Teaching and learning in focus: SUND lecturers gain new inspiration
The Faculty of Health Sciences at the University of Southern Denmark (SDU) is making a strategic effort to enhance the quality of teaching. The aim is to strengthen students’ academic proficiency and collaboration skills – key competences for the labour market of the future.
Good teaching is not just about subject knowledge. It’s also about engagement, variety, and the ability to activate students. That’s why the Faculty of Health Sciences (SUND) has launched a targeted initiative to provide lecturers with new inspiration and to strengthen their didactic competences.
– We want to equip our lecturers to deliver teaching at the highest level. That’s why we’ve launched a series of events where they can strengthen their teaching competences, says Merete Munk, Head of Education and Secretariat at SUND.
The first event took place on 7 April and focused on Team-Based Learning (TBL).
What is TBL?
So far, TBL is used in the medical degree programme, but the ambition is to expand it across the faculty’s programmes, many of which already use a variety of active teaching approaches. TBL is intended to build on these efforts and help create a more active learning environment, where students learn better through collaboration, discussion, and the practical application of theory.
– Team-Based Learning has great potential to strengthen students’ academic understanding and their ability to work across disciplines. We are continuously developing our teaching to reflect the competences students will need in their future careers – for example, as doctors, where collaboration and applying theory in practice are essential.
Expanding the method
Around 60 faculty staff took part in the first TBL seminar on 7 April. They are now better equipped to challenge themselves and their students with this teaching approach.
– We have several years’ experience with TBL in the medical programme, where Master’s students encounter it as part of several modules. It hasn’t quite found its final form yet, but we have a lot of experience to build on. Student evaluations suggest that TBL offers a space where they can engage in dialogue with their peers, supported by a lecturer as the subject-matter guide – and that many leave TBL sessions feeling they’ve received both feedback and peer feedback on their knowledge and academic development, says Iben Rausgaard, Educational Development Consultant at SUND Education.
TBL classrooms at SUND
At SUND, two rooms are especially suited for TBL and other teaching formats involving group work. Room U260 is fitted with round tables for eight students, and room U300 has two rows of chairs on each tier, where the front row can rotate to face the row behind, with a worktable between them. However, depending on class size, TBL sessions can be held in any teaching space.
– We also hear from many lecturers already using TBL that they genuinely find it more enjoyable to teach this way.
Iben Rausgaard and her colleague Anne Mølgaard Nielsen are responsible for the dissemination and ongoing development of TBL at SUND. While Iben Rausgaard leads the pedagogical aspects, Anne Mølgaard Nielsen coordinates technical solutions and support.
– We’ve worked to create the most user-friendly framework possible, so that lecturers have the best conditions for success when working with TBL on the technical side. It’s about designing an intuitive structure where both lecturers and students can easily follow the sequences that make up a TBL session, says Anne Mølgaard Nielsen.
Why TBL?
Several studies show that Team-Based Learning enhances engagement, critical thinking, and learning outcomes. Especially when it comes to applying theory in practice and collaborating in groups, TBL delivers better results than traditional lectures.
TBL also strengthens work-life-relevant skills such as communication, problem-solving, and decision-making. Through steady teamwork, students learn to evaluate information objectively, consider different perspectives, and make informed decisions in complex situations.
What makes a good lecturer?
Implementing new teaching methods like TBL requires proper support for lecturers. Iben Rausgaard emphasises the importance of this:
– At SUND, we are highly focused on making teaching more student-centred and activating students to a much greater extent. It is when knowledge is put into practice and shared in academic communities that students learn best and retain the most. Activating teaching also provides the best opportunity to create motivation and foster a sense of belonging. That’s why it’s essential that our joint efforts ensure that students, lecturers, and education leaders all contribute to lifting our already highly qualified teaching through relevant pedagogical approaches.
PhD students at SUND are also offered courses in teaching and learning in collaboration with SDU University Teaching (SDU UP).
Certified in TBL in California
Iben Rausgaard and Anne Mølgaard Nielsen recently travelled to California, where they were certified in Team-Based Learning (TBL) by the method’s founder, Professor Larry Michaelsen. The visit provided both practical experience and theoretical insight into TBL, which they are now developing further at SUND, SDU.
– It was an inspiring experience to meet Larry Michaelsen and all the other skilled and experienced TBL practitioners and to see how TBL is applied in a variety of academic contexts. We came home with new ideas and a sense that we’re on the right track with our own implementation, says Anne Mølgaard Nielsen.
– The certification also gave us concrete tools to help lecturers use TBL more effectively in their teaching, and we’re excited to see how we can integrate TBL into even more study programmes, adds Iben Rausgaard.