Klara Bolander Laksov speaks to the participants.

Klara Bolander Laksov, Professor of Higher Education at Stockholm University, invited the auditorium to a dialogue about learning for the future. Photo: Ebba Burman.

2022-12-01

Great interest when PRåM and MedfarmDoIT held pedagogical conference

On 17 November, PRåM and MedfarmDoIT jointly arranged an educational conference. Partly to mark the start of an in-depth collaboration, and partly to celebrate MedfarmDoIT’s 20th anniversary. At the conference, strengthened pedagogical resources at the Disciplinary Domain were also presented in the form of a “pedagogical node”. More than 50 teachers and students participated in the conference’s programme sessions.

The conference included lectures and workshops with room for dialogue, reflection, and learning. Anja Sandström and Matts Olovsson, Vice-Deans for First and Second Cycle Education (undergraduate and master’s levels) at ’the Faculty of Pharmacy and Medicine respectively, opened the educational conference.

“Matts and I are probably Uppsala University’s proudest vice-deans. It is fantastic to be able to highlight educational development. We are now ready for further steps with all the combined skills. This is a new start and we must make that visible, so we also make our progress known.”

The keynote speaker was Klara Bolander Laksov, Professor of Higher Education at Stockholm University. Klara invited us to reflect on learning and teaching for the future. The conference also included hands-on workshops on film scripts and how course development can become medical educational and system services – something that gave participants both new knowledge and energy.

In conjunction with the pedagogical conference, a webpage was launched, where the in-depth collaboration of the disciplinary domain is gathered in a pedagogical node:

Pedagogical node at the Disciplinary Domain of Medicine and Pharmacy

Pedagogical development to ensure the quality of student learning

Since the autumn, Karin Björklund has been working at MedfarmDoIT, as an educational developer for all those who teach students at the disciplinary domain. She will provide support and advice in educational subjects and development areas. Karin Björklund has worked for many years as an occupational therapist but also with medical educational research, development, and training at universities and in clinics, for example, primary care. Her work and research focus has been to develop and support students, primarily medical students in their clinical learning.

“At MedfarmDoIT, we can help teachers develop an educational idea. With Karin now on our team, we raise the quality significantly for educational development, and the conference was a brilliant opportunity to have Karin introduced. And with the deepened collaboration with PRåM, we become a pedagogical node for the Disciplinary Domain”, says Anna-Carin Lundqvist, and concludes: “The purpose of all our support is to give teachers inspiration and pedagogical excellence, to ultimately give our students a first-class education. We are happy that so many people participated in the conference and the celebration of educational development.”

Important to celebrate

“This year MedfarmDoIT turns 20 and we wanted to celebrate that. Pedagogical support for the Disciplinary Domain of Medicine and Pharmacy has existed for considerably longer. But MedfarmDoIT started to support teachers who wanted to develop their teaching through film or by creating IT tools. They simply wanted to meet the students’ expectations”, says Anna-Carin Lundqvist, Head of Unit of MedfarmDoIT, and continues:

“Today, we can see that it was the right thing to do. It has given the Disciplinary Domain the means to keep up with a changing world in terms of pedagogical and technological development. Today, as we celebrate together with PRåM, we can give a taste of what extended educational support can provide to face the future and lifelong learning.”

Ebba Burman

Pedagogical support at the Disciplinary Domain

The Disciplinary Domain’s original pedagogical resource was the so-called pedagogical unit within the Medicine Programme. It was started by Gunnar Birgegård, Professor Emeritus of Medicine and former Senior Consultant at Uppsala University Hospital, who realised the need for pedagogical support to maintain the high quality of the Medicine Programme.

The pedagogical unit already existed in 1993 when PBL (Problem-Based Learning) was introduced in the Medicine Programme. The unit consisted of three half-time positions headed by Gunnar Birgegård. It was instrumental in the planning and implementation of the then-new Medicine Programme 2006 with its pedagogical innovation and unique curriculum structure. The unit also trained the programme’s teachers in problem-based learning.

MedfarmDoIT started in 2002. MedfarmDoIT provides pedagogical and technical support to all teachers who work with education at the undergraduate and master’s levels, at the Disciplinary Domain of Medicine and Pharmacy. At the start, 20 years ago, it was about developing film and recording technology for lectures. Now the development is moving towards coordinating the support in a pedagogical node for the entire Disciplinary Domain.

The Pedagogical Council at the Disciplinary Domain of Medicine and Pharmacy (PRåM) started in 2018 and is a driving force behind the ’Domain’s pedagogical development. The goal is to provide the conditions for high-quality education.

The resources are now being brought together, at the same time that Karin Björklund has come on board MedfarmDoIT as an educational developer. The collaboration becomes clearer and the support for the Disciplinary Domain becomes even stronger.

Find out more

Upcoming activities and ideas for different types of support linked to the Pedagogical node are gathered here: