Teaching Days 2026

The Teaching Academy of the public universities, in collaboration with the University of Iceland Teaching Centre, host annual Teaching Days during the week of March 13-20. 

Conversation about learning and teaching 

The aim is to promote dialogue on the importance of teaching and teaching development at the university level. 

The aim is to promote dialogue on the importance of teaching and teaching development at the university level. 

Teaching days start on Friday, March 13th and last for a whole week until Friday, March 20th, where the public universities organize open and in-person events at all UI and the other public schools. 

Special guests are Steven Mintz, Professor of History at the University of Texas on behalf of the Graduate School and Åse Nygren, Director of Educational Development at the University of Blekinge and Malmö, on behalf of the University of Iceland Teaching and Learning Centre.  

Get to know the exciting and varied program. 

Friday, March 13th 

Event hosted by the School of Humanities: Teaching development in the humanities: Celebrating diversity. Árnagarður 310, 15:15-17:15. Local event. Everyone is welcome. In Icelandic.  

The Humanities Congress begins on this day and marks the beginning of the Teaching Days and members of the Academy, along with other scholars, invite to a seminar on teaching and teaching development. The seminar will discuss four teaching development projects within the humanities. A study will be presented on teaching methods and qualifications of university teachers in Icelandic as a second language and on the results of a survey on the use of gender-neutral pronouns to create a safe learning environment for non-binary people. Experiences of teaching the Aurora course and the results of focus group interviews with students of courses where teaching in two languages simultaneously were experimented will be discussed. 

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Event organized by the University of Akureyri: Strengthening student-centered university teaching workshops. University of Akureyri, room N102, 13:30-15:00. Local event. Everyone is welcome.  

Members of the Teaching Academy at the University of Akureyri, Jette Jörgensen, Hafdís Skúladóttir, Sean Michael Scully and Guðmundur Ævar Oddsson, offer an interesting workshop on a student-centered approach. In higher education, there is an increasing emphasis on a student-centred approach as a key component of effective teaching and meaningful learning. Even so, traditional instructional surveys, which often yield little response and provide limited feedback, only provide a narrow perspective on the student experience. This workshop is based on three micro-presentations from teachers in nursing and resource science, each of whom has explored ways to listen to and integrate students' voices before, during, and after courses begin.  

Those who intend to attend are asked to register in Ugla UNAK, where further information can be found. 

Monday, March 16th 

An event hosted by the School of Engineering and Natural Sciences: From study to work: how the tools of the business community promote project-driven engineering teaching. Setberg, Suðurberg 305, 10:00-11:00. The event is hybrid in Setberg. Those who plan to attend are asked to register in UGLA but it is also possible to follow on Teams. Here is a link. 

Helga Ingimundardóttir, assistant professor at the School of Engineering and Natural Sciences, discusses how tools and working methods from the business world, especially those related to agile thinking and collaboration-driven processes, can be used to strengthen project-driven courses where programming and technical reports are used. 

It is shown how it is possible to weave together working methods and tools that are common in the business world so that they become a natural and useful part of the learning environment. 

By using tools like code repositories, pull requests, shared workspaces, and clear workflows, students get the opportunity to work in a similar way to what awaits them in real-world projects after graduation. It also discusses how this approach improves overview, increases professionalism, and makes it easier for both students and teachers to monitor progress, organize work, and deliver quality results. The goal is to connect the studies closer to the reality that awaits students in their work and use this as a practical incentive for better learning. 

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An event hosted by the Teaching Academy and The Centre of Teaching and Learning at the University of Iceland: Implementing SoTL in higher education – why, how and to what results?  

Setberg, Suðurberg 305, at 13:30-14:30. Lecture in English courtesy of Åse Nygren who is an Erasmus guest at the Centre for Teaching and Learning this week.  The event is a hybrid in Setberg, Suðurberg. Those who plan to attend are asked to register in UGLA but it is also possible to follow on Teams. Here is a link. 

About Åse Nygren: Åse Nygren works as an academic developer at Blekinge Institute of Technology and Malmö University. She has extensive experience of academic development work and is an active researcher in the field. She has worked in depth with the development of pedagogical qualifications systems as well as on the development of research and collaboration merits. She is a member of the Swedish national chapter of CoARA and the the national expert group on academic merits assigned by the Association of Swedish Higher Education Institutions. 

The Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) has become an increasingly important feature in higher education worldwide. In this presentation within the Teaching Academy, Åse Nygren explores how SoTL has been implemented at Swedish universities and examines the implications of these developments. She also draws on selected international examples for comparison. Additionally, Nygren highlights productive strategies for academic development work, offering practical insights for supporting faculty and enhancing teaching practices. This talk provides valuable perspectives for educators, academic developers, and institutions interested in fostering evidence-based approaches to teaching and learning. 

