Innovative Teaching
The broad scope of biology in science and society, and the variety of subjects studied within a biology degree, offer great potential as a ‘lab’ for testing out a variety of teaching and learning methods. Exploring these opportunities and mainstreaming already developed innovations at the broader departmental and program level is the core of our strategic focus area Innovative Teaching. Activities in innovative teaching are tightly linked to Learning Culture and Practical Training.
Our educations are research-based. This means that we teach the latest biological research, that our students get experience with conducting their own research, and that our work is both based on, and contributes to, educational research.
Student motivation and educational outcomes are connected with using appropriate, student-active learning methods, and with having access to an appropriate learning environment. Both staff and students are developing and testing a series of methods and tools to support learning. These tools and platforms are core to our ongoing educational research and outputs, and they also offer opportunities for external national and international collaboration and impact.
Below are examples of Innovative teaching projects.
ArtsApp, the student-developed app that makes species identification easy
We develop a digital species identification tool and do research on the use of mobile-application tools on motivation, self-efficacy and learning in biology (see Lucas Jeno’s article). Read more...
bioSKILLS: focusing on transferable skills in biology education
The digital platform bioSKILLS – an online training platform for transferable skills across curriculum which focus on online tutorials, learning materials and videos. bioSKILLS includes bioST@TS, bioWRITE and bioSKRIV and functions as a learning platform for students and teachers. Read more...
Practical Training
We offer internship courses in research, industry and public sector (see Practical training). The research project PRIME assesses learning outcomes and investigates societal relevance of practical training. Read more...
Learning Arctic Biology
We are developing an online teaching and learning resource for students and teachers on arctic ecosystems and organisms containing scientific knowledge, teaching material and an external resource library. Read more...
(re)Design
We are involved in redesigning the bachelor’s degrees of biology at UiB with focus to implement student active research, active teaching methods and generic skills training and conducting research on the outcomes in terms of student learning and acquisition of skills.
FieldPass: How to assess the unassessable?
FieldPass is an interdisciplinary DIKU-funded project at UNIS that aims to develop and research alternative forms of assessment that is suited for field related learning outcomes.
unisBREAKFAST
unisBREAKFAST (formerly bioBREAKFAST) – a student-led project where bachelor, master, and PhD students meet to exchange educational experiences.
biORAKEL
biORAKEL (a.k.a. biORACLE) is a low‐threshold service where bachelor biology students have the opportunity to come and seek help from students of higher educational levels, so‐called "oracles".
Beyond these projects, we conduct research on math in biology, cooperative learning, digital tools for species identification (see ArtsApp) and online learning more generally (see bioSTATS, bioWRITE and Learning Arctic biology). We support several running teacher-initiated projects on active student learning, student learning strategies, field teaching and course alignment. We have open student meetings and seminars where teaching and learning methods are presented and discussed. The seminars are also used as transferable skill training seminars for students to gain knowledge on specific subjects.