Ina Lindblom had been teaching the History A foundation course for some years when she took a university teaching course at Umeå University last autumn. One of the assignments was to describe a pedagogical dilemma. All of the participants’ contributions, with comments, have now been collected in the book Didaktisk dialog (Didactic Dialogue).
Lindblom wrote about the feeling of communicating large amounts of factual information in long seminars, where some students take notes diligently, others not at all, and it is difficult to know how well the knowledge is being taken in and retained by the group.
”It is something that gnaws at you when you have long seminars where you present a lot of information. It is not very varied or student-active,” she says.
Ina Lindblom
However, she believes that the traditional approach has its advantages compared with, for example, pre-recorded seminars. Not least when students are new to the subject.
“The positive thing is that they can ask questions. If you see in the tests that something is often misunderstood, you can also devote more time and focus to those parts. So it is a little more flexible. But it is not always the case that students interact very much.”
Lindblom feels that information overload is discussed quite often among university teachers. In the book, she discusses different ways of engaging students when a lot of information needs to be conveyed in a short period of time. She believes that the ”flipped classroom” approach, where pre-recorded seminars are followed by discussion, works best for more experienced students. She also thinks that a timeline game, where small groups place historical events on a timeline, could create more interaction within the group.
She has not yet tested these ideas, as she now has a different position at the university.
“And I have great respect for the fact that many teachers have a heavy workload,” she says. “They may want to make changes to a course, but they don’t have the time.”
She believes that reading educational journals and “looking outward” can be good sources of inspiration and new ideas. She also thinks that she has benefited greatly from the university teaching courses she has taken. How and when the theories can be put into practice, however, is another question.
“You have to try to find ways to make teaching more interesting without it taking up too much of your working time.”
Per-Håkan Lundow, a docent of mathematics, has taught both beginners and more experienced students at Umeå University for many years. He has nothing against lecturing per se.
“It is a fairly natural way to present material. But how well it works depends basically on the students’ prior knowledge.”
Per-Håkan Lundow
Docent of mathematics, at Umeå University
Sometimes he can feel like he is ”talking to the walls,” especially if no one in the group says anything. In recent years, he has noticed that fewer and fewer people ask questions during his seminars.
”It is hard to know whether this is a temporary state of affairs or a cultural shift,” he says
Lundow took the same course as Ina Lindblom and has added a comment to her text in the book. His suggestion for avoiding the feeling of being force fed is to do a low-stakes quiz, a form of test-based learning. The quiz is not graded, and students are “allowed” to answer incorrectly. The questions are primarily intended to trigger students to seek information from their memory. He has tested the method in a simpler form in his own teaching and thinks it works. But he often uses various types of practical mathematical exercises to engage his students.
“I think that a practical exercise that is perceived as relevant and that provides a bit of a challenge can be instructive. It should not be trivial; it should give some kind of insight.”
Ways to add variety to your teaching
- Low-stakes quizzes, with questions that activate the memory.
- Practical exercises and activities that present a small challenge.
- Look for inspiration in educational journals.
- Take a university teaching course.
Sources: Ina Lindblom & Per-Håkan Lundow
