1. L9: Courses and project work
Teaching task’s at Aalborg University
Courses
The role of the teacher giving a course
The role of a teacher being a supervisor of a project group
Welcome to the third lecture in the guided tour at Aalborg University. Your guide is still Lars Peter Jensen.
This lecture will focus on how the courses, especially the project unit courses are related to the project work. To make a powerful connection the courses at Aalborg University are held somehow different from courses at Universities with more traditional educational systems.
I will start out by giving an overview of the different task’s of a teacher in Aalborg, followed by explaining how we teach the courses and what the teacher should be aware of.
Finally i will explain the role of a supervisor.
Please move on to the next slide.
Associated Professor
Lars Peter Jensen
Duration: 20 min.
Lecture 9: Courses and project work - the role og the teacher/supervisor

2. Teaching task’s Structure of a semester: Study courses and lectures
Project courses
lectures seminar
Lecturer/instructor
Examination
50% - 33%
Examinor
Lecturer/instructor
Project
So what are the teaching task’s on a given semester?
As told at the last lecture, depending on what semester we look at the projects takes among 50% (first year) and 67% (9’th semester) of the students time, so a major teaching task is to be supervisor for a project group. The tasks for the supervisor will be explained later, but now I will say that it is about advising and facilitating. At the end of the semester each of the projects and the members of the project group have to be examined, so the supervisor will now act as an examinator, and there will be appointed another teacher as a censor. The examination is covered by the next lecture.
The rest of the time the students take courses, both the project related ones, where the teachers task is to held lectures but also, to instruct the students doing exercises. When there are many students following a course (normally more than 5 groups) there will be an extra instructor to help during the exercises, and this job is often done by Ph.D. students who are not yet giving courses them selves.
The study courses needs lectures and instructors as well, but as they are general courses they have to be examined individually, and this is done by the lecturer, mostly by a written examination without a censor.
Please move on to the next slide.
Supervisor: Advisor and facilitator
50% - 67%
Examinor/censor
Examination
Lecture 9: Courses and project work - the role og the teacher/supervisor

3. Courses Description Course Description Optimal Control Theory Purpose:
To give the students knowledge in optimal control and practical experience with optimal control strategies based on minimisation of a performance index.
Contents:
Dynamic programming
LQ control
Introduction of reference and disturbance conditions
Introduction of integral conditions
Use of observer, LQG control
The position of closed loop poles
Prerequisites: Analogue and Digital Control (FP6-4, PR6-1, PR6-2), Stochastic systems (FP6-3, FP8-5)
Duration: 1 module
Category: Project theme course (PE- course)
Courses
Description
For each course there will be a specific description mostly made by the study board consulting some of the experts in the area. An example is this course in Optimal Control theory.
The structure of the descriptions are standard for all courses:
A purpose describing what the students are supposed to learn,
A content listing the topics covered by the course.
Prerequisites in term of courses that the students should have passed in order to understand this course.
The duration is related to Aalborg Universities definition of modules. One module is 20 hours of confrontation with the students, parted in 5 times 4 hours e.g.. Every Monday afternoon for 5 weeks.
The category state whether the course are a Project unit course or a study unit course.
You can read the details for your self and then move to the next slide.
Lecture 9: Courses and project work - the role og the teacher/supervisor

4. Courses Each lesson/lecture (Mini module):
Duration 3 hours 45 minutes (½ day)
2 lectures app. 45 min each
Exercises in groups, app. 2 hours
The lecturer is now instructor
The purpose of the combination of lectures/exercises is to increase the comprehension of the curriculum
Lets look a little bit closer into a lesson or lecture also called a mini module.
The duration is not precisely 4 hours because of the lunch break. Typically there will be 2 lectures ..with a short break in between
For the rest of the lesson the students will solve exercises within their group and in their group room, so the lecturer is now walking around visiting each group and helping or instructing them with the exercises, and as i mentioned before there will be a helping instructor if there are more than 5 groups.
The reason for this combination of lectures and exercises is to increase the comprehension of the curriculum
Please move on to the next slide
Lecture 9: Courses and project work - the role og the teacher/supervisor

