On 6th – 10th November 2023, the Faculty of Physical Culture once again opened its metaphorical gates to international guest speakers from all over the world, who came to our faculty to participate in an event full of diverse lectures, engaging socio-cultural programme, and above all valuable networking.
International Teaching Week (ITW) offered, as usual, both theoretical and practical sessions, some had more of a general content in order to be available to students from various sport field backgrounds; other lectures were more specific, like lectures from the field of motor control and physiology. For instance, the class called What is Sport Good for? by a British guest speaker Thomas
Carter was suitable for students from all study fields. Thomas also specializes in the field of sport for development, he prepared a very popular practical session for students interested in this topic, and he also seized the opportunity and during his stay in Olomouc he prepared, in collaboration with colleagues from the Faculty of Science, a theoretical lecture about sport for development for the department of development and environmental studies.
Another appealing practical session was led by a French guest speaker Léa Makkaoui, who specializes in the topic of physical literacy. Matthew Bird, who also came to Olomouc from the United Kingdom, focused on the issue of mental health and stigma in sport, goal setting and performance profiling. Finnish physical education and the ways to use IT in physical education were introduced by Kasper Salin, who found common ground with other guest speakers, like Javier Brazo-Sayavera from Spain and Peter Bakalár from Slovakia, whose work revolves around the physical activity in children and adolescents.
Our long-term employee, Reza Abdollahipour from Iran, gave a more specific lecture about the influence of motivation on motor performance, similarly to Koichi Nakazato from Japan, who prepared an in-depth lecture from the area of physiology.
While Czech and exchange students of Faculty of Physical Culture could broaden their horizons during the ITW lectures, faculty employees had an exceptional chance to meet with the international counterparts from their field of specialization, and to create new and foster already working cooperation with them. The academics working in the field of physiology were happy to bond with Koichi Nakazato, who said he was excited to find out more about their work. And for example the Czech specialists from the department of Adapted Physical Activity used the opportunity to discuss expansion of their collaboration with their colleague Denis Čaušević from Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Finally, we can say that this time the ITW was beneficial for all participants – the students, our employees and the guest speakers too. Read about their experience in their reviews at the ITW website.
And if you were not able to attend this time or are already looking forward to the next event, mark the date of the 23rd International Teaching Week, taking place on 8th – 12th April 2024.
