Papers by Bettina Sondergaard
Sammenlignende Fagdidaktik, Jun 22, 2023
At Aalborg University in Denmark, engineering, science, and mathematics students usually spend ha... more At Aalborg University in Denmark, engineering, science, and mathematics students usually spend half the time each semester working in groups on projects within a problem-based learning (PBL) curriculum. These projects are assessed through group-based exams where students receive individual grades. A previous survey of all engineering, science, and mathematics students showed significant differences in how they, respectively, view various aspects of the group exam. However, students also differ when comparing engineering programmes. This paper focuses on potential gender differences in perception of the group exam. Studies of other exam types showed, e.g., that female students report higher levels of text anxiety, have different reactions to exam pressure, and are less overconfident than male students. The present survey was answered by 915 students (617 males, 298 females) from all semesters and study programmes in engineering, science, and mathematics. The analysis showed that on the majority of questions, there were no significant differences between males and females. However, female students are significantly more in favour of an individual exam, and significantly more often experience they need to speak before having finished thinking. Significantly more male students find that participating with their peers during the group-quizzing phase of the exam gives a sense of security, and they are significantly more tactical about when to speak. The paper discusses the areas of significant differences among males and females and the areas without such differences, and concludes that a group exam might be a more gender neutral type of exam for engineering students.
The technical high school as a preparation for engineering studies 517 Global Research Community:... more The technical high school as a preparation for engineering studies 517 Global Research Community: Collaboration and Developments Changing from a traditional teacher-centred educational approach to active and studentcentred approach has proven to be an effective strategy for higher education to address the challenges posed by society and professional practice in our time. Students need to develop competencies such as lifelong learning, teamwork, communication, creativity and critical thinking in order to deal with challenges like technological innovation, sustainable development, and globalization. Problem based, project organised learning (PBL) is a methodology focusing on students who learn take an active role in directing their own learning and allows them to develop the before mentioned competencies. With a history of almost 50 years PBL has grown far beyond the founder universities at McMaster, Maastricht, Roskilde or Aalborg, and spread all over the world, involving different professional fields and types of education. PBL evolved beyond educational practice, developing a community of practice where the members share concerns, knowledge, experiences and partnerships. The International Research Symposium on PBL (IRSPBL) is one of the meeting places, which gathers researchers, practitioners and industrial partners from all over the world contributing to the PBL landscape. It has been a great pleasure to arrange the 5 th International Research Symposium on Problem Based Learning Proceedings.
The relationships between abstract arithmetic and the real world are dealt with inconsistently in... more The relationships between abstract arithmetic and the real world are dealt with inconsistently in most curricula. Each of the common arithmetic operations is a mathematical model for counting and measure situations found in the real world. These models parallel the theoretical properties of the operations and provide the basis for more sophisticated models found in algebra, geometry, analysis, and statistics. The absence of explicit instruction in these models may explain why many children have difficulty applying arithmetic.
Kluwer Academic Publishers eBooks, 2003
The European Union and Education and Training: An Overview of Policies and Initiatives.- Educatin... more The European Union and Education and Training: An Overview of Policies and Initiatives.- Educating Europe: An Analysis of EU Educational Policies.- Interpreting EU Education and Training Policy: Thoughts from the English Perspective.- Tensions Between the European and the Nordic Dimension in Education, with Particular Reference to Sweden.- A Comparative Study of the European Dimension in Education in England, Scotland and Wales.- The European Dimension in the National Curriculum for England.- European Policies and Transition Processes: The Influence of EU Training Programmes in Eastern Germany.- The Impact of EU Education and Training Policies in Sweden.- Eu Programmes in Education and Training: Development and Implementation in Germany, Sweden and the United Kingdom.- Standardisation and Differentiation in the Levels of Diplomas in Higher Education Systems in Europe.- Higher Education Student Mobility and the Interpretation of European Union Educational Policies in France.
... of proof was. They are in facts Pythagorean number theory theorems that were originally prove... more ... of proof was. They are in facts Pythagorean number theory theorems that were originally proven by visual methods. The first ... graph-theoretical. Example 4: Plato, Archimedes and molecules What is a football? A polyhedron made ...
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Papers by Bettina Sondergaard