This cluster collects activities aiming to improve methods for learning and assessment that we use, increasing constructive alignment, and to improve the motivation and capability of teaching staff for accomplishing this.

Varied learning and assessment methods. We will continue our interest in improved learning in projects, cross-campus and for first-year students. For 2022-26 we will build on own best practices, and successful methods from computing education elsewhere, such as peer instruction, team-based learning, mastery learning, portfolio assessment and formative feedback. Excited will facilitate piloting of learning interventions to find out what is suitable in our context, both in small group settings and huge classes of 1000+ students. Increasingly, we want to take part in comparative empirical studies of learning methods, nationally and internationally.

Culture for quality and sharing. Much variance in learning outcomes lies with the students themselves, and student peer culture is an important factor. Locally, we see differences among study programs, e.g., in time commitment. Excited will pursue more collaboration with and among students to evolve student culture towards stronger promotion of learning. Most teachers are already committed towards good teaching but are uncertain what approach to choose and worried about risks (e.g., time, failure). Excited will lower the threshold by connecting teachers with similar needs, offer resources, and encourage discipline-specific pedagogical discourse.

Innovative blended learning. Blended learning can outperform both face-to-face and fully online learning and is a natural way to go for multi-campus universities like ours, for instance with project courses where problem owners, team members and advisors may be at several different locations. Yet blending as such does not guarantee success, one must find a good mix of online and face-to-face activities. Covid-19 has surfaced both opportunities and challenges in this respect.