“It will give us a common language”
A brand-new set of pedagogical value principles will help to define a common direction for teaching throughout Health.
Students at Health must both be educated and enlightened. They must both possess a strong theoretical depth and at the same time be able to relate critically and independently to data, reflect on and communicate knowledge, and keep up with developments in the digital world. The demands towards the teaching staff at Health are high; but how can you ensure that the lecturers, and thus the teaching, are supported by a common didactic and pedagogical foundation?
A new set of pedagogical principles at Health will now help to secure this. The principles have recently been approved by the faculty management team, and the hope is that they will be used as a basis when teaching is to be developed and planned in the future, says Kristian Raun Thomsen, Director of Studies at Sports Science, who has helped to formulate the principles
“But it mustn’t just remain on paper. It must be borne forward by those who have the teaching close up in their lives. We hope and wish that the principles will constitute a common foundation that will be our starting-point when we discuss and develop our degree programmes locally, and work in general with strategic initiatives.”
As always when value papers are developed, the leap from paper to application is the biggest one – and there will also be work to do for the faculty to incorporate the principles in future, says Kristian:
“Some groups will be able to grasp the paper and find inspiration in it. Others may need to have it massaged under their skin. Of course there must also be freedom to work with one’s own teaching methods, but it is also important that we have a common understanding, and not least a common language, in relation to learning, didactics and pedagogy at the faculty.”
Value-based foundation and inspirational academic environments
The core aim of the new pedagogical principles is to create an attractive and inspiring environment for the faculty’s students and teaching staff. Emphasis is therefore also placed on relevant pedagogical skills enhancement, inspirational professional sparring for teachers in and across subject environments, and a safe and inclusive study environment with varied learning formats. The paper has been formulated by a broad committee, with input from students, teachers and management.
“Unsurprisingly, it has proved difficult to boil the many inputs down to a common basis for all the study programmes at Health, which consist of a total of 14 different degree programmes. As a result, the paper has a generic character and, by virtue of its value base, also contains a number of declarations of intent. But I feel this is a strength, because it gives the individual teachers the opportunity to shape the principles within their own disciplines and methodology,” says Kristian.
Although the principles may seem slightly diffuse, they are still something that all teachers ought to consider and incorporate into their teaching, says Kristian.
“Naturally, there must be a great deal of freedom with regard to the choice of method and the theoretical academic knowledge. But teachers can’t just say, ‘I’ll just do what I’ve always done’. We expect them to also take a kind of bird’s-eye perspective, so that they have an eye for what precedes their own course, where the students are coming from, what academic ballast they bring with them, and what they will need to do afterwards. This allows teachers to place their own courses in context, and students to experience coherence between the part and the whole.”
The same message comes from the faculty management team, which has just approved the principles, says Lise Wogensen Bach, Vice Dean for Education.
“It is a value-based foundation that ought to be able to accommodate the various themes that we have focused on and will focus on in the future; for example, how to integrate research into the teaching, or opportunities to create fertile environments in which teachers can debate and exchange knowledge with each other. When we inspire each other both within and across disciplines, it is to the benefit of both teaching staff and students. It is important that we constantly challenge each other to develop and enhance the teaching, and now we have a common language in which to do that.”
Read the new principles here
VALUES AND DIDACTIC PRINCIPLES
FOR DEGREE PROGRAMMES AT HEALTH
The Forum for Education at Health intends to use ‘Values and Didactic Principles for Degree Programmes at Health” to define a common direction for the development of the teaching at Health. Our goal is to articulate the common values and principles that are and will continue to be our lodestars as we develop our teaching formats and competencies, academic content and physical learning environments, as well as when we discuss and implement educational strategy initiatives at Health.
The foundation of our teaching, and thereby the starting point for this document, is the following:
- A highly specialised and relevant academic content
- An attractive study environment and diverse learning formats that allow our students to be the key persons in their own learning processes, as well as developing their formative education, independence and interpersonal skills, thereby making them key players in society and on the labour market.
- An inspirational local academic environment for the teaching staff at Health that facilitates relevant didactic skills enhancement through collegial sparring and exchanges of experience.
Values
Health provides research and knowledge-based degree programmes. One of the faculty’s most important contributions to Danish society is the education of competent graduates for the labour market of the future. Educating relevant and key stakeholders for the Danish healthcare sector, health-related institutions and schools, organisations and private companies is thus an important social responsibility.
