Pedagogical principles

Each program has a certain physical framework that is a part of making it all possible. In this connection, we shall clarify in brief the pedagogical principles that lie at the heart of the school and run through its everyday of learning and teaching, making it all worthwhile for students and teachers alike. 1. Both theoretical and practical studies The learning processes comprise both theoretical and practical studies, as the College sees this as an absolute necessity for the process of learning and as a first precondition for benefiting from the program. 2. A high degree of reality The higher the degree of reality of the program, the more is learned, meaning that old and ordinary stuff might be thrown away and substituted with new ways of learning on the spot from meeting people and environments. 3. Coherence and overview The more coherence is present in the teaching, learning and everyday experiences, the more overview and understanding is generated within the individual, the student body and in the results of the learning. 4. The program generates motivation Motivation is a structural part of the everyday activities that lets you take in new stuff, try out and experiment with energy and a light head, processing attitudes and sharing exciting titbits of all kinds with your teammates. 5. Immersion and work Immersion in your program activities will make you demand more immersion and deeper learning, and working to make it all happen demands ever more work with the effect of getting deeper into the material and the processes. 6. Self-determination The background of self-determination is the experience of a group of people who want to solve a task together, and its result is democratic sympathy and creation of own ideas for the good of personal equanimity and the function of the group. 7. The collective is the partner of aloneness Collectiveness is a core element of the education. In our edition, collectiveness is not a modern, smart form of behavior that will quickly go away. We seek it not because we might as well do so, but because we cannot do without it. 8. Liberation through coherence of conception and action In the Colleges structure and programs, you find a thousand possibilities of practicing the direct path from imagination to action through dialectical processes where imagination is a main precondition for new action. 9. Mobility is a precondition for learning much In all centers of learning, students of any age must move beyond the premises of the

institution; meeting real life and people, getting engaged through moving and interacting with the phenomena and reality of environment and people. 10. Practice and theory, experience and awareness Knowledge is a precondition for experience. This demands that the teacher is integrated in the teaching and learning processes. Learning of a subject matter cannot be separated from the conditions in which it takes place.

STUDENT RESPONSIBILITY
The basic for teaching is that the student him/herself take active responsibility for his/her learning. Students should acquire knowledge and skills in different subjects through his/her own activity. The courses mainly consist of seminars, rather than lectures, and the students are required to prepare themselves by co-operation in smaller work-groups. At the seminars the members of these workgroups will have to present and introduce a discussion of the material assigned to them. All students are expected to participate actively in these discussions. Attendance at the seminars is compulsory.

PROBLEM DIRECTED LEARNING

The teaching is problem directed. The main thread of the learning process should be a serious of problems defined in accordance with a concrete goal description which the students should work with continuously and account for at seminars. Furthermore, students should not only deal with the technical application of rules, they should also deal with the essential problems that are common for professional work in a legal context: structuring facts in material, distinguishing w hat is the actual problem in a complex course of events, arguing and putting argumen ts to test, criticising and questioning.

SEMINARS AND LECTURES

The students are given assignments to be prepared for the seminars, often in form of real or a hypothetical cases. During the course the work of the students is continuously accounted for, discussed and commented by the teacher. Seminars are based on student activity and student responsibility. During lectures, the teacher has a dominant role. Lectures are used in practically all courses, but are less common than seminars.

EXAMINATION
Usually the examination consists of written exam at the end of the course. In most courses it is required that the student has fulfilled all compulsory elements (for example full participation in seminars) before they are allowed to take the exam. In most courses written and, occasionally, oral performance during the course affects the final grade of the course together with the result of the final exam.

ATTENDANCE
As may be concluded from the above sections on the fundamental pedagogical principles and teaching methods at the Gotland University, attendance is extremely important. For this reason full attendance at all seminars is compulsory. It is very difficult to get permission not to attend seminars. If you plan to leave Gotland during term, please consult the teachers or program leader.