During this course, I learned from my fellow students so much about open networked learning, blended learning and how to use digital tools in an effective way. As a teacher and researcher, tackling the challenges posed to software engineering and computer science requires the combination of both the traditional roles of researcher and teacher. And this is connected directly with the digital tools I use in research and teaching. As a researcher, I discover solutions and propose methods to address the challenges faced by the computer science and software engineering field. However, it is not enough to focus on these solutions in isolation. Teaching the new generation of computer scientists and software engineers should inspire these novel solutions in industrial practice and society. Therefore, it is essential to recognize that the new generation of engineers and innovators can be educated to identify the challenges in computer science, apply the knowledge learned in courses and discover new solutions to future problems. In order to do this in an effective way, I learned during this course that use of new technologies should be well thought. In addition, opening up to the community of students and letting them choose the way to solve a certain problem is crucial

My experiences during this course have changed my teaching philosophy as a student and a teacher and the rapidly evolving fields of pedagogy. Advances in these fields require students to be adaptable to changing technologies and to learn both theoretical principles of science and practical skills relevant in today’s society. Combining theory and practice in solving real-world challenges is an important part of successful education especially when using blended learning.

Now after this course, I can say that my main teaching objective is to ensure that students learn the necessary concepts and reflect on their learning through individual and group assignments in an open environment and using several context driven digital tools. To date, I have taught several courses at both master’s and bachelor’s levels. Furthermore, over the past several years, I have had the opportunity to put my teaching philosophy into practice in a variety of courses at Mälardalen University by designing assignments, exams, and lectures around this philosophy. Practically, I want now to change some of the course assignments and projects around realistic engineering experiences, with each assignment building upon the openness I saw during the PBL course. This approach should give the community of students hands-on experience with many real scenarios to apply their newly acquired knowledge and share it with others. In many cases, I know now more about how to design assignments in an open-ended manner and allow some degree of freedom in implementing the solutions. In this way, my philosophy has improved due to this course and I realised now that I need to ensure that students learn all the engineering principles while I challenge their community building, creativity and problem-solving abilities.