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Showing posts from April, 2023

Oh no. Group work...

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www.pexels.com/sv-SE/license/ Group work at University. Dreaded by some students and much appreciated by others. In my experience, students often question the value of having group work as part of a course. If they are graded on the group work, the resistance and questioning of the form is usually strong. It is simply not perceived as fair that they should be graded entirely or partly on the group's performance. If the structure of the group work means that several students are given the task of solving a problem and submitting it in writing for assessment, I must agree with them. The result is often not fair. For highly motivated and engaged students group work might mean that they end up carrying more work load than they would have if they had been assigned the task to solve it individually. This is known to happen for example when highly motivated students are grouped together with less motivated and engaged students  (Strijbos, J. W. 2011) . If for example students who aim at g

Small steps towards digital open learning creativity

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pexels-mikael-blomkvist-6476583 Open access publishing, open educational resourcses (OER) and open educational practices (OEP). A lot have changed since I started my academic carrier in 2002. It is fascinating to think about how swiftly the learning environment has changed in higher education. When I took my first classes at the law programme at Stockholm University, all our course material was printed - literature, legislation and preprinted folders with case-material, and all classes and lectures where held on campus. Twenty years later here I am trying to find out the best way to get if not all, at least moust of my course material accessible online. Learning about creative commons licences  for my power point slides and creative ways to help my students interact off-campus and develop their - now - essential online learning competences. I like to consider myself a creative teacher in the sense that I come up with new ideas,  raise new questions and can generate solutions to ill-def