#CoCreatingGFI | Co-creation to promote active learning and communities of practice

We have developed a set of postcards to share our experiences with co-creation with other teachers and students, to invite discussions and inspire them to adapt the ideas for their own purposes.

Download pdf or pptx files below if you would like to use them, and get in touch with us if you have comments, suggestions, feedback!

About #CoCreatingGFI

#CoCreatingGFI is an HK-dir-funded project where students and staff at the Geophysical Institute, University of Bergen, Norway, work towards climbing the steps towards co-creating learning and teaching. Here are some examples of methods and learning activities, and ideas for sharing responsibility for learning. (Pdf for download here)

About #CoCreatingGFI v2

#CoCreatingGFI is a HK-dir-funded project where students and staff at the Geophysical Institute, University of Bergen, Norway, work towards climbing the steps towards co-creating learning and teaching. Here are some examples of methods and learning activities, and ideas for sharing responsibility for learning. (Pdf for download here)

Developing and sharing a scholarly approach to teaching

Suggested simplified workflow for a scholarly approach to teaching and learning. Arrows indicate that you might enter into the process at different steps, and that you often need to repeatedly loop back to earlier steps before reaching the publication stage. (Pdf for download here)

Read more at: Glessmer, M.S., K. Daae, O. Førland, and R. Kordts. 2025. Developing a scholarly approach and contributing to conversations about teaching and learning. Oceanography 38(4):56–62, https://doi.org/10.5670/oceanog.2025.e410.

Co-create your own adventure

Co-creation occurs when staff and students work collaboratively with one another to create components of curricula and/or pedagogical approaches. But what exactly does this mean? What components or approaches can we co-create, and what does co-creation look like within a higher education classroom? Although we have literally co-created fieldwork journeys with students (Daae et al., 2025), we will here welcome you to join us on a metaphoric co-creation journey through the landscape of opportunities guided by the Norwegian mountain code (Røde Kors, ND). The mountain code (dating back to 1952) is well-known in Norway; kids learn it early, and it is even printed on the wrapping of the popular hiking chocolate, Kvikk Lunsj! Please consider the following rules to enjoy the co-creation adventure while ensuring you and your company stay safe. Pdf available here.

Read more at: MNT 2025 Conference proceedings

Students views on active participation

Student views on active learning express a diverse range of perspectives. Students distinguish between their opinions on active learning in theory and its practical execution. Students struggle with balancing autonomy and structured guidance, as active learning frequently disrupts their established study habits. Time plays a crucial role in shaping student attitudes—initial frustration with active learning may give way to long-term recognition of its effectiveness in fostering deeper learning. (Pdf for download here)

Read more at: Kordts, R., K. Daae, M. de Vareilles, E. Gandrud, A. D. Årvik, and M.S. Glessmer (2025). Student views on active learning in the Geoscience curriculum, Nordic Journal of STEM Education, 9 (3) pp. 19-36, https://doi.org/10.5324/njsteme.v9i3.6361

Mapping a department’s identity to discuss implications on teaching and learning

“Who are we, the Geophysical Institute?” What might appear to be a small change to an outsider – adding the legally protected Norway-specific title ‘sivilingeniør’ to a traditional “Master of Science” degree – sparked a lot of questions for students and staff. Will the department recruit more students, or recruit students from a different student population? How could a possible change in the student population impact the institutional identity? But then, who are “we” now? Do we even agree on how to describe our department’s identity, its position in research, education, and society? Can we find a description that everybody can identify with? (Pdf for download here)

Use bingo cards in learning situations

By equipping students with an activity bingo, they can cover a range of activities that are encouraged, but not necessarily obvious for students to take part in. Bingo can for example be used for fieldwork, laboratory experiments and procedures, learning programming, or other sets of useful skills and competences.

Read more about how to use bingos in teaching here: Glessmer, M.S., L. Latuta, F. Saltalamacchia, and K. Daae. 2023. Activity bingo: Nudging students to make the most out of fieldwork. Oceanography, https://doi.org/10.5670/oceanog.2023.217

Design a bingo to make the most out of learning opportunities

By equipping students with an activity bingo, they can cover a range of useful learning activities that are encouraged, but not necessarily obvious for students to take part in during, e.g., field work, laboratory courses, and programming courses. Here, the colored fields are categories, where students can choose from a larger list. Pdf for download here.

Read more at: Daae, K. and M. S. Glessmer (2025). Fieldwork bingo cards. In Teaching Fieldwork in Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences, edited by D. France, L. Batty, and D. Swanton, Edward Elgar Publishing Ltd, pp. 17-20, https://doi.org/10.4337/9781035322398.00011

Make the most out of the GeoLearning Forum

Find pptx templates to make your own bingo here: https://cocreatinggfi.w.uib.no/bingo/

Uncover missing voices

There are many reasons why interesting points never make it from participants’ heads into a discussion. You could ask for them in an anonymous online forum after class. That might surface interesting thoughts, as well as give students confidence that their input is valued, which makes it easier to speak up in class in the future. (Blogpost here, pdf for download here)

