Table of content
- Introduction
- Teaching Statement - reflection and future development
- Teaching and supervision experience
- Context — Teaching astrophysics – challenges and opportunities
Introduction
Already from an early age I was interested in teaching and actively sought opportunities to do so, starting with public lectures on stars (in my first year of university) and teaching introductory courses in physics and chemistry for paramedics (while being an undergraduate student). I managed to get involved as a co-lecturer in various courses at UiO already during my years as a post-doctoral researcher, gaining valuable teaching experience. I acquired basic university pedagogical competence at UiO in 2020 and started to develop a completely new M.Sc.-level course in solar and stellar physics in 2021 (AST5770), which I taught for the first time in the spring semester of 2022. This course, which was received well by the students, fills a previous gap in the curriculum and will remain an important part of the M.Sc. education at UiO in the future. My intention for this course is to guide the students from their previous more traditional learning experience towards self-dependent research as an essential stepping stone for their future M.Sc. thesis project and further academic career.
I am also very interested in supervision on different levels and actively sought for opportunities. As a result, I supervised a summer student and co-supervised a Ph.D. student during my first appointment as a post-doctoral researcher in the period 2004-2006. After starting at UiO, I supervised 5 IAESTE exchange students and have been and currently am the main supervisor of several Ph.D. and M.Sc. students. Two Ph.D. students and three M.Sc. have already successfully finished with me as their main supervisor. In addition, I have also mentored several post-docs who were employed as part of my projects.
My involvement in education at ITA/UiO on different levels is also evidenced by my participation in events such as Ungforsk, lectures for school teachers and at elementary schools, contributions to teaching (in Norwegian) and developing ITA’s largest course (AST1010), and presenting M.Sc. projects on behalf of RoCS. I was also involved in the planning of an interdisciplinary intensive course on star-planet interaction (from Sun-Earth to Star-Exoplanet, GEO-DEEP9509) in collaboration with DEEP/CEED at UiO in 2022.