In 2018, we had a teacher exchange program at Lund University together with the College of Science and Technology (CST), Royal University of Bhutan. In this first step, only teachers were involved. Hopefully, future projects can also include students, technical staff and administrative staff. In April 2018, we were four teachers who during one week taught at CST. Later in the year, two teachers from CST came to Lund to help with our master’s program in energy efficient buildings. In the following posts the Swedish teachers reflect on their experiences.
As always, it is nervous to teach a in new situation. What is the level of students? Do they anything at all or maybe they know more than I do? Are they even interested in what I am going to talk about? For the most part, things are actually go well. It did this time as well. The students were just humble and I had guessed their level correctly. For those who wonder, I can say that it is about the same level as the Swedish students. The solar energy course I held included theoretical lectures, computer simulations and physical experiments. The material we used was purchased in conjunction with the Erasmus + project, which we had together with the Royal University of Bhutan and two Nepalese universities. Teaching was painless. Everything was perfectly arranged by Dr Tshewang Lhendup from the College of Science and Technology. The most enduring memory is probably that the students did not let me wipe the board between the lectures. Instead, they would do this. Not even when I tried to keep the eraser for myself and kindly explained that I could actually erase a boars was I allowed to. They would do it, nothing else was acceptable. The teacher does not do this. When I thought about it afterwards, I agreed with them. It is actually the students who should do this. Not because I can’t or don’t want to, but because it gives me time to do something else. As the students wiped the board, I had time to answer a few extra questions that some students had. If I wiped the board, we would have missed this opportunity. Therefore, the students should erase the board. Would this happen in Sweden? I doubt it.
Henrik Davidsson, Associate senior lecturer