Surprised mid-lecture – with the Excellent Teaching Award

Out of 416 nominations of 108 teachers in total, Örebro Student Union has named two winners of the Excellent Teaching Award 2024. First up to be paid a surprise visit was Åsa Källström, professor of social work.

“What an honour to be recognised and to know that other people see and appreciate my enthusiasm,” says Åsa Källström.

When teaching, Åsa Källström wants to stir up something in her students. She wants to get across what violence does to people.

“Violence, abuse and assault affect everyone and evoke emotions in students. It is something that many professional fields come into contact with and students need to understand what violence is and how it affects people. These are insights they need to bring with them into their future careers.”

Teaching expertise

She was surprised by Örebro Student Union and representatives of Centre for Academic Development during one of her lectures. Åsa Källström was nominated for “her admirable and inspiring work to share valuable knowledge of difficult topics such as intimate partner violence and violence against children”. It goes on to say that she “uses her teaching and pedagogical skills to make intelligible the things that are difficult to comprehend.”

“If I can’t pass on my knowledge through teaching, there’s no point in me being here – they might as well just read a book. I want to appeal to their emotions, I want them to feel.”

In her teaching, Åsa Källström discusses how serious violence, abuse and assault can actually get. But she also talks about the failures of the profession and what progress has been made within social work. For students to cope with the intense and difficult aspects of the subject matter, she likes to incorporate surprising and amusing examples.

“In order to cope with emotionally difficult topics and situations, we need to be able to enjoy ourselves together,” she says.

Åsa Källström is a social worker and professor of social work. Her research interests include conflicts, abuse, violence and assault with a main focus on children and adolescents’ experiences of violence in the family. Another of her research interests concern what effect neglect and crime have on children and how society can meet victims’ need for professional support.