Abstracts day 2

Learning in Engineering education through open-ended problems

Nora Geirsdotter Bækkelund, Aina Isdal Haugland, Joar Sande & Jan Ove Rogde Mjånes, Western Norway University of Applied Sciences

The students of today will meet the challenges of tomorrow. As we do not know exactly what these challenges will be, it is often argued that education should foster students’ general ability to solve problems. While some would say that engineers per definition are problem solvers, classical engineering educationsare largely based on traditional science, mathematics and technology courses. However, to foster the development of problem-solving skills it has become increasingly common to include project work on ill-structured problems in engineering programmes.

Ill-structured problems are problems where the solution paths, rules, methods, and concepts for solving the problem are uncertain, and where there is more than one possible solution. These stand in contrast to the typical problems presented to students in engineering education, which only apply a few concepts or principles within defined parameters.The open-ended nature of ill-structured problems means that there are several possible approaches to solving them. Nonetheless, there is a certain agreement on some central aspects to solving ill-structured problems, namely problem definition, operationalisation, idea generation, making justified choices and going through multiple iterations. Yet, past research indicates that students often struggle with several of these aspects of the problem-solving process. This may, in turn, impact their learning from the problem-solving process. Therefore,this paper aims to answer the following research questions:

• RQ1 –How do engineeringstudents handle ill-structured problems in a capstone course?
• RQ2 –How is the process influenced by supervision/scaffolding?

These questions are approached through a qualitative investigation of the students’ problem-solving processes in a capstone course for all engineering students at Western Norway University of Applied Sciences (HVL). In this course, the students develop an innovation idea in a team of six. The team must come up with ideas and choose one that they will work on, developing an increasingly detailed design and plan for how the innovation may be put into practice. The process is supervised by engineers. Half-way though the semester the teams also get feedback from external entrepreneurs. This paper contributes a perspective on the whole problem-solving process in a semester-long project-period. Contrary to expectations based on past research, the observed student teams tend to put significant time and effort into idea generation. However, this comes at the expense of problem definition. Most of the teams do not discuss the problem, but jump straight to the solutions. This may be linked to the character of the problem (develop your own innovation idea). The teams also put an initial effort into organising their collaboration. This is combined with updating their plan as new information creates new tasks along the way, meaning that collaboration and operationalisation become tightly intertwined. The need to make decisions along the way pushes the teams to gather the necessary information. Supervisors contribute to this by asking why-questions. Despite reluctance towards “taking a step back to move forwards”, the need to justify decisions leading up to the chosen solution in most cases contributes to some iterations.

Interdisciplinary collaboration in small and medium sized enterprises

Jesper Klintrup Nielsen, Department of Leadership & HR, Business Academy Aarhus –School of Applied Sciences (Denmark), jkni@eaaa.dkUlla Haahr, Department of Research and Innovation, Business Academy Aarhus –School of Applied Sciences (Denmark), ulha@eaaa.dk The abstract addresses the specific application of interdisciplinary collaboration in small and medium sized enterprises (SME’s) based on these research questions:

• What drives interdisciplinary teamwork in SME’s?
• What are the barriers for interdisciplinary teamwork in SME’s?
• How can we prepare our students for the role as change agents and facilitators of interdisciplinary teamwork in SME’s? 

Approach

The starting point for the research is a literature study (Haahr & Nielsen, 2022) and later a case study including three Danish SME’s.

The literature study revealed that the field of interdisciplinary collaboration in private enterprises is still a relatively new management intersection and also a complex phenomenon. Furthermore, the research area lacks clarity and is open to interpretations (Moirano, Sánchez & Stepánek, 2020). Many of the existing studies deal with large organizations most often within the field of healthcare or education. Only very few studies and publications address interdisciplinary teamwork in small and medium sized enterprises, so the field needs to be investigated further. The aim of the case study is to provide empirical based knowledge and practical examples that could inspire and help SME’s regarding the use of interdisciplinary collaboration in their way of doing business.

Results

The literature study has enabled us to derive models that function as a framework for further studies in SME’s (Haahr & Nielsen, 2022). Initial definitions of drivers of and barriers for interdisciplinary teamwork at a general level and with the outspring in studies of large organizations have also laid the foundation for the case study. Hence, we have examined three SME’s that enable us to establish drivers of and barriers for interdisciplinary collaboration in these specific companies.aborationin small and medium sized enterprises.

Exploring students' contribution in an internship course - the company perspective of having student interns

Judit Johnstad Bragelien¹, Inger Beate Pettersen^2, Gesa Pflitsch², and Mohammed Nazar Western Norway University of Applied Sciences, Norway

¹Faculty of Business Administration and Social Sciences,

²Mohn Centre for Innovation and Regional Development

Questions we care about

A core activity for universities is to develop students’ knowledge and skills through educational services.  A student internship  during  university  education  has  gained  momentum  over  the  last decades. This paper raises the questions “What is the motivation for companies wanting student interns?” and “Why would firms repeatedly ask for student interns, despite the challenges of integrating them in their firms?” In this paper, we investigate companies’ perceptions, experiences, and challenges of having students as interns in a 10-week internship in Bergen, Norway. Scholars just recently started to  investigate  student  internship  and  its  learning  effects  in  the  academic  fields  of innovation  and  entrepreneurship. Research on  the  company  side  of  this  relationship,  is  however scarce.

Approach

The  purpose  of  this  paper is  to  gain  insights  into the process and  outcome  of  student  internship  as seen  from  the companies’  perspective.  In the methodological part, we propose a case study methodology with semi-structured interviews. The project aims to interview key employees (manager or assigned mentors for the student), responsible for integrating and mentoring the student during the internship. The research is ongoing and presents a preliminary analysis with data from eight interviews with firms located in the Western part of Norway.

Findings

Our data show three areas where student internship influence organizational outcomes. These areas are, learning, value creation and regional development.

Learning: All of the companies involved expressed how the student internship influenced their learning abilities by focusing on two different aspects. The first aspect was elaborated when the actors reflected upon how students  often  brought  in  new  and  updated  knowledge  on  different  elements,  like marketing  and  sustainability. The second aspect was related to how different challenges occurring during the internship period influenced and challenged their role as a leader/mentor.