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Event organized by the School of Humanities: "My favorite course." Veröld, 15:15-16:15. Living room: Language home area. Local event. Everyone is welcome. 

Teachers and students at the School of Humanities discuss what characterizes a good course and why. Students indicate one or more of their favorite courses and explain why the course(s) are such a favorite. Is it the content or the practices/organization? What have the students found to work well in terms of material, teaching methods, assessment or other things. The goal is of course that all courses will be my favorite course. 

Tuesday, March 17th 

Event organized by the School of Health Sciences: “Talk with students”. Location: Hagi. March 17, 11:30–12:30. Local event. Everyone is welcome. 

Teachers at the Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences invite you to a teaching talk. Students and teachers will be invited to a light chat and refreshments in Hagi, where students will have the opportunity to chat with faculty teachers in a relaxed environment. 

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Event organized by the Teaching Academy and the Graduate School: Transformative teaching and student learning. Setberg, Suðurberg 305, 12:00-13:15. 

Lecture by Steven Mintz, who is a special guest at the Graduate School this week. The event is hybrid in Setberg. Those who plan to attend are asked to register in UGLA but it is also possible to follow on Teams. Here is a link. 

About Steven Mintz: Steven Mintz is an award-winning teacher, author, and pioneer in applying new technologies to teaching and research.  Professor of History at the University of Texas at Austin and the author or editor of 17 books, including, most recently, The Learning-Centered University and The American Child: The Transformation of Childhood Since World War II (with Peter N. Stearns), Mintz is a leading authority on families, the life course, and higher education’s past, politics, and future. He served as the founding director of the University of Texas System’s Institute for Transformational Learning, where he led the design and testing of innovative, technology-driven educational models to expand access, affordability, and student success. He served as senior advisor for student success at Hunter College and as director of Columbia University’s Graduate School of Arts & Sciences Teaching Center.  Mintz has also served as president of the Society for the History of Children and Youth and H-Net, led the Council on Contemporary Families, and held fellowships at Stanford and Harvard. His public writings appear on Substack, Inside Higher Ed, and the Chronicle of Higher Education. 

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Event hosted by the Agricultural University of Iceland: The events are on Teams, at 12.30-13 and are open to all. Note: These are three events that span three days. 

LBHÍ will host a lunch talk on March 17-19 where teaching in the school will be discussed. The goal is to talk to each other about innovations in teaching and research related to them. On Tuesday, March 17th, Jón Hjalti Eiríksson, assistant professor at Cultivation and Food, will talk about a survey of teaching methods and distance learning solutions in undergraduate studies at the University of Iceland. On Wednesday, March 18th, Emmanuel Pagneux, a member of the Teaching Academy and Associate Professor of Geographic Information Science will discuss the use of two-step project submission in basic and advanced courses in geographic information systems. On Thursday, March 19th, Jóhanna Gísladóttir, assistant professor at Cultivation and Food, will talk about rethinking assessment. 

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Teaching coffee hosted by the Teaching Academy and The Centre of Teaching and Learning at the University of Iceland. Åse Nygren: How are students using AI? Setberg, Suðurberg, 305, at 15-16. In English.  

The event is a hybrid in Setberg and will take place in English. Those who plan to attend are asked to register in UGLA but it is also possible to follow on Teams. Here is a link. 

In a recent study conducted at two Swedish universities with contrasting academic profiles—a technology-focused institution and a more broadly oriented one—Åse Nygren, Emil Alégroth, Jeanette Sjöberg and Anna Eriksson investigated university students' perceptions and proficiency in integrating generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) into their higher education experience. Åse Nygren will discuss the implications of the study, which surveyed 1,097 students from diverse disciplines such as engineering, nursing, and criminology. The central questions guiding the study were: How do students actually use GenAI in their studies? What attitudes do they hold toward this technology? Do they view it as a replacement for traditional teaching and learning? And do these perceptions and usage patterns differ significantly between students at a specialized technical university and those at a comprehensive university? The results reveal that students actively employ GenAI for a broad range of purposes—from idea generation and summarizing to editing and problem-solving—and express an overall positive attitude toward the tool. Crucially, they do not perceive GenAI as a substitute for conventional education, human instructors, or peer interaction; instead, they see it as a valuable complement. These insights underscore the need for pedagogical strategies that encourage critical, reflective engagement with GenAI to promote deeper learning and strengthen student agency in an AI-augmented academic landscape. 

