Professor, PhD (Group Leader)
Christian Jørgensen

I have been teaching the first semester course BIO100 Introduction to evolution and ecology since 2015, from 2019 with Jarl Giske.

Over some years now, I have researched student engagement, motivation, and effects of teaching on this course in close collaboration with Sehoya Cotner, who is now leader of BioCEED, the Center of Excellence in Education at our Department, and Cissy Ballen, now at Auburn University.

Based on work with Helen Bråten (see paper below), I suggested that Norway introduce a new grading scale, Pass with distinction - Pass - Fail, that made it into the national committees's draft National Law for Higher Education. I debated this in a NOKUT podcast from March 2020. The suggestion was later axed by the government with no pedagogical reason given, and is now not part of the suggested new law for higher education, to be debated and voted on in the parliament.

As part of the new law, the government plans to introduce two evaluators on every exam graded A-F. I think this will take Norwegian higher education 30 years back in time, and discuss pedagogical consequences in the national news outlet for higher education:
Khrono 27 April 2021: Kjenner studentene konsekvensene med to sensorer? [In Norwegian]

In 2015 I received the University of Bergen's student-nominated Learning Environment Award and in 2016 I got a national teaching award from Olav Thon Stiftelser.

 
Here are my papers on teaching in higher education: