During this project we will make several films. One film will be made at the university level with student teachers, teacher educators, and placement teachers at Østfold University College. The films from Norway and Sweden will be shown at the Multiplier event 2022 as a springboard for discussions around competencies students can develop through the Storyline Approach. It is the same with the films from Slovenia and Finland, but they will be shown at the Multiplier event 2023.
Østfold University College (OUC) was founded in 1994 and has today just under 7000 students and 600 members of staff. OUC offers a range of bachelor’s and master’s degree programmes, in addition to one-year continuing and further education programmes. The OUC staff contributes to professionally oriented and vocationally relevant basic research and applied research in most areas covered by OUC portfolio of study programmes. OUC has several partners, both nationally and internationally, and collaborates with over 100 universities from around the world. OUC participate in international collaborative programmes such as Erasmus+ and Nordplus.
In March 2018, The OUC Board decided develop its first PhDprogram, titled "The Digital Society". This process will lead to the establishment of a PhD-program rooted in cross-disciplinary research focusing on major national challenges e.g. demographics, green technology, learning and health care, with a digital perspective. The PhD-program has the highest priority in OUC current strategic plan. The Faculty of Education is attractive employer with 140 employees, hosting 2000 students in total. The faculty has robust research community organized around 10 research groups which focus on educational science, school subjects, arts education and digital competence. The faculty of was awarded 18 million NOK to make teacher education more digital in the period 2018- 2020.
The Norwegian National Centre for English and Foreign Language is one of several national centres in Norway that work directly under the Ministry of Education and Research. In 2019, OUC incorporated The English and Foreign Language Center as a department of the University. Although now part of the OUC, the English and Foreign Language Center continues the national mandate to help implement and execute education policy that is aimed to help all children, adolescents, and adults to receive an equal and adapted language education in an inclusive environment. The Center has newly created a research group based on the center's mandate from the Ministry of Education and Research and the OUc’s defined focus area "Language in education". The Center has 11 staff members, many who work part-time as public school teachers both in the primary and secondary schools. The Center has several national and international projects, including an ERASMUS + project for promoting foreign languages and two National teacher professional development projects focusing on didactical designs in language learning.
The faculty of Education at OUC strongly encourages aesthetic approaches to learning. In 2018, the research group Breaking boundaries: Creativity, Art and Innovation in Education, Practice and Research, lead by associate professor Kristine Høeg Karlsen. To strengthen the practical and cross-curricular approaches to learning, as well as aesthetic and creative approaches to learning was created. With 24 members, this research group is the largest research group at the Faculty of Education, and second largest at ØUC .
Today, the faculty at OUC constitutes the largest research community on Storyline in the field of teacher education in the world. Led by Kristine Høeg Karlsen, a total of 15 researchers address and critically examine at an international level educational issues relating to the Storyline’s cross-curricular and topic-based learning apprroach. Since 2015, this group of teacher educators have implemented Storyline annually in two teaching programs at the faculty: MAGLU1-7, consisting of students preparing to teach grades 1–7 with a storyline topic of democracy and citizenship; MAGLU5–10, consisting of students preparing to teach grades 5–10, with the storyline topic sustainable development. The work on Storyline, which Karlsen is leading, also recruites placement teachers from the Viken region (Southeastern part of Norway) that participate in the Storyline toghether with the student teachers and the teacher educators. Furthermore, each year, students and placement teachers as a result of these projects, conduct Storyline in schools, so that pupils also become engaged in Storyline, as a cross- curriuclar approach for teaching and learning.
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