Interview Micheline van Reimsdijk

Higher Education in focus meets …

Micheline van Riemsdijk, professor and Department Head at the Department of Human Geography as well as distinguished university teacher. Recently, Micheline received 325,000 SEK from the Vice-Challencer´s new funding initiative for distinguished university teachers, aimed at strengthening peer educational development and utilising the expertise of distinguished university teachers. ”Enhancing collegial pedagogic competence in geography: Professional learning communities and peer observations of teaching” addresses all teaching staff at the department by introducing a peer observation scheme and arranging pedagogical workshops. Micheline serves as the project-leader in collaboration with Peeter Maandi, Director of Undergraduate Studies at the department.

Congratulations on receiving the PUMA funding! Peer observation of teaching is an important part of the project: in what way do you consider it a useful method for educational development?

Peer observation means that teachers observe another teacher’s class and provide feedback. For me, the strength of peer observation lies in the fact that it goes beyond simply talking about teaching; instead, it is rooted in practice, in a real classroom and a specific teaching context. This makes it possible to begin collegial conversations from concrete situations, which facilitates dialogue and contributes to a deeper understanding. It is really about seeing a colleague in action, resulting in a reciprocal process where both parties learn from one another. Initially, the idea came from our doctoral students, who expressed a wish for more feedback on their teaching, time for reflection, and support, especially when first starting to teach. Participation is voluntary, and we will invite all teachers and doctoral students to indicate whether they would like to take part and to specify their preferences—for instance, whether they would like to observe someone whose teaching topic is similar to their own, or whether they would prefer the opposite.

Some of the planned workshops will address geography education and geographical concepts—could you tell us a little more about this subject-specific didactic perspective?

Our starting point is that within every discipline there are certain key concepts. In our field, for example, these include place, space, scale, and landscape. The challenge for us as teachers is to communicate what these concepts mean specifically within geography, and students need to develop a deep understanding of them as well as the ability to use these concepts in different contexts. This is also crucial for their future professional lives, where they are expected to contribute with their specific perspectives—that is, how they use these concepts in practice and how they think as geographers. We will therefore explore how teachers can work with these concepts in their teaching. Here, we will also be supported by a small working group of students who can contribute their expertise as learners.

The funding call highlights collegial learning—how have you anchored the project within your department?

As mentioned above, the project is partly grounded in suggestions and requests from our doctoral students, who wanted stronger support for their teaching. Beyond this, I would say that we have a strong departmental culture of discussing teaching with one another. Here, Peeter, as Director of Undergraduate Studies, has played a particularly engaged and driving role by fostering a safe learning environment where all questions are welcome, guided by the principle that development as a teacher is an ongoing process in which we can all learn from each other. I also believe that the Covid-19 pandemic contributed to this positive culture. During the pandemic, Peeter organised Zoom seminars every other week where we discussed the rapid shift to online teaching and shared advice and support. For me, the supportive and open atmosphere during that period was a truly decisive moment.

Finally: how will you proceed with the workshops to be arranged within the project?

We have already received proposals for some topics, such as how to write a teaching portfolio or how to conduct discussion-based seminars. Another idea is to invite the students involved in the project to a workshop in order to bring in their perspectives on the teaching of key geographical concepts. At the start of the project, we will identify additional workshop topics together with our colleagues and also involve some of them in organising workshops themselves. I am really looking forward to starting the project!