bioCEED
Are you a student or staff at UNIS? Do you want to get involved in biology education development? Do you want to know what UNIS offers besides your regular studies? Then you are in the right place!
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AB-201 students performing fieldwork in Ny-Ålesund. Photo: Steve Coulson/UNIS.
bioCEED has four major focus areas: Learning culture, innovative teaching, practical training and outreach. Students and teachers are working as partners, creating projects and developing the future of biology education in a comfortable learning environment for everyone.
bioCEED is one of Norway’s “Sentre for fremragende utdanning” (SFU). UNIS has two SFUs: bioCEED in Biology and iEarth which is linked to the Geology department. Together, they are working on education development across disciplines.
During the last years, this collaboration between SFUs, students and teachers resulted in some wonderful and exciting projects. As a student you can easily get involved by becoming a student representative for bioCEED. If you want to get engaged, don’t hesitate to contact us! Here are some projects that are still ongoing.
Current bioCEED projects at UNIS
unisBREAKFAST is a social breakfast in a relaxed academic atmosphere arranged at UNIS. Master students and PhD candidates will share some insights on their ongoing projects and their educational background with you.
Lunch seminars are a great opportunity to listen to an interesting presentation while eating your delicious lunch. UNIS staff and PhD candidates present teaching tools and new educational methods while you can use your lunch break to hear about the newest findings and digital solutions of your colleagues and teachers.
UNISprout is a project designed to support the planned fieldwork of Guest Master and PhD students by offering Bachelor students the opportunity to act as a field or lab assistant. The project aims to benefit both parties by giving Bachelor students the chance to broaden their knowledge and gain valuable experience in the lab or field, and support Master students/ PhDs by providing an engaged field assistant and improve their teaching skills in the field/lab.
Internships
At UNIS there are several opportunities for students to take part in an internship or research project. In AB-207 bachelor students can get to know ongoing research at UNIS. The course gives them the opportunity to conduct their own defined research project, in close collaboration with ongoing research in the department of Arctic Biology.
AB-208 is an internship at a local company with a parallel seminar series at UNIS. The intern shall be given the possibility to discover professional abilities and skills needed in the frame of an authentic work experience. AB-208 can be combined with AB-207.
Tools and online resources
bioCEED offers web-based platforms and resources that support students in developing transferable skills in biology education. bioWRITE and biost@ts are platforms to help students with their numerical competence and writing skills. Learning Arctic Biology is an e-learning portal where students can gain practical skills in biology prior to their fieldwork.
Fieldpass is an interdepartmental project funded by the Norwegian Agency for International Cooperation and Quality Enhancement in Higher Education (DIKU). Fieldpass is aiming to develop and research alternative forms of assessment that are suited for field related learning outcomes.
Currently, the project team is developing and testing several alternative forms of assessment, such as virtual field guides (VFGs), reflection dairies, and practical certification schemes to test practical skills.
BIG (Bjørndalen Integrated Gradient) is a cross-disciplinary approach to understand how short- and long-term climatic changes affect High-Arctic species and the system in which they are embedded. This field-laboratory enables close integration of research and course activities, and a great arena for students to participate and contribute to research activities.
Having trouble to identify species with a traditional key? Try ArtsApp – an interactive identification key that makes it easier to identify species. ArtsApp allows you to constantly select the characteristics you want to respond to, and at the same time, it gives you important information about the species’ special characteristics.
Conferences
SCOPE – Student-led Conference on Polar Environment at UNIS is an annual conference organised by students for students. The conference is a platform for students to present their ongoing project or thesis work and network with fellow students across all departments and disciplines. It gives early career researchers the opportunity to train their presentation skills and prepare them for a future life as a researcher.
The Learning Forum is an annual event at UNIS where all UNIS staff are invited to share and develop their pedagogical and educational knowledge, skills and competences. A group of students is encouraged to participate and contribute to the discussions. The event takes place at UNIS each autumn during October/November for 2,5 days and involves both external and internal presenters contributing with keynotes, workshops, sharing sessions and plenum discussions.
Learning Forum is organized by the Academic Affairs, ECom, iEarth and bioCEED.
bioCEED small grants
bioCEED works to develop, test, and document the impact of new teaching and learning methods in biology. The aim is to support research and development projects in biology education. You can apply for small grants of up to 50.000NOK.
Each semester, there will be a call for students to apply for project funds on the bioCEED web page. Send your application to bioceed@bio.uib.no
Further information about the application process is available here. If you have questions or want to be involved in bioCEED or one of its projects, don’t hesitate to contact the project partners.