Value creation: Based on how the student internship influenced the part on organizational learning by adding knowledge to different matters, new ways of approaching themes were seen as valuable for the organizations.  In addition,  the  students  sometimes  helped  out  on  projects,  which  enabled  the employees in the organizations to have more time and space for more creative and strategic work.

Regional development:  Our findings highlight an important aspect relate to how the student internship contributed to regional development by at times employing the students in paid positions after the end of the internship period. Additionally, the internship program at times created new work tasks and positions that would otherwise not have been. Additionally, the relationship between the University and the companies created networks and alliances that strengthened these connections.

Value/Originality

First, this study adds new knowledge to the literature bringing in the company side of the experience and value of student internships,  a  view  that  has  been  overlooked  in  former  research  on  student internships  in  entrepreneurship  education.  Second, the study gives valuable knowledge into the facilitation process of these student internship, seen from a company perspective, aiming at the best possible learning outcome for the student and firm, thus providing useful insights to actors involved in organizing internships.

Key words: entrepreneurship education, internship, value creation, knowledge, regional development

Teaching Philosophy of Science in Interdisciplinary Teams

Jesper Kruse, Technical University of Denmark (DTU)

Across many institutions of higher education, it is customary to insist that students, regardless of their chosen study programme, must be introduced to key concepts within philosophy of science, thus enabling the students to reflect critically on their own academic practices. However, given the decidedly ‘theoretical’ nature of this discipline – cp. the Norwegian term for it: vitenskapsteori – the content and form of courses in philosophy of science tend to differ significantly from other courses in the curriculum, which occasionally frustrates students and make them less willing to engage fruitfully with the discipline. In response to this, recent years have seen a ‘practice turn’ in the teaching of philosophy of science, aimed at strengthening the connections between theory and scientific practice (Green, Andersen, Danielsen et al. 2021).

In this paper, I present my own experiences with teaching philosophy of science to several classes of BEng students at the Technical University of Denmark (DTU), using a practice-oriented experiment devised by Gary Hardcastle and Matthew H. Slater (2014). In this experiment, students are presented with a sealed cardboard box with a number of items inside and then split into teams. Their task is to determine with as much precision and certitude as possible what is in the box (without opening it), and at the end of the experiment, which typically runs over a couple of weeks, each team presents their work to the rest of the class, and the class then takes a vote to determine which group has presented the most compelling case for what is in the box. Once a winner has been found, the students obviously expect that the box will be opened and its content revealed – but no: the box stays sealed (which is an important point in its own right), leaving the students perplexed and frustrated (which is also an important point in its own right).

Simple as it may seem, and indeed is, the box experiment has proven to be extremely successful in awakening my students’ interest in and understanding of key concepts in the philosophy of science. Moreover, students find it, for lack of a better word, fun to engage with this challenge. But even more important in the context of Its21, they also learn a lot about working in teams and how each team member’s ideas and competences can be of vital importance to solving the mundane task of finding out the contents of a sealed cardboard box.

References
Green, S., Andersen, H., Danielsen, K. et al. (2021). Adapting practice-based philosophy of science to teaching of science students. Euro Jnl Phil Sci 11, 75 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13194-021-00393-2
Hardcastle, G., & Slater, M. H. (2014). A novel exercise for teaching the philosophy of science. Philosophy of Science, 81(5), 1184-1196.

Crossing boundaries – Student-led interdisciplinarity at CEMUS

Malin Östman CEMUS/ Centre for Environment and Development studies (Uppsala University and The Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences)

Background

The Centre for Environment and Development Studies (CEMUS) is a student-initiated, interdisciplinary centre at Uppsala University and the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU), with the explicit ambition to contribute to a more just and sustainable world. Student-faculty collaboration weaves as a golden thread through the history and organization of all activities at the centre.

Since its inception in the early 1990’s, the centre has initiated and expanded the space for transdisciplinary student-led higher education as well as research and collaboration that transcends traditional academic disciplines and boundaries between academia and society at large. (From cemus.uu.se)

Using an interdisciplinary and student active approach is vital for resolving and mitigating today’s sustainability and climate problems. Skills that are key for sustainability are in many cases such in nature that they are best taught actively and trained - rather than one-way fact delivered. (Such skills could be for instance those suggested in Key competencies in sustainability by Wiek, Withycombe and Redman 2011).

At CEMUS active student participation runs through all the activities, and the students taking CEMUS courses come from many disciplines. CEMUS provides a unique model, where students are employed as teaching assistants to plan and run university courses (see illustration). The teaching assistants that run the university courses are also themselves students from many different academic fields and thus CEMUS also hosts, in addition to interdisciplinary courses, a unique working environment for these young, engaged academics. CEMUS currently runs around 20 courses on different academic levels, many of them international. About 700 individual students register to take CEMUS courses each year, given by around 35 coordinators (usually two students are employed as teaching assistants for 17 % /12 months to run a 7,5-credit course with support from organization, faculty and others).

The significance of the curricula in developing and delivering Interprofessional Education

Hilde Wøien, Førsteamanuensis, Enhet for helsevitenskaplig pedagogikk, Det medisinske fakultet, Universitetet i Oslo                          

Edel Jannecke Svendsen, Postdoc, Sunnaas sykehus / Førsteamanuensis, Fakultet for helsevitenskap, Oslo Met

Line Kildal Bragstad, Professor, Fakultet for helsevitenskap, Oslo Met / Førsteamanuensis, Avdeling for Folkehelsevitenskap, Det medisinske fakultet, Universitetet i Oslo                                 

Randi Opheim, Førsteamanuensis, Avdeling for Folkehelsevitenskap, Det medisinske fakultet, Universitetet i Oslo          

Ida Torunn Bjørk, Professor Emerita, Avdeling for Folkehelsevitenskap, Det medisinske fakultet, Universitetet i Oslo      

Liv Mathiesen, Førsteamanuensis, Farmasøytisk institutt, Universitetet i Oslo 

Focusing on faculty’s ability to educate students to collaborate across disciplines in health care is important for development and implementation of Interprofessional Education (IPE) in higher education. At the University of Oslo, we have developed and delivered IPE for seven years, encompassing six faculties and seven professional educations. The IPE has been offered to final-year students from medicine, nursing, psychology, clinical nutrition, odontology, and pharmacy. This has so far been a voluntary part of the curricula but will be obligatory in higher education from this autumn according to national requirements.

