"I tried to create a sense of community and a safe learning environment despite the fact that we hadn’t met each other in person more than once after starting studying at NHH."
Annelise Ly
Focus on people, not on technology
"In our digital world, it is easy to overly focus on technology rather than understanding the needs of the users – in our case the students," says Annelise Ly, Associate Professor at the Department of Professional and Intercultural Communication.
When the country shut down in March, and all teaching became digital overnight, Annelise realised that there were two things she had to focus on:
1. What can I do to keep my students engaged when the teaching is digital and we can no longer meet face to face?
2. How can I, as a teacher, facilitate group work, a sense of community and belonging between the students, when everything is taking place online?
"There was no doubt that it was the students’ needs I had to understand. Which role could I take as a teacher to make them learn in the best possible way? I chose to spend some extra time talking to my students instead of focusing on the mess in the background of my home office."
One of her students describes Annelise’s digital restructuring as follows:
"When the lockdown was implemented in Norway in March 2020, she was one of the lecturers who most quickly managed to adapt to the virtual solutions. […]. She was also the only lecturer who asked us how we were doing before starting class."
Annelise decided early to make her teaching digital in the autumn semester as well. At that time, she was particularly interested in the first-year students she had in French elective. They are young, many of them are new to the city and don’t know that many people in Bergen.
Digital adaptations with simple steps
Annelise takes simple steps in her classes: Her sessions are broadcast directly and are not recorded. She asks all her students to keep the camera on. She quickly learns their names. She talks to them about her teaching methods, and that she expects them to come prepared for class. She uses varied teaching activities to keep up the pace and the level of engagement.
"I need to keep their attention so that they’re not tempted to do other things during my classes, such as doing the dishes," she says and laughs.
"In a way, I enter into a kind of contract with the students."
Once a week, she meets them for a chat and digital lunch before class starts.
"I get really good feedback on this. The informal chat is useful, also for me."
Student-centred teaching also during the pandemic
Over the past years, Annelise has actively used the 'flipped classroom' teaching method. She does not lecture anymore. The students learn the theory before coming to class. Class time is spent on cases and groupwork.
"It’s crucial that the students arrive prepared for class, and they soon realise this."
It was obvious for Annelise that she wanted to continue with the flipped classroom method when the teaching became digital. She gives her students videos and texts that explain the theory and the main concepts to look at beforehand, so that they can use class time to spend time together digitally, both in plenary sessions and in smaller groups in digital group rooms. As much as 70 per cent of the teaching time has been devoted to work in breakout rooms.
"This teaching method works well as a way of calibrating the students. The students in my French class have different points of departure. Some have studied French at university or are fluent in French, others haven’t studied it since upper secondary school and have forgotten a lot, while others struggle with grammar. The students work at home with theory and exercises at their own pace. Every time we meet, we start with an informal test on Mentimeter or with a group exercise, to make sure we all start on an equal footing."
The flipped classroom method is often new to the students. In the student evaluation of French elective, it turned out that the students thought the structure of the teaching worked very well. They understood that it was important to prepare for class, and that the more prepared they were, the more they got out of the class.
"They were particularly happy with the fact that the class was so interactive and that they had got to know each other so well," says Annelise with a smile.
Inspired at teaching seminar
Annelise first heard about flipped classroom at a teaching seminar at NHH in 2016. Herbjørn Nysveen of the Department of Strategy and Management talked about how he used the method in his marketing class. Annelise was inspired, read about it and started experimenting with it the following year. Not everything worked out the way she had planned, which made the feedback from the students even more important.
In spring 2020, she attended several seminars about teaching. There, she received useful advice from Arild Schanke on Canvas and from Eirik Sjåholm Knudsen on Zoom.
"The tips I received were very useful for planning fully digital teaching activities for the autumn semester."
Needs feedback
When Annelise defended her doctoral thesis in 2016, her main supervisor said during the dinner afterwards that one of Annelise’s characteristics was that she handled criticism well.
"I have come to realise that she was right. I want to evolve as a lecturer, disseminator and researcher. The best way to do that is by trying new things, getting out of my comfort zone and learn? from it. I need feedback on what I do, and I must be able to deal with both positive and negative comments."
During the pandemic, Annelise has from day one asked her students to provide feedback on what they think works well and what could be done differently.
"I feel that now, in the digital sphere, I have developed my teaching in close cooperation with the students. My students are the ones who know how they best learn and how I can best contribute to their learning. Together, we have experimented, and I’m not afraid of making mistakes."
"If I hadn’t asked for feedback, I would’ve just continued in the same way as always without evolving and without knowing whether the teaching method had an impact on the students’ learning."
Reflections on own teaching practice
Over the past years, Annelise has prioritised spending a lot of time on teaching.
"Teaching is a really important part of my job, so I need to be good at it."
In summer 2019, she attended a teaching workshop at Harvard summer course in pedagogy (Global Colloquium on Participant-Centered Learning). Now, she gets her top-ups through webinars, in addition to exchanging experience with the people she met there. In the past year, she has attended several of NHH’s teaching seminars, including the one held by Robert Gray on Teaching Portfolio and by Lucas Jeno on Team-Based Learning. She has also held a teaching seminar at NHH about her own teaching methods.
Over the past two years, Annelise has used Team-Based Learning in a CEMS course about global leadership.
TBL is another student-centred teaching method that makes the students practise intercultural group work, communication and exchanging feedback with other students. And these are precisely the skills a global leader should have. The students practise these skills during classes throughout the semester.
In March, she will organise a workshop at the annual Team-Based Learning Collaborative Conference about how TBL can be used in teaching global leadership. She has also started working on a scientific paper about the use of TBL to develop intercultural competence in students.
"My teaching has recently become research for me. It has been useful to reflect on and write about my own teaching practice," she concludes.