Text: Marianne Fuglsang Welling Farsinsen, ITS. Photo: AAU

On October 4th, all teachers and students (except those who started at AAU after summer 2022) will receive an invitation from Pro-rector Anne Marie Kanstrup with a link to a survey and an invitation to share their experience of digital tools and methods in teaching. The survey is based on two versions - one for students and one for teachers. Together, they will provide insights into current digital practices in teaching, as well as shed light on teachers' and students' experiences of these. Finally, the survey can provide a basis for comparison, so that future developments can be monitored and sustained. Pro-rector Anne Marie Kanstrup talks about the study:

- “We have worked a lot with digitalisation and we have done several studies on digitalisation in education. Now we are on the other side of the Covid-19 lockdowns where a lot happened and now we would like to have a broad status of where we are digitally. We must constantly learn how to make the best use of the digital opportunities that exist and what our teachers and students need," says Anne Marie Kanstrup.

To capture the many good answers from students and teachers to these questions, the PBL Digital digitalisation programme is ready to do just that. PBL Digital originally originated in AAU's digitalisation strategy, and since 2018 it has been working on a wide range of digitalisation initiatives in the field of education at AAU, focusing on, among other things, the development of digitally supported PBL practices. Ida Bruun Hougaard from PBL Digital is the project manager of the study and explains:

- "We've spent a lot of time making good questionnaires that are short and user-friendly, so they're easy to do, and they're based on interviews, workshops, and discussions with teachers and students to get a feel for their everyday lives. We also had really good project partners from IAS PBL who helped with the process, and the answers will really help point us in the direction of where we need to go", says Ida Bruun Hougaard.

Future initiatives 

With hopefully a lot of good input from the almost 19,000 students and 2,200 teachers invited to take part in the survey, the focus towards the end of the year will be to pick up on the survey results, which will be presented in a report to Det Strategiske Uddannelsesråd (DSUR) in December. The results of the survey will also be widely communicated at AAU.

- “The report will be an important part of the basis for determining future digitalisation initiatives in the field of education and how we should proceed with our initiatives” Ida Bruun Hougaard explains.

- "It is important that we take the needs and wishes of teachers and students into account when working with digitalisation. After all, they are the ones who will be using it and the ones who know what works in a busy everyday life," she concludes.

For more information about the study and PBL Digital, please contact Project Manager Ida Bruun Hougaard, ITS.

Read more about PBL Digital and initiatives in digitisation and education at AAU: https://www.aau.dk/om-aau/strategi/strategi-2016-21/digitalisering/pbl-digital