Against this background, Health wishes to:
- Educate its students to become academically strong and critically-thinking citizens who will take decisions on an informed basis and contribute to problem-solving and developments within relevant health-related sectors.
- Train students to be able to evaluate knowledge i.e. take a critical approach to why, how, and on what basis knowledge is obtained, and in this connection be able to deal with the uncertainty that is inherent in scientific theories and results.
- Educate competent communicators who are able to transform their own knowledge and the knowledge of others into practice.
- Have teaching staff who will act as role models in matters of a scientific and ethical nature, in order to strengthen the students’ self-development, judgement and capacity to act.
- Secure the development of local academic environments, where teaching staff can find inspiration and sparring with colleagues and peers in relation to both academic and teaching practices and thinking.
Didactic principles
The degree programmes at Health are structured around theory, research-based knowledge
and practice. A good balance and coherence between the various elements is therefore ensured throughout the study programme and in the individual courses – between theory and practice, experimentation and reflection.
The academic content of the degree programmes is our first priority and is the basis for any didactic decisions taken. These principles are not therefore explicitly defined, so as to allow room for subject-specific didactic variation.
The degree programmes at Health are characterised by a clear structure, as well as by academic progression and coherence between the courses and semesters, and the study programme as a whole. We strive to make this clear to our students. Teaching staff at Health are therefore not solely focused on their own subject areas, but also have an eye for both the academic content that precedes their own teaching, and the academic content that follows it.
Secure and inclusive learning environments
A good study environment is essential for good learning. As teachers on Health’s degree programmes, we continue to work to develop a learning space that allows questions to be asked, doubts to be shown, and errors to be handled. The learning space must be secure and inclusive, and must provide our students with the opportunity to develop both their personal and professional skills. This will give them the tools and the space they need to actively contribute to their own learning processes and those of others.
Dialogue and feedback are important elements in this context. Over the course of the programmes, our students build up experience in giving and receiving feedback at both individual and group level. Our ambition is to clearly communicate when and how this will take place, and give the students an opportunity to act on the feedback they receive.
Generic competencies and academic culture
The teaching at Health encompasses learning processes that involve our students in the choice of academic themes and working methods, and give them experience in independently drawing upon practical and problem-oriented cases and learning situations. This strengthens both their academic skills and their engagement in their studies.
Throughout the entire course of study, our students take account of both theory and practice, and thereby develop the ability to translate theory into practice, and practice into theory.
We make use of teaching formats that involve and engage our students because we wish to supplement the acquisition of academic knowledge with generic competencies that will enable them to cooperate with others with an eye to problem-solving, ask necessary and critical questions, manage data and complex knowledge, and reflect on and independently communicate this knowledge in a responsible manner and on an ethically informed basis.
Armed with these skills, our students and graduates will be equipped to acquire new knowledge, deal with real-life challenges and develop the methods and theories for problem-solving in practice. We consider this a significant feature of the formative academic process at Health.
Inspirational academic environments for teaching staff at Health
The teaching staff at Health are the professional role models for our students in relation to exercising the responsible conduct of research, ethical considerations, and working with citizens, patients and clients.
Teachers at Health are grounded in strong research and knowledge environments. This is where they find inspiration, and spar with colleagues and peers to further develop course programmes, academic content, didactic approaches and educational theories.
One characteristic of the academic environments is that they are not static. Some subject groups are formally established on the basis of organisational, strategic and academic needs, while others possess the character of informal professional networks defined by the specialists themselves. Common to these is that they change in size and function over time, as they all depend on the people involved, the key promoters and culture bearers of the academic environment.
The Forum for Education at Health
The academic environments at Health are characterised by the fundamental methodical and pedagogical freedom of the individual teachers, on the basis of their specific academic skills, in combination with an understanding of the study programme as a whole.
The teaching staff at Health take an open and inquisitive approach to the educational practices of their peers and have a genuine interest in mutual sparring. This is supported by many opportunities for skills enhancement and a wealth of resources.
A value-based educational foundation for strategic initiatives
“Values and didactic principles for degree programmes at Health” will from now on constitute the common guidelines for our work on strategic initiatives such as internationalisation, strengthening research integration and digitising the field of education, the aim of which is to create meaningful links between strategy, implementation and the pedagogical practices that characterise study programmes at Health.
Contact
Director of studies at Sport Science
Kristian Raun Thomsen
Telefon: 40123038
Mail: thomsen@ph.au.dk