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Walking with Seminars – Finally!

After no less than twelve failed* attempts in two years to publish our study on walking seminars, we finally managed to identify a venue for our research: International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, which took less than six weeks, including a revision, from submission to publication! In the meantime, this study has caught attention from KTH internally and been used for external promotion. First in KTH Magazine, which lead to a video recording in Swedish and after that got 100.000 views they translated it to English. Apparently someone in Italy understands one of those languages. Now, KTH has published a promotion video to attract Masters students to KTH. In it, KTH gives ten reasons to study at KTH. Guess what reason number 6 is? Personally we think walking with us is a way better argument to study here than first claiming (#5) that “Sustainability is a … guiding star for KTH” and then advertising (#10) for taking a flight out of here.

(*) The journals that did not accept the paper generally believed the paper itself was interesting, but the combination of health and learning was not within the scope of their journal.

Students’ Experience and Use of Assessment

In this study, a phenomenographic research approached is used to categorize and capture students’ experience of assessment in an online introductory programming course. The results showed five different levels in which the assessment was experienced, ordered in a hierarchy, where a lower level is part of the higher ones. The two lower levels, 1. Grading is important to the teacher and 2. Grading is important to the student, had a summative focus (focus on the grade), while the three higher levels,  3. Assessment as guidance, 4. Assessment as an opportunity to learn and 5. Assessment as a way to communicate had a formative focus. The formative levels are viewed as more desirable since the assessment is of more use for the students and the value of the assessment goes beyond the grade. The paper was presented at the 2017 International Conference on Learning and Teaching in Computing and Engineering in Hong Kong and is available in the proceedings at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/8064428/?reload=true.

The five assessment categories, organized in their hierarchy.
How the defined categories are related.

På svenska: I denna studie används en fenomenografisk forskningsansats för att kategorisera och fånga elevernas upplevelser av bedömningsstuationerna i en online introduktionskurs i programmering. Resultaten visade fem olika nivåer som bedömningen upplevdes på, ordnade i en hierarki, där en lägre nivå är en del av de högre. De två lägre nivåerna, 1. Betygsättningen är viktigt för läraren och 2. Betygsättningen är viktigt för studenten, hade ett summativt fokus (fokus på betyget), medan de tre högre nivåerna, 3. Bedömning som vägledning, 4. Bedömning som en möjlighet att lära sig och 5. Bedömning som ett sätt att kommunicera hade ett formativt fokus. De formativa nivåerna ses som mer önskvärda eftersom bedömningen då är mer användbar för studenterna och värdet av bedömningen går utöver betyget. Artikeln presenterades i Hongkong på 2017 International Conference on Learning and Teaching in Computing and Engineering och finns tillgängligt på http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/8064428/?reload=true.

Gender neutrality improved completion rate for all

picture of the first author
Maria Svedin
picture of second author
Olle Bälter

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This study investigated if we could improve retention by redesigning an online programming course from a gender perspective, while maintaining the focus on preferable and sustainable learning approaches. Three principles for course material design were identified; gender neutral and nonbiased messagesemphasize the interdisciplinary approach and link to everyday examples. The probability to complete the course increased from 77% to 84% for all students. No changes were made to the assessments.

Our interpretation is that the refurbished course material made more students feel included which increased their motivation to finish.

In Swedish

Den här studien har redan beskrivits på flera ställen på svenska både som text och i pod-format.