More than 2,000 lecturers and other teaching staff are about to receive a questionnaire about their approach to teaching and their experience. The responses will form a research basis to support good teaching at Health and help CESU to target their efforts to improve teaching.

2016.06.21 | Mette Louise Ohana

Caption: Employees' approach to teaching will now be surveyed. Photo: Jesper Rais, AU.

For the first time, the Centre for Health Sciences Education (CESU) is now charting the terms of employment, competences, experience and approaches to teaching that are found among the lecturers and teaching staff at Health as a whole. This is taking place in step with the increasing strategic and specific focus that the management is directing towards teaching and due to the institutional accreditation which is underway throughout AU.

With the help of a questionnaire that has been sent to all teaching staff and supervisors, CESU will get an overview of the pedagogical competences and experience at the faculty.

"We want to help ensure that the teaching staff and supervisors are as well-equipped as possible for the task at a time when there is pressure on educational conditions - both at the university and in the healthcare system - from several sides, including the study progress reform. To be able to do this, we need to have an overview of where we currently stand at Health," says Mette Krogh Christensen, who is associate professor at CESU and the person behind the survey.

High response rate important

The teaching staff at Health are a mixed group of tenured and fixed-term employees, as well as lecturers whose primary place of employment is not at AU. This factor is what makes it difficult to get an overview of teaching competences.

"I would like to encourage everyone to participate in the survey, even if they only have a few hours teaching at AU. Not only to make the survey as representative as possible and to give us as much knowledge as possible, but also for the sake of the students. They might not necessarily know how little or how much teaching a lecturer has or what educational experience that person has. Students are both pleased with and have the right to good teaching and supervision," says Mette Krogh Christensen.

More targeted support for teaching staff

The survey is inspired by Australian research within the area and will be used by CESU in close collaboration with the directors of studies and the newly appointed ambassadors for teaching. The survey will e.g. chart to what extent the teaching staff at Health have a student-centered or teacher-centered approach to teaching.

"With the results we can better target our efforts to raise the level of teaching at Health. For example, by having better opportunities to target courses so they match the needs of our teaching staff. We can also see whether there are good experiences from one area that we can utilise for knowledge sharing somewhere else. Or whether there are areas which are particularly challenged and where we should focus our efforts for a time," says Mette Krogh Christensen.

The results will be ready in November 2016. 

Read more about CESU.

Further information

Associate Professor Mette Krogh Christensen
Aarhus University, Centre for Health Sciences Education (CESU)
Direct tel.: (+45) 8620 5227
Mobile: (+45) 3134 3093
mkc@cesu.au.dk