What good is it anyway? Professional dance artists legitimising their work for the Cultural Schoolbag in Norwegian schools

This article examines how dance artists with extensive experience with The Cultural Schoolbag (TCS), a national programme for bringing the arts into schools, convey their rationale for working in TCS. Previous research has found that the artists’ rationale for doing TCS-art is far from established and agreeing on what TCS-art should be or become is inherently difficult. The goal that TCS-art should contribute to the school’s curriculum, potentially challenging the artists’ freedom, continues to pose a challenge to TCS that has so far remained unresolved. Interviews with nine professional dancers show, that they to a little degree have been challenged to contribute to the school’s curriculum and have had few problems establishing a rationale for doing TCS-art in line with being or becoming a professional dancer. Even if this rationale has been adapted to the socio-material conditions of performing TCS-art, it is seemingly within what can be accepted in the art world of dance in Norway.publishedVersio

Explicit grammar instruction in the L2 classroom. Issues in teaching and learning English word order

In this thesis, I investigate the effect of explicit instruction on the acquisition of word order in declarative sentences with adverbs in the medial position and topicalised declaratives. Both constructions are shown to be problematic for Norwegian learners of English because of negative influence from Norwegian, which uses the V2 rule in the two structures. The study consists of a grammaticality judgment pre- and posttest and an intervention. The intervention focuses on explicit word order teaching, exposure to positive and negative evidence, as well as error correction. The thesis investigates techniques appropriate to teach problematic sentence structures and to investigate their effectiveness in the classroom. The results of the intervention show that the participants improve the most with detecting ungrammaticality. This is especially clear for the lower proficiency learners. I can thus conclude that the intervention has a positive effect on learning word order in the L2 English classroom. At the same time the results of the present study reveal that many of the participants has high language proficiency and near-target like knowledge of word order from the start. Therefore the intervention does not reveal significant improvement in the higher proficiency learners

Introduction: Playful Transgressions

Research Council of NorwaypublishedVersio

Teaching through Stories: The Storyline Approach in Teacher Education

publishedVersio

Nursing students ́ experiences with online health information

Sammendrag Formålet med prosjektet Formålet med dette prosjektet var å finne ut av sykepleierstudenters erfaringer med å søke etter helseinformasjon på internett, og hvordan de forstår, vurderer og bruker informasjonen. Dette for å kunne få et innblikk i studentenes health literacy, og videre hvordan de vil kunne møte utfordringer med helseinformasjon på internett i et moderne helsevesen. Teori For å kunne forklare funnene fra datasamlingen ble det valgt å bruke teori knyttet til helsekommunikasjon og health literacy. Videre ble Sørensen et. al (2012) sin modell benyttet. I denne modellen beskrives health literacy til å omhandle evnen, kunnskapen eller egenskapene til å finne, forstå, kritisk vurdere og anvende helseinformasjon. Metode For å samle inn data ble syv individuelle semistrukturerte intervju gjennomført. I disse intervjuene var fokuset å få frem sykepleierstudentenes egne tanker og erfaringer rundt temaet. Etter intervjuene ble dataen transkribert, kodet og analysert ved hjelp av tematisk analyse, og med utgangspunkt i de ulike fasene i tematisk analyse beskrevet av Braun og Clarke (2006). Resultater Resultatene viste at sykepleierstudentene i stor grad brukte internett til å søke etter helseinformasjon, og at det var en generell oppfatning om at dette var en enkel, rask og tidsbesparende metode å skaffe informasjon på. Det kom frem at språk, og bruk av medisinske ord og utrykk spilte en rolle for forståelsen av informasjonen. Videre viste funnene fra intervjuene et mønster av at det lå noen utfordinger rundt det å velge- og vurdere kilder, men at studentene hadde opplevd å få et økende kritisk blikk gjennom sykepleierutdanningen.Abstract Aim of the study The aim of this study was to explore nursing students ́ experiences of searching for health information online, and how they understand, evaluate, and use this information. This could give an insight in to the students ́ health literacy, and how they will be able to meet challenges with health information online in a modern health care system. Theory In order to explain the findings from the data collection, theory from health communication and health literacy was used. Further, the model developed by Sørensen et. al.(2012) related to HL was used. In this model, HL is described to consider the ability, knowledge, or skills, to find, understand, critically evaluate, and use health information. Method To collect data, seven individual, semistructured interviews was conducted. In these interviews there was a focus on getting the informants thoughts and experiences of the theme. The data was transcribed, coded and analysed using thematic analyse, and based on the different phases of doing thematic analyse by Braun and Clarke (2006). Findings The findings showed that the nursing students frequently used Internet as a source for health information, and it was a general perception among the students that Internet was a quick and easy way to find information. The informants experienced that they understood the information they found, depending on language, and use of medical terms. Through nursing education the students generally experienced an increasingly attention toward thinking critically regarding both the health information it self, and which sources they used. However, the students experienced some challenges in both chosing, and evaluating different sources

