University for Bergen’s Work Environment Award is an annual price honoring initiatives that promote good working environments. bioCEED and the Department of biological sciences (BIO) received this award for their digital teachers’ meetings. The digital teacher meetings were initiated during the pandemic lockdown as a response to challenge arising during the sudden shift to online teaching. The first meeting was already in place the week after lockdown in March 2020. Meetings were well attended and appreciated as they responded to the need for sharing experiences with teaching in a new setting. Teachers throughout the department got to share their experiences with remote teaching, technical challenges and how to engage students. Some meetings focused on remote lab and field teaching, others discussed digital home exams and experiences with active student learning presented by colleagues at the department. Students were also invited to conversations about teaching and learning in remote settings during lockdown. After the start in March 2020 the digital teachers’ meetings has been continued to the present.
Rector Margareth Hagen presented the Work Environment Award at the UiB HSE-day. The jury highlighted that this initiative was important to both the work environment and to improve teaching quality, and while this initiative started with bioCEED and BIO, it spread throughout the faculty. The price consisting of a diploma and 75.000 NOK, was received by Sigrunn Eliassen, Anne Bjune and Kristin Holtermann.
bioCEED wants to thank all teachers who have contributed to the digital teachers meetings, and for the great work they have put into remote teaching and sharing their experiences with colleagues.