Wednesday, March 18th 

Lecture hosted by the University of Akureyri at 12:00-13:00. Illusion of efficiency: How AI-induced convenience in the education system creates cognitive debt. Magnús Smári Smárason. In room M102 at the University of Akureyri and livestreamed. Here is a link to the livestream. 

AI solution marketing often promises to free us from the "form" so we can focus on the "content." This is an epistemological illusion that serves productivity requirements but betrays education. When we outsource thinking to language models—whether it's the teacher of reviewing or the student of writing texts—we sacrifice intellectual friction, which is the main driver of critical thinking. We are not liberating the mind but building up a "cognitive debt" in which the ability to analyze independently deteriorates continuously. 

If efficiency replaces necessary friction, then who are we graduating? The implementation of education in the age of AI cannot be easier. It must be challenging for both students and teachers, because only in this way can we be shaped as human beings who think, not only as intermediaries between the output of machines and reality. Link to the event on the University of Akureyri website. 

Magnús Smári Smárason is a project manager in the field of artificial intelligence at the University of Akureyri. The talk is based on his master's thesis, Beyond Fragmentation, where he presents a critical, values-based approach to AI governance and examines the concept of "cognitive debt", which is one of the main threads of the talk. On his website, www.smarason.is, he shares more detailed material about his research, software development, and responsible governance in AI. 

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Digital lecture hosted by the School of Social Sciences at the University of Iceland: Flexible distance learning in museology at the University of Iceland. 14:30-15:30. Here is a link to the event.  

Guðrún Dröfn Whitehead, Assistant Professor in Museum Studies. Since 2009, museology has offered the option of distance learning. Initially, a mix of on-site and distance learning was offered, but in 2014 it became clear that most students were enrolled in distance learning. Considering this, it was decided to design the study line in museum studies entirely based on the criteria of distance education. Since the autumn of 2016, all core courses in museum studies have been offered exclusively as distance learning. The aim is to offer a variety of teaching methods in lectures and assignments. The programme is constantly evolving, as the teachers of museology strive to promote the quality and diversity of teaching methods.   

In this lecture, Guðrún Dröfn Whitehead, assistant professor of museology, will present the development of distance learning in museology, with a special emphasis on the challenges and opportunities inherent in a course of study taught only through distance learning. An attempt will be made to provide a practical overview of the prerequisites for the change, what the first steps were, and what lessons can be learned from it. Special emphasis will be placed on considering the importance of flexibility in distance learning.  Not least considering assessment, real-time student participation, and the different needs of students.   

At the end, there will be time to chat and ask questions. All those who are interested in distance learning are encouraged to attend, whether they are taking their first steps or are experienced and ready to give advice.   

Thursday, March 19th 

Event organized by the Directors of Educational Development at the University of Iceland: Workshop on the Competence Framework for University Teaching. There is a special invitation to the workshop. This is an on-site event. Setberg, Suðurberg 305, at 14:30-16:00.  

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Friday, March 20 

Open meeting: Teaching Development Manager´s meeting in Setberg, Miðberg, 9:00-10:30. Those who are responsible for teaching development at the university level are invited to the meeting. Åse Nygren will discuss how to assess the impact or value of teaching development. Here is a link to Teams. The meeting is hybrid in Miðberg. In English 

How to be change agents? A discussion on the impact of academic development 

Academic development has become a cornerstone of higher education, with academic developers playing a key leadership and supportive role in enhancing teaching and learning. Yet a persistent question remains: How do we truly know if—and how—our work influences educational practice? Åse Nygren will explore the core challenges in assessing the impact of academic development initiatives. These include difficulties in linking interventions to changes in faculty behavior, measuring long-term effects on teaching practices and student outcomes, and navigating the complexities of attribution in a multifaceted academic environment. She will also share practical ways to promote and demonstrate greater impact, productive strategies for academic development work, offering actionable insights to better support faculty, foster reflective practice, and contribute to sustainable improvements in teaching and learning across the institution. This informal session is an excellent opportunity for academic developers, faculty, and leaders to discuss real-world experiences, share ideas, and reflect on making our efforts more visible and effective. 

The steering committee for teaching days in 2026 is Guðmundur Ævar Oddsson at the University of Akureyri School of Social Affairs, Guðrún Geirsdóttir at the School of Education and at the University of Iceland Centre for Teaching and Learning and Rannveig Sverrisdóttir at the School of Humanities at the University of Iceland. The contact persons of the steering committee were the members and board of the Teaching Academy.