
• is capable of explaining different main groups of pharmaceuticals (ATC classification)
• is capable of explaining how pharmaceuticals are metabolised in the body
• is capable of explaining the use of different derivatives of pharmaceutical molecules and their significance in relation to pharmaceutical effects
• is capable of explaining the main principles of interaction between pharmaceuticals and their target molecules (receptors/enzymes/transport proteins) and how pharmaceuticals influence the activity in the body's different mediator systems
• is familiar with the classes of natural products and their traditional use

Skills

The student is capable of

• assessing the structure-activity relationship and molecular mechanisms of action for the main groups of pharmaceuticals and natural products
• analysing the chemical and physical properties of the substances, functional groups, stereochemistry, absorption and metabolism, structure-activity relationship (SAR), the connection between the chemical structure of pharmaceuticals and their pharmacodynamic properties

General competence

The student is capable of

• independently acquiring knowledge about and assessing the properties of a pharmaceutical product and its activity relationship

Work and teaching methods include lectures, group work and a prescription lab with student-active discussion. Discussing the discipline with fellow students and teachers is emphasised.

The Flipped Classroom is used as a teaching method for part of the course. Digital learning resources will be made available to students in advance and the time they spend at the university will be used to work on assignments and group work.

The following required coursework must be approved before the student can take the exam:

• minimum attendance requirement of 90 % at the prescription lab
• laboratory reports in accordance with specified criteria

Exam content: The learning outcomes

Exam form: Supervised individual written exam, 4 hours

Molecular model set