This text has been translated from Norwegian with the assistance of GPT UiO.
– Which teaching program would you like to highlight for your colleagues at the faculty right now?
– First, I’d like to highlight UiO’s new bachelor’s certificates, which offer students the opportunity to broaden their bachelor’s degree with insights into an interdisciplinary theme such as sustainability, innovation, or digitalisation. Last week I began teaching the module TIK2101, which is part of the Sustainability Certificate. The module explores how knowledge and research can be used to address sustainability challenges such as climate change. The aim is to encourage students across different disciplines to reflect on how their education can contribute, and also how it differs from other ways of understanding these challenges.
– Second, I should mention that TIK is currently working on developing a new interdisciplinary bachelor’s programme, into which several of the modules we have created for the new certificates will be integrated. The programme focuses on how technological change shapes our society, and how society can in various ways shape and govern technology. I believe this will only become more important, given the rapid developments in digital technologies, military technology, the energy transition, and so on. To get a good grasp of these developments, we need to educate people who understand technology from a societal perspective.
– Who do you collaborate with?
– In developing the new bachelor’s programme, I’m collaborating with several groups at the Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences. We want students to combine a social scientific approach with fundamental technological understanding. Therefore, the new programme will include optional modules in, among other things, informatics and physics, as well as several new modules being developed by the Department of Technology Systems (ITS) at Kjeller.
– Some of the modules we plan to develop at TIK will also be used by ITS in their new bachelor’s programme, so the collaboration goes both ways. It’s a challenge to find the right level for this kind of course, so that our Social Sciences students can keep up with subjects that require a certain level of maths competence, while technology students at the same time get the most out of the social scientific perspectives we can offer.
– In your opinion, what are the three most important factors for achieving good teaching in this field?
– One thing I think is particularly important is bringing to life the concepts and theories we convey from the classics in the scholarly literature and showing how they can be useful for understanding and studying contemporary phenomena and current controversies. I try to do this through field visits and discussions of concrete cases.
– Another important factor is helping students to engage well with the syllabus and spend time reading. My impression is that this isn’t something we can take for granted, so we use seminars for this purpose.
– Finally, I think it’s important that the lecturer has genuine enthusiasm for the material being taught and shows that it matters. That’s something I try to bring to my own teaching. Whether I succeed—you’ll have to ask the students!
- If you were to give one piece of advice to new teachers at the faculty, what would it be?
– Discuss your teaching with colleagues - both what you think works and what you’re uncertain about. We’re not always satisfied with our own efforts, and it can feel lonely standing in the lecture theatre. I think it helps us to reflect together on what we do, and to share ideas and teaching formats with each other.