Academic excellence by the Telemark Model of cooperative learning

Since 1982, the Engineering College of Hogskolen i Telemark, Norway, has practiced cooperative learning in groups through six semesters-the Telemark Model. It has been shown earlier that the Telemark Model has tended to stimulate academic diversity and personal growth, and that students at large feel quite comfortable with this way of learning. But “quite comfortable” signals at least one uncertainty: “Are we learning what we are expected to learn, as the project work is so time-consuming and, in addition, tend to replace so much of the useful curriculum they learn at other engineering schools?” the students ask. A recent comparison between a significant number of Telemark and other Norwegian Students at South Dakota School of Mines and Technology, USA, has shown that no evidence has been found to nourish the students´ fear that the “correct curriculum” has been sacrificed on the altar of diversity and personal growth