So far, our experiences with the implementation of IPE are in line with evidence of the significance of interprofessional teamwork that has not gained traction. Agreed upon competencies and skills for multiprofessional work are to varying degrees being integrated into health profession curricula worldwide. Faculty teaching students at the master level are responsible for curricula that consistently describe theoretical and practical learning outcomes and facilitate learning in relevant clinical arenas. Today this includes contributing to the development of students’ competence through working interdisciplinary. Recruiting faculty who are knowledgeable, skilled, and enthusiastic about IPE is therefore important to succeed with an IPE curriculum integration. Faculty is often faced with organizational challenges such as implementing IPE in the curricula, which in turn limit the possibility to ensure interactivity and students’ reflection on similarities and differences related to roles, responsibilities, and professional language. A fundamental issue which has so far not been sufficiently addressed is that to initiate and sustain what is required to reposition and embed IPE as a central component of an educational program, the curriculum must be clearly stated to inform both faculty and students.

Aim: We aim to discuss the significance of the curricula in developing and delivering IPE, based on current literature, and own experiences with organizational challenges at our university. Furthermore, to discuss the importance of achieving a greater understanding of how to integrate IPE into education, and into the culture of the university.

InterPlanung – Student-lead interprofessional treatment planning for the outpatient care of the future

Kevin Schulz^1,2, Kathleen Hahn¹, Jendrik Dedow¹, Wolfram Herrmann¹

1: Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Institute of General Practice and Family Medicine; 2: Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Institute for Clinical Nursing Sciences

Background

With a rising proportion of elderly in our society, fundamental changes in healthcare, from a focus on acute problems to long-term care for chronically ill patients, is crucial. The medicine of the future will increasingly be outpatient-based, combined with neighborhood care. Meanwhile, the complex problems of chronically ill patients mean that good interprofessional cooperation will be urgently needed.

Aim

The aim of this project is to prepare Charité students for the challenges of future outpatient care. The students will be empowered to act independently, responsibly and as members of an interprofessional team. To this end, we will implement and evaluate a concept for practical, patient-centred, interprofessional teaching for students of medicine, dentistry and nursing in cooperation with students of other health-related professions.

Methods

The project is an adaption and implementation in Germany of the TVEPS project at the Center for Interprofessional Workplace Learning at the University of Bergen (Norway), our Erasmus partner university.

In the implementation phase, we will focus on the care of nursing home residents as a particularly vulnerable group of patients. In addition to nursing, medicine and dentistry students, we also want to offer the teaching project to pharmacy, ergo- and physiotherapy students through our cooperation partners. The project could later be expanded to other courses (e.g. nursing education, social work, psychology) and contexts (e.g. hospice, outpatient care).

The execution takes place in several iterative steps with the participation of the stakeholders and begins with the establishment of organizational structures and clarification of the legal framework. The concept is then carried out in small cohorts, with successive adaptation, based on the plan-do-act-check cycle. We are advised by our colleagues from Bergen and will conduct a continuous qualitative and quantitative evaluation of the project.

Current status

During a kick-off meeting in October 2022, the InterPlanung project was presented to the participating professions in more detail. A data protection concept and declarations of consent were drawn up and positive responses were received in the responsible study and examination committees for nursing, medicine, dentistry and pharmacy.

The project is currently being implemented for medicine students in the rotations in general medicine and geriatrics (6th year of study), bachelor nursing students (3rd and 5th semester) and dentistry students (9th semester).

Until 15^th January 2023, two nursing homes in Berlin were recruited to take part in the project.

The pioneering group is planned to start at the end of January 2023 to evaluate the feasibility of the project and adapt its implementation.

Outlook

It is our intermediate goal to have this interprofessional training in outpatient care established for all medicine students by the time the new and upcoming approbation regulations are implemented (2025). After the passage of the first pioneer groups, findings will be used to improve the project. The network of stakeholders will be further strengthened and expanded and an ECTS accreditation for the participating courses, as well as further integration into the curricula of the individual disciplines will be targeted.

With the InterPlanung teaching project, we hope to make an important contribution to the health care of chronically ill people in Berlin and to offer future providers a high-quality and modern interprofessional teaching experience.

The patient role in interprofessional clinical placements – a call for a shift in focus in IPE?
Catrine Buck Jensen (presenter), Bente Norbye, Madeleine Abrandt Dahlgren, Tove Törnqvist & Anita Iversen

Learning with, from, and about other (health) professionals is essential to ensure a collaborative-ready healthcare workforce where the patients´ complexity is met with an interprofessional approach and organized in an integrated and sustainable way. It is argued that interprofessional education (IPE) in undergraduate health professions education can contribute to this. Learning initiatives span from theoretical approaches through interprofessional simulation to learning in clinical settings. The research on IPE is successively expanding its knowledge base and is recognized as a field reaching maturity.

However, studies in clinical settings give little insight into what happens when students meet patients. A doctoral study initiated in a collaboration between UiT The Arctic University of Norway, and Linköping university aims to explore how patients are included in undergraduate students´ interprofessional clinical placements.

Therefore, a scoping review and two empirical studies with a focused ethnographic approach explored the patient’s role in interprofessional clinical placements in various clinical contexts. For the empirical studies, data was generated through participant observations, informal conversations, and interviews. Descriptive content analysis and reflexive thematic analysis constituted the methods of data analysis.

The review study explored how patient participation is articulated in research on students in interprofessional clinical placements. Findings show that students' interaction with patients and the patient´s participation often is insufficiently articulated. Surprisingly, patient participation was the hardest to identify in research in contexts specifically designed for
interprofessional learning.

The first empirical study aimed to explore how student teams and patients interact in interprofessional clinical placements. Findings showed that the patients are not always the main character in their healthcare when students are in an interprofessional learning process; nevertheless, the patient is a catalyst for the teams' work process and interaction with the patient subsequently facilitates knowledge sharing.

