Health appoints educational ambassadors
Why do we need educational ambassadors at Health? What is an educational ambassador and what does he or she actually do? What does the appointment of these ambassadors to the faculty's study programmes mean for me as a lecturer?
Health has appointed a total of 13 educational ambassadors, one for each of the faculty's degree programmes. In collaboration with the faculty's educational development unit CESU, the new ambassadors will play a central role in finding and developing new opportunities for optimising student learning, teaching competences and the quality of the faculty’s degree programmes.
Desire for local teaching development
An educational ambassador at Health is a lecturer who is both particularly interested in, and under an obligation to develop, the teaching in the environment where the lecturer teaches on a daily basis. The ambition with the establishment of an ambassador network is to build a culture at Health, where good teaching and educational quality have an even more distinct and clearer voice.
"We really want to establish closer collaboration between CESU and the individual degree programmes, so that the educational competency development takes place as close as possible to the academic environments. That is why we are now creating an important partnership with a number of key persons in the form of the new educational ambassadors at Health's degree programmes," says the project coordinator, Associate Professor and PhD Mette Krogh Christensen from CESU.
The ambassadors will be sparring partners for their colleagues and a focal point for educational competency development and other development work at the departments.
Exchange of teaching experience
The ambassadors are tenured members of the teaching staff at Health, but not necessarily associate professors or professors. The crucial factor is that the educational ambassadors are motivated to develop and practice good teaching on Health's degree programmes in collaboration with their colleagues.
"On the one hand, I look forward to making a contribution to the general development of teaching and learning together with others in the ambassador network who share the same interests, while on the other hand, I am looking forward to using the continuing development of my own teaching as an inspiration for my colleagues in the department. I feel privileged to know that via the ambassador network I will have access to experience and competences which can support an innovative development of both my own and my colleagues' teaching activities," says Teaching Associate Professor Søren Læssøe Mathiesen from the Department of Dentistry, who is one of the new ambassadors.
Find your ambassador
The new educational ambassadors will be recognised and accredited teaching and educational developers. You can find the educational ambassador for your department/degree programme in the list of educational ambassadors at Health.
The ambassadors have the backing of the department head to use extra resources in educational initiatives. In this context the dean has decided to give the departments some compensation for the time the ambassadors use (though this does not amount to workload reduction and/or remuneration). The costs are financed via strategic funds.
What does an educational ambassador at Health do?
An ambassador can:
· Act as sparring partner for a group of colleagues who wish to test and qualify new forms of instruction
· Be involved in the organising and qualifying of peer supervision among colleagues
· Test new technology in the teaching together with a group of colleagues and students
· Act as adviser for colleagues who wish to implement Blended Learning or Flipped Classroom
· Hold smaller on-the-spot courses locally at the degree programme
· Assist CESU in selecting special initiatives for the degree programme and/or function as co-instructor on CESU's courses.
Read more about CESU on the centre's website.
Further information
Associate Professor, PhD Mette Krogh Christensen
Aarhus University, Centre for Health Sciences Education (CESU)
Direct tel.: (+45) 8620 5227
Mobile: (+45) 3134 3093
mkc@cesu.au.dk