5. For each course the lecturer decides how he or she will present the theory and what to present first, so based on the course description from the study board the lecturer makes a specific syllabus for the course, where the students can see what the content of each lecture or lesson (4 hour) is, what literature they are supposed to read and what exercises they shall solve.
The lectures in each of the lessons will normally cover both theory and practice, that is examples of how to use it, and the students will benefit the most if they read the literature in advance.
The concept of giving examples of how the theory is used are essential for a close connection between project unit courses and the projects and the exercises will usually exploit this concept even more so the student group try to solve small problems very close to similar problems that they later may need to solve in their projects.
The next slide will explain this a little bit deeper, please take your time to read this example if you are interested, before moving on. It is a typical homepage for a one module course, which is the shortest duration of a course. The specific example is a course for foreign students taking an introductory semester before starting on the eight semester at Aalborg University, and the course should both introduce the students to the Aalborg Model and help them to develop project skills, like management of projects, co-operation and learning. This is a difficult task which we try to improve every year, this year by putting cultural differences on the agenda in one of the lessons. If you want to know more about the content at the moment you can consult my homepage, where you will always find the newest version of my courses.
Please move on to the next slide when you are ready
Lecture 9: Courses and project work - the role og the teacher/supervisor

6. Courses
What kind of exercises should you chose to promote comprehension and methodical ness ?
Good examples of the central topics in the lecture, that forces the students to use the basic principles behind the theory
How should you act as instructor during the exercises in the groups?
Ask questions about how they have made their solution
Make sure that they have understood the basic principles of the problems
But if you want to increase the comprehension using exercises, what kind of exercise would you chose?
It should be small problems from the central topics covered by the literature and the lecture, and it is very important that it is necessary to use the basic principle behind the theory, because the student groups should be able to use these principles later on in their projects where the problem might be somehow different, but still need the same principles to be solved.
Even if the students are able to solve the problems or exercises you can’t be sure that they have actually understood the basic principles, but walking around visiting the groups the lecturer, now “playing” instructor have a unique possibility to check the comprehension by asking questions about how the group have made their solution and, be sure that they have actually understood the basic principles by asking to them, like: what were the basic principles in this solution, or how did you actually use this method.
Please move to the next slide.
Lecture 9: Courses and project work - the role og the teacher/supervisor

7. Courses Differences between project course (PE) and study course (SE)
Examination
PE has no formal examination by the lecturer, it is examined during the project examination by the supervisor
SE is examined by the lecturer, normally as a written examination (passed/non passed)
Exercises
PE is used in the project, exercises is examples
In SE the student must learn to solve examination exercises
My final slide about courses is to summe up the differences between the two types of courses, because although they are very much alike, there are some major differences that you have to be aware of.
The major difference is the examination, where the PE course don't have to think about examine, and thereby the students is not driven by exam but concentrates more of the issues in the course that they think can be useful for their projects. As the supervisor seldom is the same person as the lecturer it is most common that only the parts of the courses that are actually used in the projects and those who might have been relevant to use are examined.
The study courses are examined by the lecturer ….. This means that the student are often driven by the examine, and maybe they read less of the theory and concentrate more about solving the exercises, thinking that they will have to do some of the same kind at the exam.
So we also have a difference in the exercises, where the Project courses don't have to use a lot of examples of the same kind, because the students have to dig deeper into the theory in order to use it in their projects, whilst the Study unit courses have to use typically examination exercises some times if the students are to be able to solve them at the examination.
Please move to the next slide.
Lecture 9: Courses and project work - the role og the teacher/supervisor

8. Tasks of a supervisor Before and at the semester start:
Prepare project proposals
Plan project courses
Present project proposals for the students
In the beginning of a project:
Help to find appropriate literature
Help establishing contacts with companies ect.
Discussing the project proposal with the students
During the whole project period:
Commenting both oral and written presentations/memos/working paper
Continued assessment of the professional level of both group and individual
At the end:
Examination
Now I will change the focus from teaching courses to supervising project groups, which is a new challenge for the teacher.
Using large scale projects running for a whole semester, as it is done it Aalborg University the task of the supervisor starts already before the actual start of a semester. The reason for this is that although a specific semester has specific learning goals and a theme that the projects has to relate to, this is only a frame and the project proposals might change from year to year and thereby there might also be small changes in the project unit courses.
In due time before the semester starts a group of teacher will be appointed to run the semester and they are responsible for producing project proposals and plan eventually changes in the project unit courses together with those who is going to give the courses.
The day the semester starts the supervisors then present the project proposals for the students and then leave it to the students to form groups and chose projects. In this phase the students might also propose project themselves.
In the beginning of the semester the students are starting up their project and the supervisor might help pointing out appropriate literature. Perhaps the project involves contact or co-operation with companies, then it will be a natural task for the supervisor to help establishing the contacts, and of course there are also a need to discuss the project proposal with the student group.
When the project is running the supervisor will normally have a meeting with the project group app. Once a week. As you will see on a later slide the students have prepared the meeting and in most cases ed some documents that they want the supervisor to comment. It might be memos or first, second or last version of what is called working papers, that in the final version might end up as chapters in the project report, but they might also present their ideas orally at the meeting.
The supervisor are supposed to give a continues assessment of the professional level of the students, so it is important that the comments he or she gives to the working papers or presentation reflect this level, and it might also be necessary to ask specific student to explain
some detail’s in order to find out he’s or hers professional level.
At the end of the semester the student group hands in their project report and then the supervisor are in charge of running the examination, which I will explain more about in the next lecture.
Please move on to the next slide.
Lecture 9: Courses and project work - the role og the teacher/supervisor

