Erik Olsson, Senior Lecturer at the Department of Women's and Children's Health, has just received ENLIGHT's Teaching and Learning Award 2022.
Photograph: Jonathan Schalk
The course "Innovation Game: A Summer School Applying Serious Game Design in Health Care and Education" has won the ENLIGHT Teaching and Learning Award 2022. We asked course coordinator Erik Olsson a few questions. What makes the course and its educational approach special?
"The course is international, multidisciplinary and uses an approach known as challenge-based learning. The students meet health experts and people who would benefit from changing their behaviours. They tackle the health challenges in group projects and on the last day of the course present a proposed solution. Using game design principles can be a way to affect motivation, knowledge and attitudes, which in turn can influence behaviours."
What does the award mean to you?
"Increased motivation to continue to develop the course. Also, the attention may mean more students apply for the course. In summer 2023 we will be launching a similar course on climate challenges and it's encouraging to receive confirmation that the set-up is appreciated."
What reactions did you get from students who took the course in summer 2022?
"The course evaluations were very positive. You rarely see such consistently positive opinions of a course."
What will be the next step for further developing the course?
"We will fine-tune details and try to attract even more students, especially through our ENLIGHT channels. As I mentioned, we are also creating a related course based on the same concept but focused on climate and environmental challenges rather than health challenges."
What is ENLIGHT?
ENLIGHT is an EU project in which Uppsala University is participating along with eight other universities. ENLIGHT is part of the EU's European Universities initiative, which aims to create a European Education Area.
ENLIGHT stands for "European University Network to Promote Quality of Life, Sustainability and Global Engagement Through Higher Education Transformation".
ENLIGHT focuses on sustainable cities and the consortium has jointly identified five areas of challenges around which activities in the three-year project revolve:
- Health challenges and opportunities
- The role of AI in shaping sustainable cities and communities
- Impact of climate change on regional ecosystems
- Energy and circularity
- Inequalities, socio-spatial polarisation and diversity.
Researchers and teachers at Uppsala University can receive funding for developing courses and other types of collaborations in education and research.
The ENLIGHT consortium is made up of:
- University of Groningen (Netherlands)
- University of Göttingen (Germany)
- Ghent University (Belgium)
- University of Tartu (Estonia)
- University of Bordeaux (France)
- University of the Basque Country (Bilbao, Spain)
- University of Galway (Ireland)
- Comenius University (Bratislava, Slovakia)
- Uppsala University