The second empirical study aimed to explore the supervisors' facilitation of patientcenteredness. Preliminary findings show that even if supervisors spend time in preparations to recruit suitable patients for interprofessional learning, the patient focus is scarcely thematized
throughout the placement. Supervisors rarely join student teams in their interaction with patients. In planned supervision, the learning process and interaction between the students are scrutinized, but patient focus is seldom considered.

Interprofessional collaborative practice and integrated care are expected to be patientcentered. Our findings can inform designers of interprofessional research and education for students and supervisors to enhance focus on the patient in IPE. Also, the clinical supervisors
in the different healthcare institutions could benefit from being aware of the findings. Interprofessional student teams need support to learn a patient-centered approach, and competent supervisors are crucial. If future practice is expected to happen in partnership with
the patient, through integrated patient care, and in an interprofessional collaborative way, we need to discuss what measures to take today to prepare tomorrow's health workforce.

Development and evaluation of an interprofessional tandem summer school on depression for pharmacy and medical students

Petersen, M.^1,2; Zimmermann, N.¹; Konrad, A.¹; Seeger, J.¹; Behrend, R.³; Gehrke-Beck, S.²; Czimmeck, C.⁴; Schulz, M.¹; Herrmann, W.²; Kloft, C.¹

¹Dept. of Clinical Pharmacy and Biochemistry, Institute of Pharmacy, Freie Universität Berlin, Kelchstr.31, 12169 Berlin, Germany
²Institute of General Practice and Family Medicine, Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Charitéplatz 1, 10117 Berlin, Germany
³Dean’s Office for Student Affairs, Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Charitéplatz 1, 10117 Berlin, Germany
⁴Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Charitéplatz 1, 10117 Berlin, Germany

Background information: Pharmacy and medical students (PS and MS) in Germany rarely meet each other during their studies [1]. However, long-standing, personal contacts and mutual understanding are vital for a trustful collaboration between pharmacists and physicians [2]. According to the ’5th Action Plan 2021 – 2024 to improve medication safety’ of the Federal Ministry of Health of Germany, interprofessional collaboration is an important key element [3]. Especially for patients with depression, care by an interprofessional team is beneficial [4].

Purpose: An interprofessional tandem summer school for PS and MS was developed, implemented and evaluated to investigate students’ perceptions towards interprofessional collaboration and whether the students were satisfied with their learning progress and would recommend the summer school to others.

Methods: The project, developed by an interprofessional team, was evaluated using anonymous pre- and post-questionnaires, containing the German version of the Student Perceptions of Physician-Pharmacist Interprofessional Clinical Education instrument (SPICE-2D). This instrument contains 10 items with 3 factors (interprofessional teamwork and team-based practice, role/responsibilities for collaborative practice and patient outcomes from collaborative practice) and uses a five-point Likert scale (5=strongly agree, 4=agree, 3=neutral, 2=disagree, 1=strongly disagree) [5]. The questionnaires were relatable to the same participant by a self-generated code. Open-ended questions and guided individual interviews were used to further evaluate students‘ perceptions. The post-questionnaire asked for feedback as well as a recommendation of this project for other students, using a five-point Likert scale. Furthermore, students` satisfaction with their learning progress was assessed.

Results: The three-day summer school on depression consisted of seminars, workshops, communication training with simulated patients by actors, patient-oriented case work, and medication reviews. PS and MS worked together as a tandem. The interactive exercises were performed at the Medication Management Center at the Institute of Pharmacy. Thirteen PS (n=8) and MS (n=5) attended this summer school. Eleven participants took part in the pre-post evaluation. The initial agreement within the SPICE-2D instrument was high (median=4) and increased by the post evaluation (median=5). All students (n=8) were satisfied with their learning progress and would recommend it to others. They liked the diverse academic program, its length, and the patient-oriented case work. The students suggested more input from pharmacists already working in an interprofessional team and more time for working on the patient-oriented cases.

Conclusion: The interprofessional tandem summer school was successfully piloted. The feedback from the evaluation will be used to plan the second round in 2023. Further evaluation of the open-ended questions and guided individual interviews may contribute to an improved understanding about students’ perceptions towards patient-oriented case work and interprofessional collaboration in general, supporting the development of further interprofessional education projects.

Acknowledgements: We thank the Chamber of Pharmacists (Apothekerkammer) Berlin for funding this project.
its21 conference 2023, University of Bergen, 27.04. – 28.04.2023

References
[1] IMPP. 2019. www.impp.de/files/PDF/RBS_Berichte/Berufs%C3%BCbergreifend%20Denken%20In... (last accessed: 13.01.2023).
[2] Weißenborn M. et al. Gesundheitswesen. 2019;81:1057-1068.
[3] Federal Ministry of Health. 2021. www.bundesgesundheitsministerium.de/fileadmin/Dateien/5_Publikationen/Ge... (last accessed: 13.01.2023).
[4] Baumann P et al. Psychopharmakotherapie 2020;27:270–277.
[5] Pudritz YM et al. Int J Pharm Pract. 2020;28:142-149.

«It Enables Us to Reflect More on Nutrition»: A Mixed Methods Cross-Sectional Study on Preclinical Digital Training in Nurse Education

Kari Almendingen ^*, Ingrid Ruud Knutsen, Kari Jonsbu Hjerpaasen, Sigrun Henjum and Kari Anne Hakestad

All authors: Department of Nursing and Health Promotion, Faculty of Health Sciences, Oslo Metropolitan

^*Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.

