Course development

The proposed changes below are based on how often a certain comment has appeared in the free-text answers in the two course evaluations (in-class and pilot), or other constructive comments that are possible to integrate within the given time frames of the course. 1. Clearer project instructions: Feedback from the students that has surfaced repeatedly obver time is the need for clearer project instructions. Improvements have been made gradually (updated every year), but it is still difficult for the students to fully grasp the concept in the beginning of the course. That the project is quite open-ended makes it difficult to write very detailed project instructions (which would counteract the purpose), and it is therefore a challenge to accommodate project instructions that is perceived as clear for all students. It may be possible to make it more comprehensible by slightly re-designing the workflow, focus and report format. One idea is to focus even more on the structural analysis and validation part while putting less focus on the actual report. For the report it could be better to use a fixed-format template file that clearly shows what should be in the report. This would shift the focus from worrying about what should be covered in the report towards the actual practical work. Similarly, a template file for the peer-review report would be useful to further clarify the requirements and also reduce workload for students and teachers. Some hand-ins for the project sessions 1 and 2 need to remain but can probably be developed as well. 2. Course flexibility: Of the two lectures given each week, one was given real-time in zoom, and one on campus. A number of students comment that they prefer only on-campus lectures, but there are also students commenting that they prefer the current format with lectures both on-campus and digital. The students that prefer the latter tend to be students that live far from KTH and want to avoid extensive traveling time. In addition, there are numerous students that say that they like the course as it is. It is not possible to accommodate all students. In 2023, an average of 30% of the students turned up for campus lectures, leaving most of the large (and expensive) lecture hall underused. It is possible that the attitude has changed since 2023, and that more students now prefer on-campus lectures, but it is hard to know. For next year, I will contemplate the possibility to revert to a format with only on-campus lectures. This is not an issue for the teachers who are anyway required to be on campus for the scheduled afternoon sessions in RB33. 3. Start time for quizzes: Some students prefer that the lecture quizzes open directly after the lecture whereas some prefer the current schedule where they open after school hours (5 pm). When first introducing continuous quiz examination, each quiz opened immediately after the lecture. However, many students felt stressed because they had to go to other classes and would not have time to start with the quizzes until after school hours. This was the reason I decided to instead open the quizzes at 5 pm the same day of the lecture. The quizzes are open for 48 hours, so in principle it doesn’t matter when they open, each student gets the same amount of time. For next year, I will contemplate the possibility to open the quizzes directly after the lecture. 4. Canvas page: While most students seem perfectly happy with the course Canvas, there was one suggestion for improvement raised that could be investigated further. To make it easier to get an overview of different types of course material, the current Canvas has a different start-page layout than the standard template. A few students suggested that using the template structure may make the Canvas easier to navigate, i.e. the start page consists of a set of expandable module sections. I am quite conversant with Canvas design and implementing even relatively small changes tend to become time-consuming. I will look into the possibility to re-design the Canvas start page. Whether re-design will be considered depends on how well the sectioning of material will work with the template structure (which is a bit too “linear”). 5. Additional recommended material: One student suggested more recommendations for extra course material such as Youtube videos and book recommendations related to the lecture topics. This is a good idea and would be useful for students that have special interest in specific topics and want to further deepen their knowledge.