Story-based Cross-Curricular Teaching and Learning: A Systematic Mapping of the Research Literature on The Scottish Storyline Approach

Chapter 19. In recent years, there has been an increased research interest in Storyline as an alternative and student-centred approach to teaching across the curriculum. The Storyline Approach is assumed to benefit students’ learning outcomes and motivation in several ways. Nevertheless, there is a lack of critical and systematic reviews of the research on The Storyline Approach. Based on a systematic mapping of the research within this field (Gough & Thomas, 2017), the purpose of the study is to survey and review the growing body of literature and to derive an evidence-based framework for the approach to direct future research efforts.publishedVersio

Veiledningssamtaler i høyere utdanning: Utprøving av en modell til bruk i forskning på tilbakemeldinger

Tilbakemeldinger er sentralt for pedagogiske prosesser i høyere utdanning, og er en viktig komponent i vurdering med hensyn på læring. Imidlertid dokumenterer en rekke studier at studenter ikke er helt fornøyde med kvaliteten på tilbakemeldingene fra veilederne sine (se f.eks. Damen, Keller, Hamberg, & Bakken, 2016), og at de ikke brukes godt nok for læringsfremmende formål (Jonsson, 2013). For å forbedre kvaliteten på vurderingsprosessen er det behov for mer kunnskap om tilbakemeldingene som veilederen gir. Klassifiseringer er et nyttig verktøy for å beskrive tilbakemeldinger, hvis de evner å fange inn kompleksiteten av fenomenet. Tilbakemeldinger har imidlertid gjerne blitt kategorisert med endimensjonale og relativt rigide systemer. Dette er foreslått løst i en klassifiseringsmodell som består av et fleksibelt og multidimensionalt system, utviklet i en tidligere studie av Karlsen (2015). Denne artikkelen presenterer og drøfter resultatene fra en utprøving av denne modellen brukt som kodeverktøy i forskning, med utgangspunkt sju oppgavefaglige veiledningssamtaler, som utgjør det empiriske materialet. Utprøvingen inkluderer en foreløpig sjekk av kodereliabilitet. Konklusjonen i artikkelen er at modellen synes å være et egnet verktøy til å beskrive tilbakemeldingene som gis i denne formen for veiledning, men at det er behov for videre utprøving av modellens gyldighet som kodeverktøy i andre situasjoner og/eller kontekster.Feedback is central to educational processes in higher education and constitutes the main component of assessment with regard to the learning. However, as documented in a series of studies; even if students appreciate getting feedback, they are more reserved when it comes to the quality of the feedback they receive from teachers and supervisors (Damen, Keller, Hamberg, & Bakken, 2016). To improve the quality of the practice, we need to know more about the feedback that students receive. Classifications are useful tools to describe feedback, if they manage to capture the complexity of the phenomenon. However, feedback is often categorized with one-dimensional, relatively rigid systems that only embrace a few features. This study makes use of a multi-dimensional classification system, developed in a previous study by the Author (2015). This article presents and discusses results of a test of this model used as a coding tool for data from an empirical material consisting of seven feedback situations. The test includes a preliminary check of coder reliability. The article concludes that the model seems to be a suitable tool for description of feedback practices, and that it may give an improved basis for reflection on and improvement of feedback practice.publishedVersio

The value of oral feedback in the context of capstone projects in design education

Research frequently reports student dissatisfaction with feedback in higher education. Large class sizes and modularization challenge teachers in providing useful feedback. Most of these studies have investigated student perceptions of written feedback in coursework, and few attempts have been made considering feedback in face-to-face contexts such as bachelor's degree projects. This study aims to enrich our understanding of students' perception of feedback in the context of supervision of bachelor's degree projects using Karlsen's (2015) PLUS model to systematise factors that help improve their utilisation of feedback in learning. Qualitative interviews were used to collect data from two bachelor student cohorts doing their projects as part of industrial design programmes and computer science at a mid-sized Norwegian university college (n=28). Results indicate that students generally find teachers' feedback more useful than useless. In addition to the students own attitudes towards assessment, they report that how they perceive the supervisors' trustworthiness matters when utilising feedback.publishedVersio

Cooperative Learning: The Power of Positive Interdependence in Storyline

Chapter 1. This chapter examines student teachers’ experience regarding cooperative learn-ing which was set up for a Storyline. The data consist of group interviews with a total of 22 students, along with the passive participatory observation of three student groups working with Storyline. The study uses a qualitative, exploratory and interpretive ap-proach to the data analysis. The analysis indicates that the students considered coop-erative learning, as the group work was structured in this Storyline, to be valuable for the perception of i) Depth in academic learning, ii) Emotional binding, and iii) Shared responsibility. However, difficulties that might hinder high quality relationships were detected in relation to time pressure and the complementary roles. The study concludes that, although The Storyline Approach offers a good framework and structure for expe-riencing high-quality group working, sufficient time must be set aside to carry out the cooperative processes initiated by a Storyline.publishedVersio