Abstract

Adequate nutrition is a basic human right, yet older adults are at high risk of malnutrition. Malnutrition management in the elderly is complicated and requires interdisciplinary collaboration. Nutrition is not a part of most nursing curricula although nutrition is a basic need. At Oslo Metropolitan University, an interdisciplinary team of educators (nurses and clinical dietitians) was established to design and deliver a new digital educational approach aiming to learn nursing students about prevention and treatment of malnutrition. Limited research has been done on digital case-based learning (CBL) in breakout rooms (digital groups); therefore, the aim was to develop and evaluate a preclinical digital CBL unit (3-h synchronously and with an asynchronously flipped classrooms approach) for prevention and treatment of malnutrition and to explore nursing students’ experiences and learning outcomes. Different scenarios for two fictive cases were created in which malnutrition-related challenges were included (such as terminal care and diseases) and embedded on the ThingLink platform. The students screened the fictive cases through the Mini Nutritional Assessment (MNA) tool web application. The learning unit had no formative or summative assignment, but the students had to send their individual MNA screening scores to Multimeter word clouds.  In an explorative mixed methods cross-sectional study design, students (n =78) completed an online evaluation with closed and open questions. Nearly all students agreed that the digital learning unit during the seminar was relevant to their own professional future practice. They agreed that it was easy to understand how the choice of dietary measure may affect patient outcome, how low-quality documentation would lead to low patient safety and that it was easy to understand the nursing profession’s legal responsibilities with respect to nutrition. However, from a clinical perspective, the interindividual spread of frequency of malnutrition MNA screening scores that appeared in the word clouds during work in breakout rooms was unacceptable with respect to patient safety. Hopefully, this learning approach may have raised students’ awareness towards nurses’ responsibilities with respect to entering valid patient data on nutrition into patient health records. Regarding the pedagogical approach, the results revealed that students wanted more synchronous interaction with educators and less time alone in breakout rooms due to their peers being unprepared, passive, and unfamiliar and not turning on their cameras or logging on too late. The learning outcome from quizzes and word clouds were high, but the added pedagogical value of ThingLink seemed low. This explorative study sheds light on central issues related to the use of technology in nurse education. The interdisciplinary teamwork involving nurses and dietitians increased the working life relevance of the cases and case-scenarios. These data are highly supportive of implementing prevention and treatment of malnutrition in the nursing curriculum, and the interdisciplinary approach.

The abstract is based is based on the following published paper:

Almendingen, K.; Knutsen, I.R.; Hjerpaasen, K.J.; Henjum, S.; Hakestad, K.A. “It Enables Us to Reflect More on Nutrition”: A Mixed Methods Cross-Sectional Study on Preclinical Digital Training in Nurse Education. Educ. Sci. 2023, 13, 32. https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci13010032

Stellenbosch University’s hybrid community model

Jethro Georgiades and Minette Sieberhagen

Stellenbosch University (SU) necessitates that every student is welcomed, orientated, and integrated into a student community what can be called the University Campus Life Ecosystem. As an organising principle, Student Communities ensure that every student is integrated into the ecosystem and that student experience a sense of belonging to through their participation in a micro community which guides them along their academic journey. The student community model embeds within it attaining student success and striving for a thriving SU. Student communities remain an essential element in enabling a transformative student experience to ensure employable graduates.

In 2020 the Covid19 lockdown forced students back home and away from their student communities. The SU Commuter Student Office took this opportunity to move to a blended virtual community model to engage students and connect them each other and offer support and opportunities on more multimedia platforms both with each other and external industry stakeholders. Furthermore, enabling and continuing the community experience around the country regardless of industry or interest. The Commuter Student Office staff, in collaboration with the Student Leadership, developed a virtual community template that developed and continue to expand student learning and engagement with each other and industry partners across South Africa, and internationally. The template was adapted and personalised by each community leadership to offer support and engagement to ensure that each student is engaged and developed in the Stellenbosch Universities Graduate Attributes that makes more employable to industry and add societal value. The hybrid community model has surpassed the 2020 period and continues to be explored and expanded. The following themes have been added to the hybrid model to ensure that student explore and continue to build networks both with internal and external stakeholders; Academic support and industry mentoring, sports and lifestyle, culture, sustainability, critical engagement, peer to peer mentoring and mental health as well as leadership development. Various online engagement platforms were utilised, according to the needs of each theme. Microsoft Teams, Zoom, Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, SunSurvey, and more. The outcome was overwhelmingly positive, and the model is evaluated constantly due to the feedback and research done by the Commuter Student Office with comparative data from 2021 and 2022.

The involvement online was significantly higher both from industry leaders and students alike than what the Student Community Office had previously experienced on campus. Thus, resulted in the student communities pursuing a direction where a blended community model will bridge the industry and university and ease the transition between the private and public sector.

Transformation from Blended to Online Learning: A Four-Year Longitudinal Cross-Sectional Interprofessional Study

Kari Almendingen, ^1,* Torhild Skotheim ² and Ellen Merethe Magnus ³

¹ Department of Nursing and Health Promotion, Faculty of Health Sciences, Oslo Metropolitan University, 0130 Oslo, Norway

² Department of Primary and Secondary Teacher Education, Faculty of Education and International Studies, Oslo Metropolitan University, 0130 Oslo, Norway

³ Department of Academic Affairs, Division for Education and Library, Oslo Metropolitan University, 0130 Oslo, Norway

*Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.

Abstract

Professional students need to train in online interprofessional collaboration (IPC). During a longitudinal evaluation for 2018–2022 of an interprofessional learning (IPL) curriculum, nearly 7000 students from health, social care, and teacher education programs completed indicator questions concerning learning about child-related topics and skills required for IPC during their first, second, and third curriculum years of study. The students worked in student-led IPL groups according to a case-based learning approach. Online IPL yielded lower mean scores than in-person IPL. The decreased learning outcomes from year 2 to year 3 for the IPL initiative are not due to the online delivery mode. The lack of reported progress in the IPL courses is more likely due to students not experiencing a gain in IPL learning outcomes. Significant differences were found between teacher education and child welfare students and health and social care students, reflecting IPC challenges in working life. We conclude that online IPL is forward-looking because candidates must be prepared for online IPC and for helping users, such as children, online. Although our data support that IPL is complex, the learning experience has tremendous transfer value to welfare services because we assume that the same issues will appear in IPC.

The abstract is based is based on the following published paper:

Almendingen, K.; Skotheim, T.; Magnus, E.M. Transformation from Blended to Online Learning: A Four-Year Longitudinal Cross-Sectional Interprofessional Study. Educ. Sci. 2023, 13, 116. https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci13020116

How to develop high-quality internship programs in innovation and entrepreneurship? Learning lessons from educators, students, and internship firms

Judit Johnstad Bragelien^1, Inger Beate Pettersen², Mohammed Nazar¹, and Gesa Pflitsch² Western Norway University of Applied Sciences, Norway
¹Faculty of Business Administration and Social Sciences,
²Mohn Centre for Innovation and Regional Development

jjb@hvl.no, Inger.Beate.Pettersen@hvl.no, Mohammed.Nazar.Mohammed@hvl.no, Gesa.Pflitsch@hvl.no
 

Practice-based learning through internships can provide students with an exceptional opportunity to practice theories and to develop entrepreneurial skills beyond the classroom. With entrepreneurship becoming an important driver for a sustainable future, universities now attempt to provide entrepreneurship programs, whereby students are exposed to real-life entrepreneurial tasks in start-ups or company internships. These learning arenas are by nature interdisciplinary and provide an opportunity for students to immerse into interdisciplinary entrepreneurial teams and to develop cross-disciplinary competence. Besides, with the third mission, universities are expected to contribute with knowledge beyond the classroom, to the regional economy, and student internship can be a strategy facilitating this mission.

