Evaluating students' expectations and experiences regarding a Swedish-Bhutanese teaching exchange

This article evaluates students' expectations and feelings of a short bi-directional International Credit Mobility (ICM) teaching exchange between Lund University, Sweden and the Royal University of Bhutan. The teaching exchange regarded two courses on fundamentals of energy production from PV and fundamentals of daylighting. The evaluation was carried out via focus groups. The results suggest that students of both countries have high expectations on exchange teachers, which represents both an opportunity and a threat. The students expected and confirmed that the exchange could provide distinguished point of views on the same aspects of renewable energy. The students longed for extended and periodical exchanges with international teachers. Surprisingly, there was little discussion on the different teaching styles of the exchange teachers. Since exchange lectures were attended with enthusiasm, we conclude that these lecture may be planned for core parts of course. Also, we found that proper exchange planning is needed in order for the exchange to be successful.