Our favourite feedback method

Asking what the teacher can “stop, continue, start” (Hoon et al., 2015) gives us formative feedback to improve our teaching. But what if we ask students the same question so they use the evaluation to reflect on and improve their own learning (Bovill, 2011)? (Pdf for download here)

Co-creating dictionaries

Students learn many new words and terms during a course. Try to create a shared dictionary resource. The teacher suggest words and terms, students can add their own terms, and students fill in explanations with their own words. The teacher can modify and accept the explanations at a set date before the exam preparations start. (Pdf for download here)

ReADi rounds to help students read and engage in discussions

Sometimes, it is difficult to motivate students to read in preparation for a class. The ReADi method uses question preparation before in-class discussions to facilitate reading and discussions. But this method can be adapted in many ways, including co-creating with the students. (Pdf for download here)

Read more here: Mirjam S. Glessmer, Catherine Bovill, and Kjersti Daae. 2024. Adapting a teaching method to fit purpose and context. Oceanography, https://doi.org/10.5670/oceanog.2024.603.

Find out how your students see the course. Improve it together!

A TAP (Teaching Analysis Poll) is a qualitative interim evaluation method for courses. Led by an external facilitator (e.g., staff, student), in the absence of the course instructor, students form small groups and have ~15min to discuss and fill out a form on:
A: Which aspects of the course facilitate your learning?
B: Which aspects of the course hinder your learning?
C: What suggestions do you have for improving the obstructive aspects?

The facilitator collects the forms, asks for clarification and for student support of statements (ca. 15 min). The facilitator and course instructor then meet to share and discuss the anonymised feedback (statements supported by majority of students). Pdf for download)

Read more about the method here: Hawelka, B. (2019). Coding Manual for Teaching Analysis Polls. Centre for University and Academic Teaching, Regensburg. https://www.uni-regensburg.de/assets/zentrum-hochschul-wissenschaftsdidaktik/forschung/manual-tap-2019.pdf

Photos from Colourbox.com

A jigsaw approach to field learning

Students plan the fieldwork in home groups (colors), participate in fieldwork on different days, and reconvene in home groups to process the fieldwork experience. During each fieldwork day, the students cooperate with students from other groups, helping and teaching each other about their jigsaw piece (topic). The groups also meet after each fieldwork day to reflect on how things worked, consult theory, and optimize their plans for retrieving quality data to answer their research question. You can read more about the method here. (Pdf for download here)

Read more at: Daae, K., H.C. Steen-Larsen, and M. S. Glessmer (2025). Students taking ownership in a jigsaw approach to fieldwork. In Teaching Fieldwork in Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences, edited by D. France, L. Batty, and D. Swanton, Edward Elgar Publishing Ltd, pp. 261-264, https://doi.org/10.4337/9781035322398.00049. Read more here

Concept mapping: making understanding visible

Pdf for download here.

Source: De Ries, K. E., Schaap, H., van Loon, A. M. M., Kral, M. M., & Meijer, P. C. (2022). A literature review of open-ended concept maps as a research instrument to study knowledge and learning. Quality & Quantity, 56(1), 73-107.

Learning and fatigue

Pdf for download here.

Sources: participants (students and university employees) of the workshop on The influence of Fatigue on Learning, conducted at the iEarth GeoLearning Forum 2025 in Bergen; Okano, K. et al. (2019). Sleep quality, duration, and consistency are associated with better academic performance in college students. npj Sci. Learn. 4, 16; Alhola, P., & Polo-Kantola, P. (2007). Sleep deprivation: Impact on cognitive performance. Neuropsychiatric Disease and Treatment, 3(5), 553–567.

Images: AI-generated with DALL-E (2025), in the style of wikiHow. Based on visual conventions from wikiHow illustrations, used under CC BY-NC-SA 3.0.

Mathematic anxiety

Mathematics anxiety concerns many people across society and causes difficulties for students in STEM fields. Addressing it as early as possible can be key in ensuring that learners shift their perspective on mathematics in a productive and durable way. Mathematical formalism is akin to a language, with its own logic and syntax, but translating it into an applied setting can often be non-trivial and requires progressive and positive experiences. Pdf for download here.

Source: Petronzi, D., Hunt, T. E., & Sheffield, D. (2021). Interventions to address mathematics anxiety: An overview and recommendations. Current Studies in Educational Disciplines, 169, 169-194. Image: AI-generated with DALL-E (2025), in the style of wikiHow. Based on visual conventions from wikiHow illustrations, used under CC BY-NC-SA 3.0.

Machine Learning

Machine learning is everywhere: from daily use (large language models, image recognition) to applications in the geosciences (weather forecasting, climate modeling). It is quickly becoming a tool that every scientist should become familiar with, and that every student will have to discover and learn about. Based on a conceptual survey collecting data along a pilot course, this cheat-sheet has been generated to help learners: it presents the concepts deemed newest, most important, and difficult across a comprehensive introduction to machine learning and neural networks. Pdf for download here.

Source: participants of the autumn 2025 evening course Machine Learning for Geosciences offered at the Geophysical Institute of the University of Bergen and funded by the #CoCreatingGFI project.

Image: AI-generated with DALL-E (2025), in the style of wikiHow. Based on visual conventions from wikiHow illustrations, used under CC BY-NC-SA 3.0.