An update on our new pedagogical framework

Dear colleagues

Development of the faculty's programmes is crucial for a large number of reasons. In part, we must orientate ourselves according to society's needs and political demands, such as the Master's degree reform, which calls for readiness to change.

Likewise, we must orient ourselves to new opportunities, e.g. an IT campus in Vejle and a growing market for continuing education. This also requires us to rethink many of our fixed patterns.

Finally, we must adapt to the new generations of students we admit. What motivates them and how do they learn best? It requires a curiosity about new pedagogical methods in teaching.

Overall, we must develop our teaching so that it suits the students, is financially sustainable and at the same time prepares us for future reforms and new opportunities.

The faculty has adopted a new pedagogical framework. It has been developed in the education committee with the help of the SDU Centre for Teaching and Learning (SDU UP) and has been consulted by study boards and teaching committees. The framework has been received with good energy and great curiosity.

The new pedagogical framework must be understood as a new direction for our teaching. The most important elements are greater variety in teaching methods, more student driven activities and more involvement. For example via cases and projects in teaching.

The educators are encouraged to spend less time presenting knowledge and more on dialogue, feedback, activating teaching and, on the large courses, close coordination with instructors.

Students need to process what they learn – usually in collaboration with others. Lectures can create an overview, structure and show good examples, but learning requires something else and more. There must be time for that.

Therefore, we must also cultivate in-depth learning – the students must learn to work in depth right from the start of the education. It requires that time be created. Therefore, the individual programme also work with content overload. Too much reading material creates a superficial approach to learning and less value in the long term.

Finally, there is a focus on competence awareness - being able to put into words one's own competences is absolutely crucial for learning and well-being on the course.

We have launched 'My Competence Portfolio' to meet exactly this need, so that the students learn to reflect on their own competences. In the future, we would like the teachers to use this portfolio more actively in teaching.

I would like to encourage all teachers to use the new pedagogical framework. Use the framework for conversations about teaching – for mutual inspiration. And use the framework to revisit your teaching: "Is there anything I can adjust easily and with small steps?"

Feel free to ask for help in making small educational experiments in class. We have agreed with SDU UP that they are available for input and assistance.

It doesn't have to be huge changes. It can just start with curious questions: "How do I incorporate a case into my teaching?" or "How do I work to improve my instructors' feedback to the students?"

We would also very much like to hear about all your successes from teaching. Perhaps you have already worked with alternative methods and have experiences that you would like to share. We are thus in the process of collecting a resource bank with all the good examples.

Poul Nielsen, vice dean for education