Hello,
Birds are singing and the crocuses are appearing now – a great sign of spring! I hope everyone who is teaching this semester has had a good start and that everything works according to plan. Those that have courses in the autumn have this week submitted a new version of the course budgets for the coming semester. Those of you who teach courses running in the spring semester will have the opportunity to do the same in the autumn! The information we received from the course budgets last time has been very useful in the work with our teaching portfolio, so thank you all very much! We are now working to gain even better knowledge of our courses and the use of time and money.
Together with the course budgets, we have initiated work in the individual groups (faggruppe) where focus is on courses at the 200- and 300-level that the group is responsible for. Our students want more courses to choose from for their study plans and we are or will be fewer to teach in all the groups. It is important in this review to think about what the group can do to continue to be attractive to students, use resources in a good way, possibly free up some time for lecturers and consider collaboration across master’s programs and groups. What is also being discussed is whether what we offer is relevant and up to date in relation to the topics the courses cover, if are there actions we can take so that more students sign up to our courses, if there are opportunities for collaboration across programs – and not least, do we have people to teach the courses in the future? A lot of good work has been done now and even more can be done. I hope everyone engages in this discussion! The feedback we get from the students through the Studiebarometeret (https://www.studiebarometeret.no/en) is that we are doing well, they are satisfied, but there are still things we can do to increase implementation and show how our education is relevant to work life.
To continue the good collaboration and the good culture we have at the institute for sharing, we still have digital teacher meetings. About once per month. If you have done something in relation to teaching that you would like to share with everyone, or you know of someone who has done small or large activities or changes that you think are relevant for more people, give me a shout!
I wish you all a good weekend!
Anne