New and different ways of teaching were in focus when Health held its first Education Fair on 13 December.

2016.12.22 | Tekst: Mette Louise Ohana Video: Henriette Stevnhøj

The Education Fair was held at AIAS in the University Park.

A university is often associated with traditional lectures for lecture theatres full of students without too much interaction with the lecturer or between the students. The first Education Fair at Health demonstrates that real-life lectures include much more than this.

At the Education Fair, participants could hear about student-activating teaching, the use of IT in teaching, new courses and various ways of giving the students feedback. Both lecturers and students presented posters and presentations on their experiences for the more than 100 participants. 

See lecturer Birgitte Ahrensburg from The Department of Dentistry and Oral Health tell about how she found inspiration in a Danish radio talk show for an alternative form of guidance in connection with Bachelor's projects (the video is in Danish).

At the sport science degree programme, Assistant Professor Rasmus Bysted Møller from The Department of Public Health created academic debate among the students using Blackboard. See him describe how he did this (the video is in Danish).

The Education Day was the first of its kind at Health, but certainly not the last.

"It was great to see so many people contribute with examples of how teaching could be developed, and that these covered practically all of Health's degree programmes," says Charlotte Ringsted, vice-dean for education at Health.

Medicine’s admission model more reliable than motivated applications

In addition to the many presentations, Dr. Kulamakan Kulasegaram gave a lecture about his research into multiple mini interviews – known as MMI – as the admission model for medicine. He comes from The Wilson Center for Research in Health Science Education at the University of Toronto in Canada, which is a world-leader in the field of research into health science education. The method has recently been introduced as part of the quota 2 admission test to the medical degree programme at AU.

In the lecture he concluded that multiple mini interviews are a more reliable method for admission than assessment of individual interviews, CVs or motivated applications. The method is a good predictor for future results in certain types of exams that test similar non-academic aspects. But there is still a lack of research regarding several aspects of the validity of MMI. 

"For example, we still do not know enough about whether what we test with MMI is a characteristic or whether it is something that can be learned or developed," says Charlotte Ringsted with reference to a recently published article in the field. 

Contact

Vice-dean for Education Charlotte Ringsted
Health, Aarhus University
Mobile: (+45) 9350 8222
Email: charlotte.ringsted@au.dk