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

We are in the middle of the second period of this academic year, the days are filled with teaching and research activities at the same time as the daylight is becoming shorter and shorter. But luckily the advent season is coming up, which means that we are allowed to start hanging up advent candelabra and some Christmas decorations. This is something at least I enjoy very much.

When it comes to educational issues I attended a very interesting seminar yesterday arranged by vice dean Per Berglund. The focus for the seminar was on the work that is being done to develop KTH’s quality assurance system according to national and international requirements. We all got a brief overview of national requirements and European guidelines for quality assurance of higher education as well as an overview of how the Sci-school works to develop KTH’s systematic quality work in a collegial and efficient manner. This was very interesting and gave good insights for the work that we all have to do next year. We will discuss this from a ITM-school perspective on the faculty club on December 18^th, so I hope you all can participate then.

Finally as part of the public debate that has been ongoing, I hope you all read the blog of our President Sigbritt Karlsson where she shares these words with us, and I will let them be the final saying in this weeks blogg:

At KTH a good work environment is something we need to protect on a daily basis. This particularly concerns harassment, for which there is zero tolerance. In its Diversity Policy, KTH has stated that all forms of discrimination, harassment, sexual harassment and victimisation are subject to zero tolerance. This is what is applicable, and all deviations from this must be dealt with. In this way, we can maintain an attractive environment for both work and study that encourages creativity in education, research and collaboration.

/ Anna Jerbrant, GA

Now the first period of this academic year has passed and I hope you all consider the courses and examinations within your responsibility as successful.

When it comes to educational issues – at both ITM-school level as well as KTH level – several important things are ongoing:

The first very important, and gratifying, thing is that the President (together with the Vice Dean) of KTH decided to transform the track Industrial technology and sustainability (within CMAST) into a separate master of science in engineering program. This is something that the ITM-school has worked for during a long time and therefore this is very welcome news.

I also hope that all teachers with courses that ends in P1 has seen the information from the canvas project that they this week released a new feature that facilitates performance reporting from Canvas to Ladok. The function is accessed from the left menu in all canvas webpages under the name “Exportera Resultat (BETA)”. If you have any questions about this please contact the Canvas project manager Michael Welin-Berger.

Finally, KTH has decided to implement målrelaterade betygskriterier (target-related grading criterias) on all courses with a graduated grading scale. These målrelaterade betygskriterier are to be introduced to all KTH courses in a step by step model from now on. This means that from HT18 all new courses needs to have målrelaterade betygskriterier, from HT19 all courses that are included in special eligibility needs to have it and from HT20 every course at KTH will have målrelaterade betygskriterier. It is the examiner’s responsibility that the grading criteria is published in the course PM prior to course start, and also that they are available after the course has been completed. If you want to read more about this view document v-2017-0740 at kth.se.

/ Anna Jerbrant, GA

So, now the semester has started and all the P1 courses is up and running. When it comes to our teaching and programs several important things are ongoing at KTH. We have all begun to use Canvas as our new LMS system, and even though the implementation of Canvas has been smooth using it extensively in our teaching has unfolded both its benefits and drawbacks. Overall I have talked to a lot of teachers that are satisfied with the functions in Canvas, but of course several of us has discovered a lot of “childhood deceases”. Hopefully these will be corrected as soon as possible.

Also, I hope everyone knows that new rules for written exams will be introduced with exam period 1, H17. Information to the students about the new rules is posted on the web:

https://www.kth.se/student

https://www.kth.se/en/student

And yesterday, on the 21^st of September an e-mail has been sent to all students at KTH (about 12 000) regarding the new rules. But, since all teachers probably will receive a lot of questions regarding this it’s important that you all have good knowledge of the new rules.

Finally, I just want to give you a brief summary of the interesting discussions that I took part in this Wednesday. KTHs new vice president Anna Wahl and Nationella sekreteriatet för genusforskning arranged a conference day where the focus was to discuss the importance of equlity integration in higher education. Representatives from more than 20 different universities participated in the conference and shared knowledge and experience on f.i. how to enhance gender and equality issues in both teaching, communication, recruitment activities as well as the management systems. Very interesting!

/ Anna Jerbrant, GA