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Which teaching program do you want to highlight to your colleagues at the faculty right now?
Right now, I want to highlight our two courses in Geographic Information Systems (GIS), where students learn to gather, process, analyze, and present geographic data. The amount of data in society is increasing exponentially, and the same is true for geographic data. Almost everything happens or exists somewhere, and then we must have our own tools to understand these spatial processes, connections, and mobility, that is, where it happens and why. In Human Geography, we teach the courses "SGO1910 – Introduction to Geographical Information Systems (GIS)" at the bachelor's level and a brand new course: "HGO4941 – Advanced Spatial Data Analysis" at the master's level. Method teaching can become very recipe-based. Therefore, we try new teaching methods that we have borrowed from programming education, where students must reflect more about what they do and evaluate the results to a greater extent, which hopefully provides a greater learning outcome.
Last fall, our bachelor's course in GIS was for the first time a compulsory course in the first semester, and it was an exciting and somewhat steep introduction for new students. The nearly 90 students took the challenge in stride and produced some exciting group assignments where they used GIS as a tool to understand the world. Examples include coverage of public transportation in European metropolises, access to mental health treatment, fallout shelters, where young families are moving in Oslo, and where new schools should be established in Oslo. Otherwise, we are concerned with how AI is used within GIS, especially in terms of classifying satellite images, prediction, and digitalization of maps.
Who do you collaborate with?
I collaborate with other lecturers in the courses, such as Michael James Frith and Iselin Hewitt, in addition to the teaching management. The GIS courses are very work-relevant, and we see that many students from Human Geography end up with jobs where this knowledge is applicable.
Therefore, we also collaborate with Geodata AS, which assists with inputs on new tools and opportunities, and we have invited them to hold a company presentation for the students to show what career opportunities exist within GIS.
SGO1910 is part of the 40-group "Data Science for Social Scientists (40-DATAVIT)" which is a collaboration between Sociology, Human Geography, and Political Science, and it involves collaboration and discussions across departments and disciplines.
Which, do you think, are the three most important factors for achieving good teaching in the field?
That we, as lecturers, can show why what the students are learning is important. What is the motivation and relevance? Method courses can often become technical and instrumental, and it’s important to connect method tools with examples from research and reality. To prevent students from merely following recipes, they must demonstrate that they have a deeper understanding of the tools and methods they use. Therefore, we design the courses so that students must reflect on what they do by answering questions along the way and reading the documentation. With many students in the computer labs at the same time, there can be some waiting time if they get stuck. Students who help each other and discuss along the way achieve a greater learning outcome, and we encourage student-to-student interaction and collaboration.
f you were to give one piece of advice to new teachers at the SV faculty, what would it be?
Find your own teaching style! What works for others may not be suitable or effective for you. And be curious about alternative teaching methods.