Centre for Teaching and Learning in Science (KURT) at the Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences works for quality in science teaching throughout the entire educational system from school to university.
The faculty is responsible for creating a culture for continuous development of our education. This requires resources that have the knowledge, expertise and time to bring pedagogical and didactic research into our professional environments. The purpose of KURT is to take care of this development work in collaboration with the faculty management and professional communities.
Mandate
KURT shall contribute to developing the faculty's educational culture and expertise by:
- facilitate collaboration and sharing of experience within and across subjects and environments
- facilitate raising the pedagogical competence of lecturers at the faculty
- realize the faculty's strategies for education and lifelong learning
- follow up and contribute to educational policy processes that concern the faculty
KURT shall contribute to research-based educational development by:
- make educational and didactic research available and relevant to our professional environments
- run research and development projects related to science education
- identify the academic and pedagogical needs of the faculty's academic environments
KURT will contribute to developing the faculty's science communication culture by:
- facilitate meeting places for new and experienced science communicators
- facilitate in raising the competence of science communicators at the faculty
KURT will contribute to building a bridge between school and higher education by:
- offer relevant continuing education for teachers
- make our academic staff aware of new students' prior knowledge and skills
- have professional responsibility for the lecturer program in science
KURT will at all times consist of an academic manager, education manager for the lecturer program and a pedagogical advisor. KURT must also have access to administrative support. In addition, KURTwill consist of academic staff with active links to the professional environment so that academic and educational projects are taken care of in a continuous and sustainable manner.
(adopted in the Faculty Management 10.01.23)
University
KURT plays a central role in raising teachers' pedagogical competence by arranging courses, seminars, workshops and various discussion forums at the faculty.
We work purposefully to raise the quality of teaching by using "scholarship of teaching and learning" (SoTL) as a framework. In this framework it is the students' learning that must be in focus. This means that our teaching must be based on relevant academic, pedagogical and didactic research. We promote a research approach to our own teaching practice and sharing experiences with others in a community of practice, so that the quality of teaching in the entire organization is raised.
Locally at the faculty, we work closely with the Dean for Education and we have a central place in both the faculty's study committee and study administration.
School
KURT also work towards the school sector through competence development with teachers in programming and computational thinking. Programming is about taking a starting point in a scientific problem and solving it with the help of a computer program. Through DeKomp, we further train teachers in programming for the sake of the subjects (profag) and science programming in school (NAT3000). We have a subject centered approach the subjects, that the programming will contribute to strengthening and developing the science subjects.
KURT consists of these collaborating academic environments:
- Research Section for Physics Education - Physics
- Resource Centre for Biology Education (only in Norwegian)
- Resource Centre for Chemistry Education (only in Norwegian)
- Computing Education - ITU
- Department of Mathematics (only in Norwegian)
- Norwegian Centre for Science Education
- LINK
- HF:Studio
- CCSE
- The Science Library
- EILIN
- IDEA
- FIKS
- UiOs pedagogiske akademi (in Norwegian only)