Yet, it is assumed challenging for universities to organize high-quality internship programs. Educators may lack experience and the relevant pedagogic competence. More, universities would also depend on long-term collaborative relationships with regional firms about education and need dynamic and appreciating entrepreneurial ecosystems to place students in internships. Besides, it might take time to develop a strong reputation and commitment from regional firms, to easily accept student interns. In addition, it is extra challenging in countries, regions, and sectors/industries where they lack traditions and culture for integrating student interns in companies and start-ups for valuable practices.

Scholars just recently started to investigate student internship and its learning effects in the academic fields of innovation and entrepreneurship. Internship research indicates that students, by observing and performing can enhance their awareness about entrepreneurship as a career path, strengthen entrepreneurial intensions, and develop entrepreneurial mindsets, skills, and competences. Research on the company side of this relationship, is however scarce. It is therefore timely to investigate companies’ perceptions, experiences, and challenges of having students as interns, and hence to understand the company-student relationship in internship programs. In this workshop incorporating a panel debate, we aim to understand the organization of internship programs, the challenges and learning for multiple stakeholders, such as educators, students, and internship firms.

The internship program and learning context

The internship program is situated in Bergen, the second largest city in Norway. The internship program is run by Western Norway University of Applied Sciences, Campus Bergen, in close collaboration with entrepreneurial ecosystem actors, incubators and cluster organizations. The internship program places about 50 Norwegian and a few international students in internships. All students work in real interdisciplinary entrepreneurial teams in the companies or start-ups. The city is well-known for its dynamic and rich start-up ecosystems as well as the coexistence of many globally oriented industry clusters in areas such as oceans technology, seafood, and media technologies (marineholmen.com).

The internship program, learning context, pedagogy, and student cohort

Students are assigned to the internship firm throughout a matchmaking process consisting of among other things writing up a CV and a short presentation in front of the possible internship firms. The best match is realized through a mutual ranking. Students are assigned a mentor in the internship firm, having a special responsibility for following up the student during the 10 weeks internship period. Hence, the internship mentor functions as co-educator during the period.

The students are assigned challenging entrepreneurial tasks, which they perform in close interaction with the team of the internship company. The students are rapidly immersed in the company and ecosystem culture, and through observations, interaction, and performance of entrepreneurial tasks, as well as through several encounters and critical incidents, develop entrepreneurial skills and competences. Some tasks may involve pushing students’ comfort-zones, stimulating to behavioural experimentation, leading to new attitudes and behaviour and entrepreneurial self-efficacy (ESE) being developed. ESE refers to the individual’s belief in their ability to take on the role and tasks associated with being an entrepreneur and is assumed to play an important role in determining whether an individual will engage in entrepreneurial behaviour and consider an entrepreneurial career.

The students also attend an afternoon seminar once a week, where guest lecturers from the regional business / public sector present various cases and applied understandings of regional practice and corporate practice. At the seminars, students are expected to be active and ask questions, participate in discussions and reflections on topics for the seminars. The professors also contribute to the seminars by facilitating dialogue and discussions, in addition to linking the discussions to relevant literature and theory.

Pedagogy to stimulate critical reflections and entrepreneurial learning

The students participate actively in two reflective sessions as a group and critically reflect on their entrepreneurial learning and experiences. The questions for the reflective sessions are inspired by the experiential learning cycle (Morris, 2020) and entrepreneurial learning literature. The reflective sessions aim to function as a supportive pedagogy to enhance students’ entrepreneurial learning experience, inducing students’ critical reflective observations, abstract conceptualization and their narratives about their rich experiences and behavioural experimentation. The assessment at the end of the internship is a reflection report about their entrepreneurial journey. Students may also cope differently with the entrepreneurial experience since the experience is highly individual.

Workshop content

First, the internship program is presented: 5 minutes

Panel debate: 55 minutes

We then proceed to a panel debate about how to organize high-quality interdisciplinary internship programs, through the perspective of educators, students, and internship firms. We plan to invite a diversity of internship companies, like a small start-up, a larger company and an organization facilitating innovation. Further we will invite master students with different educational background.

Panel debate and group discussions – with internship firms, students and educators

Time: One hour; Q1 – Q8

Main themes to be discussed:

1. What is the value of having interns for the internship firms?

2. What can be the challenges of having interns in a firm?

3. What is a good entrepreneurial task?

4. What is the learning outcome for the student?

5. What are the challenges for educators in the organization of internship programs, the importance of systems, relations, trust and teamwork?

6. Supporting pedagogies for students’ entrepreneurial learning

7. Questions from the audience

8. Summing up

Developing sustainable mindset in an interprofessional learning context

Assistant Professor Anne Helen Jacobsen¹, Assistant Professor Turid Aarhus Braseth², Assistant Professor Helge Arntzen¹, Associate Professor Helga Kristin Kaale¹

¹Western Norway University of Applied Sciences, Faculty of Health and Social Sciences, Department of Health and Functioning
2Western Norway University of Applied Sciences, Faculty of Engineering and Science, Department of Safety, Chemistry and Biomedical laboratory sciences

Background:
The subject sustainability, as described in FNs Sustainability Development Goals, are important in the introductory course "Formation and Academic Craft” at Western Norway University of Applied Sciences (HVL, 2022). UNESCO (2017) recommend a transformative pedagogy and interdisciplinary approach to enhance the learning process about sustainability. Based on this, the bachelor’s degree programs in bioengineering, occupational therapy, physiotherapy, and radiography have adapted an interprofessional implementation of the course. The students work in permanent interprofessional groups throughout the course, and when writing their exam papers. The learning process is planned to develop from awareness of one's own preconceptions about sustainability, via reflections on various subthemes, to discussing sustainability from an interprofessional and health-related point of view in the exam paper. The course has been completed three times from 2020 to 2022.
We wanted to study the student’s learning outcome, and whether the interprofessional learning context contributed to this.

