WP 1: A collegial learning culture among teachers, led by Department of Biology, UiB.

• Annual ‘teacher’s retreat’ where teaching, learning, and curricula are discussed. Each retreat will explore a specific theme through presentations, discussions, and group work
• Appoint two adjunct Professors (educational scientists) to provide a conduit for the exchange of new ideas, discuss and evaluate actions, and publish bioCEED findings
• Develop ‘teacher groups’ that share responsibility for education across related courses
• Promote the renewal of teaching skills at all career stages through pedagogic courses and educational ‘sabbaticals’ to exchange ideas and develop curricula
• Develop a web forum for presenting and discussing methods and experience.
• Shift from ‘teaching’ to ‘learning’ perspective in teacher thinking and practice
• Develop a culture of shared responsibility for students, courses, and programmes
• Create physical, social, and virtual ‘spaces’ for sharing experience and ideas

WP Leader:

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WP 2: Learning environments, led by the Department of Biology, UiB.

• Expand the learning environment through integrating field, laboratory and internships
• Develop student spaces (room for active, interactive, and varied learning experiences).
• Set up an exploratory ‘digital pack’ where the potential of emerging new technologies in education is explored and assessed, focusing especially on lab and field education.
• Increase educational support though appointing dedicated educational technical staff, and through targeted training and exchange visits for technical and administrative staff
• Align curricula, skills training, practice opportunities, and evaluation with learning goals
• Continuous optimisation of technical and administrative support to educational needs
• Engage staff and students in renewal of the broader learning environment

WP Leader:

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WP 3: Active students, led by the Department of Arctic Biology, UNIS.

• Redesign programmes and courses and set learning goals that actively engage students in the pursuit of competence across the biological ‘domain’
• Integrate problem-solving and learning-to-learn skills across the curriculum
• Use students actively in planning and conducting learning activities; provide opportunities for extra involvement and activities, based on student interests
• Offer internships in the public and private sector and research laboratories from first year
• Provide certification (acquired competence in specific topics, lab and field security, etc.)
• Set learning goals that engage students actively in pursuit of competence across the biological ‘domain’ (content knowledge, skills, and societal relevance; Fig. 1)
• Integrate development of problem-solving and learning-to-learn skills in the curriculum
• Increase hands-on experience with research, industries, management and education
• Provide students with informative feedback

WP Leader:

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WP 4: Align quality assurance, evaluation, goals, practice, led by Higher Education Research Unit, UiB

• Develop quality assurance and evaluation methods that enable the monitoring of progress and spread of ‘best practice’ (see WP1)
• Focus on institutional learning in implementation of The Qualification’s Framework
• Appoint and supervise two PhD students to conduit research on bioCEED activities
• Experiment with and assess selected traditional and new learning methods, e.g., deliberate practice, flipped classroom, open labs, ‘gaming attitude’ in students, teaching-on-demand. Develop new learning methods that link theory and practice across the biological ‘domain’.
• Expand alternative learning methods, and reduce lecturing by 20% relative to 2011.
• Develop quality assurance and evaluation as tools for monitoring progress, recognizing and rewarding excellence, and dissemination of ‘best practice’
• Encourage and conduct learning ‘experiments’, and document and report outcomes

WP Leader:

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WP 5: Strengthen and empower educational leadership, led by the Department of Arctic Biology, UNIS

• Appoint and empower ‘education leaders’ as part of institutional leaderships
• Integrate and align teaching and research in strategic planning at the institutions
• Identify obstacles against development and change and develop actions and strategies to remove or mitigate them (local, institutional and national level)
• Incorporate teaching and education efforts and success into staff reward systems
• Explicitly promote education in our internal communication (weekly newsletter, web etc.)
• Appoint and empower ‘leaders of education’ as part of institutional leaderships
• Integrate education and research in institutional strategies and goals
• Identify and remove (infrastructure) obstacles to development and change
• Develop links to the higher education sector (within our institutions, in Norway, abroad)

WP Leader:

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WP 6: Spread of ‘best practice’, led by the Higher Education Research Unit, UiB

• Develop the web forum into a well-structured freely-accessible ‘idea-bank’ and discussion forum for biology educators.
• Publish project results in educational science journals and in educational practice forums
• Develop ‘test cases’ that will be tried out in other biology educations in Norway
• Arrange an open, international conference on biology education every 3 years, shifting focus to match project needs and development of knowledge
• Enable learning and sharing of experience within bioCEED and beyond through virtual sites and tools, working groups/workshops, and an open biology education conference

WP Leader:

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WP 7: Strengthen links between education and society, led by Institute of Marine Research

• Host annual meetings between bioCEED students and industry and sector representatives to exchange ideas and communicate biologists’ contributions and society’s needs
• Run bioCEED workshops with end-user panels to discuss biology-society interactions
• Present BioCEED findings in sector-specific journals and meetings
• Increase and systematize communication with employers, end-users, and biology alumni to better understand society’s needs and to communicate the contributions of biologists
• Develop mechanisms for student placement within the sector during Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees.

WP Leader:

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