News from our educations
Corona again! - and is to be made status - and strategy for new thinking of our educations
Teaching during a pandemic
Again, in the academic year 20/21, the global Corona pandemic has affected the teaching of our courses with online teaching and exams as a result. Since the start of the semester on 1 February, all courses have been online. In mid-April, the campus at AU was reopened, but only for 20% (later 30%) of students at a time, and they have to be tested twice a week in newly created test sites on campus, which has led to a number of scheduling problems. Therefore, the course coordinators have decided that it is most appropriate that lectures in all courses remain online for the rest of the semester. Support courses in the bachelor's program in chemistry and molecular biology are also running online. However, it will be possible to hold planned practical and theoretical exercises physically on campus to a large extent. Excursions and field trips are possible to complete. Participants in these excursions has to be registered, must present a negative Corona test and wear protective equipment during transport and stay.
Due to Corona, exams for summer 2021, as well as re-exams for winter 2020-2021, have now been converted to online exams. Overviews and exam schedule can be seen here:
Rambøll has made a study of online teaching in 2020. Main results for the entire AU show that the circumstances have made it challenging to implement high-quality online teaching, but there has been a positive development along the way. The students' motivation and commitment to teaching has been low as a result of the lock down of the university and society in general. The students experience that their academic benefit from the completed online teaching has been lower compared to physical education. Motivation has been a major issue for students who have influenced learning. A challenge with purely virtual teaching is that students can lose identity as students.
However, most students agree that their everyday life on the program gradually works relatively well despite the Corona situation (Study Environment Survey 2020). For our courses (in spring and autumn 2020), they agree that they have been relevant to their studies as a whole, and assess the overall benefit of the teaching process as great. I am therefore very grateful for the very great effort from both the course coordinators and all the teachers that is made in the teaching context to make everything work in this extraordinary situation. It is planned to do subject-social activities on campus for the current (and new) students this fall.
Status of our educations
In the spring of 2021, there are 75 students enrolled in the bachelor's program Agrobiology. 26 students are doing their bachelor projects. At the master's program Agrobiology there are 68 enrolled students, and 30 students are doing theses. At the master's program Agro-Environmental Management (AEM), there are 24 enrolled students and 9 students who do specials. There are 5 thesis students in the master's program in Soils and Global Change (IMSOGLO).
AGRO's programs deal with sustainable food production and food security in a changing global climate in both research and education. Our educations are interdisciplinary, solution-oriented, and the teaching is research-based. In AGRO, all lecturers are active researchers. In many cases, BSc or MSc projects are linked to the supervisors' current research projects, which helps to promote the research. Many of the teachers have good contacts with national and international partners, including public and private actors. The educations reflect this, as relevant topics are presented in connection with lectures, theoretical and practical exercises and excursions to our partners. Research-based competence is relevant for the graduates' clients to stimulate and increase innovation in the agro-industrial sector.
The latest data show for graduates in Agrobiology that 91% of graduates were in employment in 2020 (48% of them were employed in a permanent position, 42% as PhD students, 5% self-employed, and 5% in a fixed-term position). For graduates in AEM, the numbers show that 69% were in employment (55% in a permanent position, 18% as a PhD student, 9% self-employed and 18% in a fixed-term position).
Innovation
The existing bachelor's degree program in Agrobiology must be rethought in relation to the future labour market, e.g. around the green transition, biodiversity, the digital revolution and automation in agriculture. Increased use of digital tools and tools must qualify candidates for a changing labour market that requires greater capacity to solve more complex issues. The newly established National Centre for Sustainable Transformation of Agriculture as a partner is seen as central in this context. The formation of the new faculty (TECH) provides motivation and the opportunity for collaboration with the engineering and other departments that are close to the environmental field. In this context, it is important to increase recruitment to - and reduce dropouts from - our educations.
To investigate how we can both strengthen recruitment for the bachelor's program and reduce dropouts, the company Carat has made a target group analysis with science senior students and current students in the 2nd semester. The purpose has been to investigate drivers and barriers to selecting and deselecting Agrobiology. The most important insights from the analysis are that there is a lack of understanding of the word ‘Agrobiology’, which must therefore be demystified, and it must be made clear what an education in Agrobiology is about. There is generally low knowledge of Agrobiology. Therefore, it is important to break down barriers of irrelevance and doubts about the demand for agrobiologists in the labour market. It is important to make it clear that Agrobiology provides a socially relevant, current and sought-after education with a straight path into business life.
It is recommended to raise the awareness of Agrobiology among potential students who have an interest in nature, biology, agriculture, animals, ecology, and sustainability. A clear profiling of Agrobiology must be created through the use of drivers such as great job security and the emphasis on the uniqueness of Agrobiology, e.g. the close interaction between teacher and fellow students, unity across year groups and societal relevance. We must break down the biggest barriers that it is a farmer's education and that the education cannot be used. Content must be created for social media, where current students and graduates can be used to advantage as the voice of the education. Agrobiology and AEM are already part of ‘Future Food’ - the food industry's joint campaign effort targeted recruitment for educations: https://futurefood.nu/
It is assessed that the analysis work is relevant for both recruitment and retention and must therefore be included in our action plan and strategy for rethinking our educations. In addition, it must also be discussed which of the current support courses in the bachelor's program could advantageously be drawn 'home' to AGRO both to increase the visibility of the program and to promote the identity as an Agrobiology student.
Brightspace is now open
AU's new learning platform Brightspace (which replaces Blackboard) is now available to all teachers and course administrators, and registration for Brightspace workshops is open. Over the next few months, teachers will have the opportunity to build up the courses they will be teaching in the fall.
https://medarbejdere.au.dk/en/administration/au-studies-administration/study-systems/brightspace/