Method:
Two different sources of information were used:
1. A systematic review of 676 individual reflection notes, and 110 group exam papers (2020 – 2022). The learning outcome descriptions were the basis for the assessment.
2. 222 student responses from two surveys (2021 and 2022), where students were asked to evaluate the course`s working methods and their own learning outcomes.

Results:
1. The systematic review indicates that the students:
• have expanded their understanding of the concept of sustainability, and the connection between sustainability and ethics.
• have gained a greater understanding of the importance of their own competence and how they can contribute as professionals, and members of an interprofessional working community.
• developed their ability to see themselves as part of a larger context, nationally and globally.
2. The survey indicates that:
• 90% of the students consider the subject sustainability relevant for further professional studies and later professional practice.
• 95% of the students regard the combination of the four educational programs as particularly important for their learning.
• 98% of the students prioritized spending most of their time on the interprofessional learning activities.
• From the surveys comments: About working in interprofessional groups, one student responded as follows: "It was great fun, and I learned a lot by discussing in the group. Therefore, I have gained a better understanding of interdisciplinary collaboration”

Conclusion:
Results from the systematic review and the surveys, indicate that the students have developed a more sustainable mindset after completing the course. Interprofessional groups seems to be a good learning context for this kind of transformative learning. The students find that learning about sustainability, and their experience with interprofessional working methods, is relevant for further studies and practice in their coming professions. We plan to follow up this project with a qualitative designed study to get more comprehensive understanding of these questions.

References:
Høgskulen på Vestlandet (HVL) (2022) ERG110 Danning og akademisk handverk. Emneplan for studieåret 2022/2023. https://www.hvl.no/studier/studieprogram/emne/erg110
UNESCO. (2017). Education for sustainable development goals: learning objectives. United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, Paris. https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000247444

Implementing Green Economy and App Development in SDG courses

Mario Blázquez, Kari Håvåg Voldsund

Green economy and digitalization are in the core of the sustainable development goals. They contribute to achieving SDG4, quality education; SDG7, SDG5, gender equality; affordable and clean energy; SDG8, decent work and economic growth; SDG9, industry, innovation and infrastructure; SDG11, sustainable cities and communities. Moreover, green economy and digitalization play a crucial role in achieving the sustainable strategic plans in many universities. Finally, green economy and digitalization will be two main economic vectors of transformation in the next decade.

Giving the importance of green economy and digitalization, this year we have introduced a new course at HVL and NHH named “Green Digitalization and App Development.” That course aims to combine green economy, digitalization, and app development. In the course, we choose a relevant topic in green economy, we develop an economic model, we design an app. Therefore, within the course, we cover the entire value chain, from the economic model until the policy analysis.

In the course “Green Digitalization and App Development,” we aim to contribute to solve global problems as climate change, poverty, and gender inequality. To achieve that objective, we need cooperation among different institutions and countries. To promote that cooperation, we are developing an educational platform named “Forward: Connecting Education and Society” (https://forwardedu.org/).

During this course, the students from HVL and NHH cooperate developing their apps by using Forward. Forward has many functionalities that help students to cooperate and to promote active learning. This will help them to share their work with companies, public institutions, cooperatives, non-governmental organization, and society, since each student has its own domain within Forward, and everyone will have access to that domain and use the apps developed by that student.

In the future, we aim to foster the cooperation with other European universities by launching an “European Master in Green Digitalization and App Development.” To make that cooperation effective, we will use Forward. Moreover, the European Union wishes to develop a European educational platform, and we would like to contribute to that development.

Forward is designed in such a way that is intuitive, easy to use from many devices (from computers to mobile phones), and to make easy the data collection. To answer the research questions, we design different questionnaires that will be answered by the students.The course “Green Digitalization and App Development” aims to achieve different objectives that need to be evaluated and improved, and we would like to address different research questions:

1. What kind of functionalities are necessary to help students to cooperate developing their apps? How to improve those functionalities to improve the cooperation between students? 

2. How pedagogical tools can be effective to connect economic models, digitalization, and app development? How should we combine those pedagogical tools to make them more effective?

3. What changes in the methodology, the pedagogical tools, the teaching philosophy, and the learning experience will foster gender equality in the green and digital sectors, and in the app development?

References

Ernst and Young, 2016, "Women in Power and Utilities: Index 2016."

IEA, 2019, "World Energy Outlook."

IRENA, 2019, "Renewable energy: A gender perspective."

McCarthy, N., 2016, "Which industries have the most women in senior management?" Forbes.

Moodley, L., Holt T., Leke A., and Desvaux G., 2016, "Women Matter Africa," McKinsey and Company.

Noland, M.,  Moran T., and Kotschwar B., 2016, "Is gender diversity profitable? Evidence from a global survey," Peterson Institute for International Economics, Washington, DC.

OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) Higher Education Programme, 2014, "Fostering equity in higher education: Compendium of practical case studies."

Rick, K., Martén I., and  Von Lonski U., 2017, "Untapped Reserves: Promoting Gender Balance in Oil and Gas," World Petroleum Council and The Boston Consulting Group.

Sustainable Energy for All (SEforAll), 2017, "Scaling sustainable access pathways for the most vulnerable and hardest to reach people."

Sustainable Energy for All (SEforAll), 2018, "Levers of Change: How Global Trends Impact Gender Equality and Social Inclusion in Access to Sustainable Energy."

UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization), 2017, "Cracking the code: girls’ and women’s education in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM)."

UNESCO, 2015,"UNESCO Science Report: Towards 2030."

UNIDO, 2013, "Sustainable Energy for all: The gender dimensions."

UNIDO, 2015, "Mutual benefits of sustainable energy and empowering women for inclusive and sustainable industrial development."

UNIDO, 2015, "Guide on gender mainstreaming environmental management projects."

UNIDO, 2019, "Inclusive and sustainable industrial development: The gender dimension."

