My name is Torben K. Jensen, and I am a senior educational consultant at SDUUP.
I am educated and have a PhD in the field of political science; I have been a researcher, teacher and Head of study within this field for a number of years. Furthermore, I have done research in university teaching and learning in general for a number of years and have been involved in the teaching and development of university teaching and learning.
I am particularly interested in developing individual teaching competences through course activities; development of good choices when planning courses; dissemination of common knowledge and language for pedagogical choices, in order to promote the sharing of experiences among teachers; and contributions to the development of the organisational structures for quality and economy in research-based teaching.
When I assist individual teachers in the development of their own teaching – for instance on the Lecturer Training Programme – I perceive it my job to start from the assistant professors’ own observations and analysis of his/her pedagogical challenge. On the basis of pedagogical research and development I will then support the analysis of the problem, advise on initiatives, implementation, and communication, and subsequently spar with the assistant professor on the results obtained. It is crucial that the development projects are practice-oriented and have direct value for the teaching.
At the moment, I am also invited into an analysis and development project at the Faculty of Business and Social Sciences, the purpose of which project is to analyse the way we organise and assign resources for teaching and to analyse the possibilities of, at the same time, (i) economising the resources and (ii) strengthening nearness and the students’ learning through increased and systematic allocation of teaching resources to learning platforms, collaboration about programmes in teams, budget models for teaching that can take into account the development and “running” of courses over several budget years.
This development project is initiated by Jesper Piihl, Vice Head of Department for Education at the Department for Entrepreneurship and Organisation. He explains that the meeting between theory and practice may result in a clash, but in his opinion SDUUP is good at reaching the root of daily problems: “If you as a teacher look for help to make the students work more, then SDUUP is god at asking how we as teachers can make our courses more meaningful for the students.” SDUUP can dive into the pedagogical part of planning learning. According to Jesper, SDUUP should therefore be used for the general, overall pedagogical problems, for example when a sparring partner is needed for a certain matter, or when, after a course, you reflect on the pedagogic in your own practice after a course: “It is my experience that SDUUP is very talented when it comes to pedagogics and therefore it is nice to have them as a sparring partner at an institution such as SDU.”