- Educational groups help make collegial development of teaching a natural part of our academic life, just as participation in research groups, because genuine improvement of study quality requires that we "lift together" through systematic collaboration and reflections.
Faculty Peer Group Mentoring as an Academic Foundation
Research on various models of Faculty Peer Group Mentoring demonstrates that collegial development communities have considerable potential to promote both professional and collective development among participants. Such communities also contribute to improved teaching quality, which is crucial for students’ learning outcomes and completion rates. Faculty members who participate in Faculty Peer Group Mentoring report a reduced sense of isolation in their teaching role and a stronger sense of belonging to an academic community.
Collegial development communities are further strengthened through interdisciplinary organization, as this shifts the focus toward student experiences and teaching practices rather than disciplinary content. Such an approach more effectively supports collaboration and reflection on teaching, since the community is not confined to a single course or academic field.
The Deanship has also established a collaboration with NTNU, which for over 20 years has offered the interdisciplinary course "Experts in Teams" for all its master's and professional degree students. In this course, students from diverce academic backgrounds work together to develop solutions to societal challenges, with particular emphasis on building cross-disciplinary collaboration competencies. NTNU has developed extensive methodologies related to "Experts in Teams" that may be valuable for the organization of such groups.
Collegial attitude and practice
One of the purposes of establishing such collaborative arenas is to acknowledge that this type of development is time-consuming and requires dedicated effort from multiple actors with different forms of expertise.
This aligns well with the fourth criterion in the SoTL criteria (Scholarship of Teaching and Learning), which highlights that collegial collaboration and sharing of experiences contribute to the enhancement of educational quality.
