LH201V Learning and Teaching 7.5 credits

• Educational level

  Second cycle

• Academic level (A-D)

  D

• Subject area

• Grade scale

  P, F

• Registration form

• Course page on KTH Social

Learning outcomes

The overall aim is that you should be able to make conscious and informed choices about teaching and motivate them from a learning perspective.

Concretely this means that you will be able to:

- formulate course objectives as intended learning outcomes, and analyse them with a taxonomy

- account for the characteristics and consequences of deep and surface approaches to learning and discuss underlying factors in course design

- design learning activities and assessment which are relevant for the objectives

- give examples of effective design of activities and assessment to guide and support student learning

- identify and attack common problems (troubleshooting) related to course design in your own and colleagues’ courses

- use course evaluation as a tool for course development

- explore (quantitatively and qualitatively) your students’ perceptions, behaviours and approaches to learning in your course, and discuss how you can influence these through your course design

- consider student diversity (gender, cultural background, disability etc)

- apply course design strategies to deter plagiarism

- reflect over your own role in the teaching culture at your own department / school

- start documenting your teaching merits in a teaching portfolio

Course main content

Constructive alignment, formulating learning outcomes in terms of observable performances, systematic integration of programme objectives in courses, deep and surface approaches to learning (relation to the quality of student learning and factors that influence the adoption of deep or surface approaches), principles for design of learning activities (especially problem-solving sessions, lectures and projects), principles for analysing learning activities from a learning perspective, assessment (effects, validity, reliability, criteria and grading), course analysis as a tool for course development, how plagiarism can be deterred, aspects of normality and diversity, interpretation of interviews of own students, climate/environment for teaching and learning at the own department på and at KTH, teaching merits in the academic career path, teaching portfolio (teaching philosophy statement).

Disposition

The course is offered in a Swedish-speaking and an English-speaking version.

Swedish-speaking version

Most course literature is in English. You must be able to follow discussions in Swedish. Anything you write or say can be done in either Swedish or English. Most course materials and instructions are available in English version, on demand.

English-speaking version

All course literature is in English. You must be able to follow discussions in English.

Eligibility

It is an advantage to have teaching experience.

LH201V is customized for teaching staff at KTH. It strives to be relevant for for the KTH context and to enable and drive the development of education at KTH. Participants from other higher education institutions are also most welcome.

Prerequisites

The course is 7,5 credits which corresponds to 200 hours workload. Between meetings there is literature to read and assignments to be completed. Note: Do not take this course unless you can commit yourself to the work.

Literature

For each meeting except the first, there is literature to read and a written preparation assignment. A collection of articles to be read for each meeting is handed out at course start. The course book is Biggs, J. & Tang, C. (2007) Teaching for Quality Learning at University, 3rd ed.

Examination

• INL1 - Assignment, 7.5 credits, grade scale: P, F

Requirements for final grade

P (pass) and F (fail).

- To pass the course you nee to attend all meetings and present three larger assessment tasks  (Course Design, Student Interviews and Teaching Philosophy Statement).

- If you miss a meeting you have two options:

- Normally, you are invited to the corresponding meeting when the course is given the next time.

Alternatively you can email the course leader and suggest a written assignment to replace the meeting you missed. This replacement assignment must always contain the literature and written preparation that belongs to the missed meeting, plus an extra task on the relevant theme (minimum 4 hours work). Try to devise a task with special interest to you, preferrably something which is useful to yourself or your department. Do not start working on your assignment until you and the course leader have reached an agreement on the task.

- To present the Course Design task you must have attended at least five meetings of the first seven.

- The three assessment tasks (Course Design, Student Interviews and Teaching Philosophy Statement) should normally be done in the right order (the course leader can admit exceptions).

- The assignments must be handed in according to the respective deadline (stated in the schedule) and you must actively participate at the seminar in which they are assessed.

- If the assignment does not comply with instruction or else is not adequate as basis for assessing the course objectives, supplementary work may be required. Either the course participant is invited to attend a new meeting with a new version of the assignment, or the course participant is invited to attend the planned meeting but afterwards hand in a revised version of the assignment.

Assessment task 1, Course Design
Instructions for this assignment are in the course schedule. Present your redesigned course through a course document (“Kurs-PM”) together with a teaching guide (design account, 3-4 pages), where you discuss and motivate your design choices. You will give and receive written and oral feedback on each others’ courses in a final meeting.

Assessment task 2, Student Interviews

Instructions for this assignment are in the course schedule. In this assignment you will interview two of your own students, record and transcribe the interviews. This assignment can be made in pairs.

Assessment task 3, Teaching Philosophy Statement

Instructions for this assignment are in the course schedule. The task is to write (a first iteration of) your teaching philosophy statement, 3-4 pages A4 according to the instructions and deadline in the schedule. You will be assigned to a group with 2-3 others, whose teaching philosophy statements your will comment on in writing (one page A4 in total).

Offered by

Teaching and Learning

Contact

Margareta Bergman, margberg@kth.se

Examiner

Kristina Edström <kristina@kth.se>

Version

Course plan valid from: Spring 10.
Examination information valid from: Autumn 07.