As an Excellent Teacher, you have the opportunity to apply for funds from PIL for a pedagogical development assignment. Will you do that? If so, what are your ideas regarding the content of the assignment?
– Working with pedagogical development is exciting and fun; I have done some during my time as a programme director. I have already mentioned this opportunity within my department, and there is clearly an interest. However, I need to find out more about what it entails. If it is a development project within the department or the institute, it has to gain approval and there must be a need; otherwise, it will not be useful. But I would also like to see GU offer pedagogical mentoring for new or inexperienced teachers, which I would gladly participate in.
How was your experience of compiling a pedagogical portfolio?
– It was a monumental task, and there isn’t really time for it when you are also teaching and researching. But it was also fun, exciting, and interesting to take a helicopter perspective and reflect on your teaching. There was an example online, but I immediately realized that I had to shape my own portfolio. Use my concepts, thoughts, and ways of describing. I think we differ depending on our background and which faculty we belong to.
What should GU do to further enhance teaching at the university?
– We need to start thinking about how we support students for a sustainable working life after their university studies. Sick leave among young people aged 20 to 30 is increasing in a worrying way. Part of it is about the working life they enter, and that is the responsibility of employers. However, they enter the working life after 15–18 years in the school world, bringing with them habits and routines that can cause problems and sometimes trip them up. Can we think differently and design teaching in a way that supports habits and routines that facilitate their transition into working life, promoting a sustainable working life, and not just limit this to work placement and clinical training?
How have you worked with pedagogical leadership?
– I have been the programme director for the Public Health Science bachelor’s programme for five years. During that time, we introduced a new programme syllabus, which meant that I really got to work with pedagogical leadership. It was a tough situation; before the new syllabus was implemented, a decision was made to put the programme on hold and transfer the students to the master’s level. The students had the right to complete the programme and they were clearly disappointed to have chosen a programme that GU discontinued. However, we decided that the programme should be the best possible and end on a high note. Two cohorts studied under the new programme syllabus. Evaluations showed that we mostly succeeded. Also, we brought a lot of our development work into the master’s programme.
What has most influenced your view on teaching?
– When I took Teaching and Learning in Higher Education 2 (PIL102), I did an assignment on alignment between courses. Alignment became a real eye-opener. Aligning course objectives, teaching, pedagogical forms, and assessment, which I also benefit from now as a member of the institute’s Education Committee as vice chairman, reviewing course syllabuses. But above all, as a programme director and course leader, consciously planning so that courses are aligned to support students’ learning and making this clear to the students – continuously. One of my development projects was related to this.