United Nations Women, 2016, "Leveraging Co-Benefits between Gender Equality and Climate Action for Sustainable Development: Mainstreaming Gender Considerations in Climate Change Projects."

United Nations Women, 2018, "Turning Promises into Action: Gender Equality in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development."

WISE (Women in Solar Energy), 2017, "Women employment in urban public sector."

World Bank, 2017, "Energy access and gender: Getting the right balance, ENERGIA."

World Bank, 2018, "Tracking SDG7: The Energy Progress Report."

Implementing an interdisciplinary project course across the university: The case of ‘Innovation in Teams’ 

Thomas Christian Espenes, Project leader - Innovation in Teams, Departnemt of Business and IT/USN School of Business, University of South-Eastern Norway (USN) 

Ramona Lorentsen, General Manager– SESAM Centre for Social Entrepreneurship and Social Innovation, Department of Health, Social and Welfare Studies/Faculty of Health and Social Sciences, University of South-Eastern Norway (USN) 

Interdisciplinary project courses, where students from different study programs collaborate in interdisciplinary teams and create new solutions to complex real-life problems, are becoming increasingly more prevalent in higher education. These courses may be effective learning arenas for developing students’ 21st century skills, such as creative problem solving, innovative mindsets, interdisciplinary teamwork skills, critical reflection and its like. In addition, they may develop interpersonal competencies that enables collaborative and participatory efforts to solve sustainability challenges in education and professional life (e.g. Alm, Melén, & Aggestam-Pontoppidan, 2021), and even facilitate transformative learning (Mezirow, 1991). Despite these suggested benefits, universities are usually not well rigged for interdisciplinary practices in education due to structural and cultural differences between units. Thus, whole-institutional approaches are called for (e.g. Brassler & Sprenger, 2021). 

This presentation reports from the ongoing initiative at the University of South-Eastern Norway (USN) to develop and implement a new university-wide course called ‘Innovation in Teams’. In the course, 3rd year bachelor students collaborate in interdisciplinary groups on sustainability related innovation projects aimed at solving complex sustainability problems from work-life partners. The course was piloted in 2021 and 2022 at three of USN’s eight campuses. Pilots involved students and academics from all four faculties. In parallel, we have worked to prepare the organization for a (possible) future ‘full implementation’, and to collect insights about possibilities and hindrances for achieving this.  

In the year to come, USN will decide whether (and how) the course shall be offered to all bachelor students in the future. To prepare for this decision, and the possible consequence of it, we are currently developing an implementation plan based on two overarching approaches: 

• The instrumental - appropriate framework conditions and organization.  

Including: Deciding on coordinating organizational unit (central or from a faculty/department); handling of differences in educational program structures (study plans, framework plans, time schedules, mandatory vs. elective, professional vs. discipline programs, similar courses, duplicate learning outcomes etc.); and adopt to different campus infrastructures. 

• The cultural – interdisciplinary community of practice and faculty development.  

Including: Establishing interdisciplinary teacher teams on all campuses; (re-)develop an inclusive common vision, pedagogical principles and key concepts; establish and maintain arenas for collaboration, mutual exchange, and ongoing faculty development for teachers across faculties and campuses. 

The presentation will focus on how we can work to establish interdisciplinary courses in our context, so that we can educate in line with the authorities' requirements for competence towards the 21st century. 

A Johannessen, G Agdesteen, SJ Brenna, A Bærheim, EC Gundersen, M Hustoft, R Kjome, LM Kleppe, J Vøllestad.

University of Bergen / Western Norway University of Applied Sciences, TVEPS.

Ten years ago, the Centre for Interprofessional Workplace Learning (TVEPS) was established as a collaboration between the University of Bergen (UiB), the Western Norway University of Applied Sciences (HVL) and the municipalities Bergen and Fjell (now: Øygarden).

The establishment of the centre was a response to national and international white papers calling for the need of interprofessional (IP) collaboration competencies in order to meet the complex health demands of the future. The pedagogy was inspired by the Experts in Teams course at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) in Trondheim but took on its own form with its pinpointed focus on real-life problem solving in primary healthcare.

TVEPS has grown radically the first ten years, from 20 to 900 students pr year – with 17 education programs and 100 workplace arenas. IP teams of 5 students visit healthcare or social care workplaces and tailor IP care plans for patients/users – based on what the students believe the patients/users need in addition to already existing care. Some IP student teams visit kindergartens and schools, where they plan and perform interactive educational sessions about life mastery for children – and some IP student teams solve real-life generic problems for the workplace arenas, such as “how to minimize loneliness among nursing home patients during covid lockdown” and “how to prevent fall among elderly living at home alone”.

In dialogue meetings, students present their work and engage in dialogue and mutual learning with the workplace staff, together perfecting the care plans/educational sessions/plans for problem-solving. In each dialogue meeting an IPE facilitator from TVEPS is present to guide the learning process and motivate reflection on IP collaboration. The workload in TVEPS formally amounts to 20 hours and encompasses: IPE introductory lecture; practice day at the workplace; development of care plans/educational sessions; dialogue meeting; IP competency questionnaire.

During the first ten years of TVEPS we have evolved substantially, we have made many discoveries along the way and we have started collaborations with numerous partners both locally in Western Norway, nationally in Norway, and internationally in both the Nordic countries, Europe and further abroad. In this jubilee seminar, we wish to assemble presenters from within and outside TVEPS to interactively share with the audience the great journey we have had so far – and some of our plans for making the future a better and more sustainable place for us all, through the help of interprofessional collaboration.

The anniversary session will be chaired by Merethe Hustoft and the session will progress as followed:

• Anniversary greetings from some of the TVEPS associates.
• TVEPS in a historical perspective – how it all started (Anders Bærheim)
• TVEPS today – opportunities and obstacles (Ane Johannessen)
• Facilitating IP-groups in dialogue with workplace arenas (Sissel Brenna Johansson)
• Students as active change agents (Elisabeth Tran)

Followed by a table discussion in the audience and panel debate chaired by Merethe Hustoft with representatives from TVEPS, students, and international collaborators (A Bærheim, SJ Brenna, B Brandt, E Tran, A Johannessen):

• Questions from the table discussion
• Panel discussion: future plans for IP workplace learning