Transcript Lysbilde 1

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This title raises a some questions…
• What is Student Centered Learning?
• Is it necessary? (Status today…)
• Are ongoing processes (like QA and/or EQF) a step in the
right direction?
• What should we do to achieve our goal(s)?
• …depending of course on what our goal is…
• Goal:
• A culture for Student Centred Learning
• …meaning not only is the teaching and learning student
centred, but the culture in HEIs (including both students
and staff) continuously encourages further development of
such teaching and learning methods.
Humboldt's ideal – ambition? (Tight finances and high
demands to effectivity). A culture for SCL – a realistic
approach?
What is Student Centered Learning (SCL)?
• Bologna-process: re-thinking higher education course
content in terms of learning outcomes
• SCL: a possible learning approach (even long before the
first Bologna declaration in 1999).
• Conventional teaching predominantly places its focus on
the design, organisation and follow-through of the
perspective of the academic teacher
• SCL: represents a shift in focus from academic teaching
staff to the learner - The learner is at the centre
• T4SCL: ESU and EI, funded by the EU through the Lifelong
Learning Program (LLP).
What is Student Centered Learning (SCL)?
• ”By its very nature, SCL allows students to shape their own
learning paths and places upon them the responsibility to
actively participate in making their educational process a
meaningful one”.
• ”it is precisely active learning which helps students to learn
independently”.
• ”SCL was created as a concept within the field of educational
pedagogy (…). Whilst the concept of ”student-centered”
learning is relatively new, the idea of looking at the way in
which teaching is conducted and how learning processes work
has spanned over almost two centuries”.
• T4SCL: ESU and EI, funded by the EU through the Lifelong Learning
Program (LLP).
Status today?
• General conclusion: It’s not too bad…
• But: It could be a lot better!
• Up until now, the structural conditions have enouraged
and stressed the importance of research more than that
of education.
• For 200 years the status of science has been superior to
the status of education at HEIs.
• NOKUT-conference for HE in april 2010, John Peter Collett (professor at
UiO and leader of Forum for University history)
• How does this influence culture in HEIs?
Quality barometer 2010
• September 2010 – survey done by NOKUT (Norwegian QA Agency)
amongst academic staff in Higher Education.
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Satisfied with the quality aspects in their own courses: 70 – 80%
Main challenge for quality in education: Lack of effort from students.
Students are not qualified enough when they begin their studies.
Students evaluations of courses not important in further developing
the quality of a course.
• Media perspective: ”Students are lazy!”
Student survey 2010
• National union of students in Norway (NSO) og
Universitas (Student newspaper in the region of Oslo), a
survey among students (oktober – november 2010)
• What is the main challenge to improve quality in
education?
• Improving pedagogical competences amongst academic
staff (49%)
Student survey 2010
• Volume of teaching and guidance – 33%
• Improving forms of assessment and evaluation – 30 %
• Rooms, equipments and aids – 30 %
• Administration, information, study environment – 25 %
• Students effort – 20 %
Dropout survey at UiO
• University of Oslo:
• 2/3 of all bachelor
candidates at the faculty for
social sciences and the
faculty for humanities have
never spoken to a professor
• Similar situations at NTNU
in Trondheim and at the
University of Bergen.
• Student parliaments react –
and we get the “Hug a
professor-day” in Oslo, Bergen
and Trondheim
Culture
• The way we teach or how we structure our study
programs...
• These are the foot prints of a culture in higher education
• This culture is of course also influenced by structures in
in the higher education system
Culture and structure in Higher Education
Structure elements:
Laws
Regulations
Management structure
Economic models
Culture elements:
Knowledge
Perceptions
Values
Myths
So how do we change a culture?
Quality culture in Quality Assurance
• Quality Assurance systems exist and fulfil minimum
standards.
• How should we go from fulfilling minimum standards and
towards a quality culture of continuous improvement?
• The supervision by the QA Agency includes both being a
controller and giving assistance to the institutions in their
quality development work.
• Centres of Excellence in Higher Education (SFU)
• Quality enhancement through research, evaluation and
analysis (done by the QA Agency)
Quality culture in the (National) Qualification
framework
• Describing learning outcomes:
• Shift of focus from teacher to learner (essential in the SCL
perspective)
• A holistic approach:
• The learning outcomes should be adjusted to fit the
fields/studies they are formulated for, and hence the
academic community might feel more ownership to them.
• Learning outcomes should come as a result of conscious
choices of relevant ways of teaching and evaluating.
Towards a culture for quality…
• Is ongoing processes (like QA and/or EQF) a step in the right
direction?
• If we start with the structures, we might get somewhere?
• Creating an infrastructure for developing both competences
and a possible change (over time) in the culture in higher
education
• Central governmental bodies have focused their efforts on the
structural macro measures.
• The development of a culture (knowledge, understanding, values)
has been canalised/related to these measures, together with the
resources (time, work, motivation).
• The quality culture manifests itself on the lowest level, hence it is
also mainly developed bottom-up. This means that a feeling of
ownership towards the structural tools offered is essential, to make
the structural changes lead to the cultural changes (which is the
goal).
What can be done?
• Leadership in Higher education
• Centres of Excellence in Higher Education (SFU)
• Skills in teaching be more important when hiring academic
staff
• Continuous possibilities to update pedagogical competences
for academic staff
• Teaching and assessment based on research done on
teaching and assessment methods
• Peer reviews of lectures
• Give students challenges and responsibility
• SCL is not created by the teachers alone
• Interaction, feedback, guidance, variation, challenges
• Make room for critical thinking
• Students participate in research
Main conclusion
• If structural changes should have any effect on the quality
in education, it depends on attitudes, values, perception
and knowledge…
• It all comes down to…
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…do we really want a change towards a SCL culture?
Academic staff don’t see it as necessary (?)
Students see it as necessary
Key: To reach a common understanding.