Translated by UiOGPT
Which teaching program do you want to highlight to your colleagues at the faculty right now?
At the Department of Social Anthropology, some colleagues and I have, over the last few years, been running a program to help students regain their concentration, which we call deep reading. We see that more reading among students happens in fragments because we often read digitally. Push notifications and apps make us less concentrated.
In the seminars, we gather students to read the curriculum together in a room at the library, undisturbed and in silence for between four and six hours. We don't touch our mobile phones until the time is up, and we read and take notes on paper. Afterwards, we discuss both what we have read and the very experience of it. The initiative began as a small experiment in 2018 (Universitas) and has since spread to other places in Norway.
- Who do you collaborate with?
I work with a group of reading researchers, including Anne Mangen from the University of Stavanger, Frank Hakemulder from Utrecht University, and Karin Kukkonen in Literature Studies at the University of Oslo. We are trying to figure out what really happens when people sit for four to six hours in silence reading without screens, and how we can create a pedagogy that helps students regain their concentration. People who are interested are welcome to get in touch.
Which, do you think, are the three most important factors for achieving good teaching in the field?
It is crucial that educators genuinely feel that there is something important at stake in their field, that they have intellectual confidence and engagement, but at the same time are curious about how the students think and are not entirely in love with their own voice. Was that three?
If you were to give one piece of advice to new teachers at the SV faculty, what would it be?
Don't forget that the university is quite a free place where you can take the initiative for new things. If you have a good idea, you will often find support, even though academia can sometimes feel like a conservative place.