Finally we have reached the end of the spring semester, after a very intense period. The last couple of weeks my time has been filled with both examination, research conferences and the graduation ceremony for our master of science students in the City Hall. During the graduation ceremony the presentation of the diplomandi was mixed with musical entertainment by the KTH academic orchestra conducted by director musices Gunnar Julin and the student choir. It was a very impressive and beautiful arrangement, I really appreciated the opportunity to present and congratulate all of ITMs graduates 🙂

Coming closer to summer vacations it’s time to summarize all P4 courses, complete the work of writing and correcting all the examination and enjoy the knowledge gained by all our excellent students when conducting their master thesis projects. But this week has also offered other exciting and interesting education-focused events. For instance I got to see the impressive work done by the students in the Energy Management course (MJ2410), since they presented their project results in Sing-sing (where my office is located). The students have studied each Tokyo district, during the course, to propose solutions for a more energy efficient Tokyo in the year of 2040. The initiative is based on a collaboration between KTH and the Gadelius company (which operates in the interface between Sweden and Japan). The students proposed creative and innovative solutions based on a holistic approach in order to reduce the energy use in buildings, increasing the amount of renewable energy and reducing carbon dioxide emissions. On June 4^th, five groups presented their solutions to Japanese ambassadors, KTH representatives, external companies and the Gadelius company. The two winning groups won a trip to Tokyo in September to present their solution proposals for various representatives from companies and representatives for Tokyo City.

/ Anna Jerbrant, GA

Here’s a picture from the event:

The main focus for the strategic education development work at ITM-school right now is to identify, formulate and discuss the educational parts of the development plan. This work will be executed during May through two workshops (on May 8^th and May 29^th ), and if anyone is interested in participating in these please send an e-mail to me anna.jerbrant@indek.kth.se.

Besides that, we also have a number of more operational issues to work with, for instance regarding the master and batchelor thesis projects (that are coming to an end in May/June) as well as discussions about the results of this year’s admission of new students to our programs.

Beyond this, I hope you’ve seen the interesting article in Campi regarding the so called PriU-groups? The initiation of these groups is based on a need to strengthen the collegial influence within the decision making focused on KTHs education. The purpose of the PriU-groups (that where initiated at the beginning of last year) are to gather faculty with educational responsibility in order to find new perspectives and solutions for a lot of different kind of problems. The organizers of the PriU-groups have (since April) made sure that the groups are open to all staff – teachers and administrators – who feel committed and want to be involved and change our education. The aim is to strengthen the quality of education, by taking advantage of more of the expertise within the entire KTH organization, and therefore groups focus on everything from digitization and internationalization to working life and practical issues such as premises, schedules and planning. Read more about it in Campi.

In Campi you can also read about the new manual that KTH has provided that is focused on how teachers can achieve the best effect when making filmed lectures online. The interest in e-learning has increased significantly during the last couple of years, largely due to KTH’s initiative on MOOCs, massive open online courses, which has enabled that a large number of lecture videos has been produced. Jonas Thorén, at KTH’s media department, who produced many of the films, has therefore produced a handbook with the purpose to help teachers with presentation design and video production. Very interesting! If you want to read more about it go to Campi.

/ Anna Jerbrant, GA

Påskfirande och påskledighet närmar sig med stormsteg, även om vårvärmen håller sig borta, men trots att detta är en kortvecka så har jag ändå hunnit delta i många olika utbildningsrelaterade aktiviteter. Den allra första genomfördes redan på söndagen då KTH arrangerade det första tillfället av Öppet Hus. Öppet hus är ett unikt tillfälle då intresserade personer kan få svar på alla sina frågor och funderingar inför högskolevalet. KTH ordnar så att de får träffa studenter, lärare och studievägledare från alla våra grundutbildningar, gå på rundvandringar på campus samt lyssna på seminarier från de olika utbildningsprogrammen. Jag bifogar några bilder från ITM-skolans montrar som visar ett axplock av spännande saker som presenterades:

På tisdagen hade sen KTHs GA (grundutbildningsansvariga) grupp och Per Berglund intressanta strategiska diskussioner i relation till kommande förändringsarbete som ska göras för KTHs alla utbildningar. Tex diskuterade vi de förändrade behörighetskraven för studier på avancerad nivå inom KTH:s civilingenjörsprogram, förändringar av årscykeln för utbildningsinformation, samt bildande av en arbetsgrupp för utredning av KTHs ”Makerspace”.

Sen under lunchen på tisdagen fick den som ville veta hur KTH arbetar med hållbar utveckling en intressant dragning av Göran Finnveden (som är vicerektor för hållbar utveckling och professor i miljöstrategisk analys). En av Göran poänger var att; ”Utbildning för hållbar utveckling omfattar både innehåll, pedagogiska metoder och lärandemiljö. Problem och utmaningar som studenterna möter inom utbildning för hållbar utveckling kännetecknas av komplexitet”. Något som är viktigt för oss att bära med oss nu under arbetet med analyserna av alla ITM-skolans program. Göran berättade också att UKÄ:s gjorde en tematisk utvärdering med fokus på hållbar utveckling under år 2017 och efter denna utvärdering fick KTH glädjande nog omdömet; ”Lärosätet har en väl utvecklad process för arbetet med hållbar utveckling inom utbildning”.

Så för den som är intresserad av ännu mer hållbarhets seminarier kan jag berätta att KTH kommer arrangera en internationell konferens, ISCN Sustainable devlopment: acting  with a purpose, i Juni 2018. Läsa mer >>

Så nu är det dags att önska – glad påsk!

/Anna Jerbrant, GA

Since one year has passed since Pelle Lundqvist signed off as GA for the ITM-school, I thought it could be a good idea to bring in some of his good ideas to this weeks blog. Pelle was interviewed by Campi recently, since he is a professor “with-a-good-sense-of-sustainable-solutions”. I recommend you all to click on the link and read the wise words of former GA Pelle Lundqvist, very interesting and thoughtful!

So, what else is ongoing? The coming month of March will be an intense time for all program involved faculty. Firstly, all program directors need to execute a program analysis, and in order for them to be able to do that all of us teachers have to make sure that our course evaluations and course analysis are updated and available. Secondly, KTH will arrange Öppet Hus on March 25^th and 26^th, where several of us will promote our educations. Please market this event if you know anyone who thinks about attending an education at KTH! And thirdly period three is about to be finished, which means that we all are focused on both creating and correcting exams as well as planning for the coming course in period four.

But I still hope you all have the possibility to enjoy the wonderful winter season!

/ Anna Jerbrant, GA