9. Facilitation summarizing mirroring asking open-ended questions
use why, how, what, where
dynamic list of question
feedback as rethinking loudly
Teaching student groups as a supervisor can be done in a lot of different ways and it will continuously change with new constellations of groups and supervisor. This is a subject for a whole course in one of the other modules of this education, so I wont exploit o lot on it here, but I will like to say that in the phases of the project where the students will gain the most by making decisions and struggling with the problems themselves it is important that the supervisor don’t take over the decisions or explain the problem immediately.
As it is a learning process for the students the supervisor should in stead facilitate the learning by summarizing discussions, mirroring ideas, asking open-ended questions, which can be done by using: why, how , what and where.
If the students have send out papers or ideas/problems to be discussed it is possible for the supervisor to prepare very carefully and make a dynamic list of questions on beforehand and the use those that fit in the discussion.
If no preparation is possible it can be helpful for the students if the supervisor gives feedback by rethinking loudly.
Please move on to the next slide.
Lecture 9: Courses and project work - the role og the teacher/supervisor

10. Project supervision - preparation
The Group (two days in advance) :
What have we accomplished (working papers)
What are we doing right now
Requested supervision
Agenda
The Supervisor :
Read the working papers
Reflect upon and formulate questions to structure and details
Prepare for input to requested supervision
Without any experience in supervising a project group it might be difficult to understand the new teaching task and how the supervisor and the group act together, so I will elaborate a little bit more on that using three slides from my own experience as a supervisor for 24 years.
I will look at both the project group’s task and the supervisors task, before during and after a meeting.
Before a meeting, normally two days in advance, the group finishes their preparation by shipping an to the supervisor telling what they would like to discuss during the meeting. Experience has shown that they will get a real good result from the meeting if the mail or attached document tells what they have accomplished since the last meeting, what they are working with right now and what kind of help they want from the supervisor at the moment. There should also be an agenda and there will often be documents attached that the supervisor shall comment.
This kind of information gives the supervisor perfect possibilities to prepare by reading the material and the working papers, reflect upon where the group are at the moment and formulate questions to both structure of their material and details, and of course prepare input to the requested supervision.
Please move on to the next slide.
Lecture 9: Courses and project work - the role og the teacher/supervisor

11. Project supervision – meeting
The Group :
Chairs the meeting
Takes minutes
Presents the points of the agenda
All participate in the discussions
The Supervisor :
Facilitates the students’ own reflection by asking questions
Involves all students in the discussions
Secure reflections on:
Contracts, working processes, progress, time schedule
When the meeting is held it is the group that are responsible for chairing it, and they should also take minutes. Normally they will have appointed one group member responsible for presenting each of the points on the agenda and they should all participate in the discussion.
The supervisor should try to facilitate the student’s reflection and thereby their learning process by asking questions as I discussed on the slide about facilitation. It is important to get all student involved in the discussion, both for the sake of the individually students learning process and in order to assess their individually professional level.
At the first year of the education the supervisor should also support the process of learning how to do and manage a project and team work. This can be done by reflecting these issues on each meeting, discussing if they follow the contract they have made about how to work with the project, how they work together, eventually frustrations due to less progress than expected and how the project are running according to the time schedule. It will improve the students project work and team work skills if these issues are also addressed during the rest of the education but it is only a specific task given by the study board at the first year.
Please move on to the next slide.
Lecture 9: Courses and project work - the role og the teacher/supervisor

12. Project supervision – follow up
The Group :
Sends minutes of the meeting to the supervisor
Discusses and assesses the input from the supervisor
Revises working papers, time schedule etc.
The Supervisor :
Reads the minutes and replies
Follows up on requested tasks
Shortly after the meeting the group will send the minutes to the supervisor, and on an internal group meeting they will discuss and assess the input from the supervisor and due to this revise the working papers and maybe the time schedule as well.
The supervisor reads the minutes and reply both if it is according to he’s or her opinion or if there are some corrections or comments.
At some meetings the supervisor will also be requested to do something for the group, like finding some literature, establishing a contact to a company or maybe a colleague that knows something that could help the group or it might be securing funding for a component needed for a construction. In these cases the supervisor will normally follow up on the requests immediately after the meeting.
This was the end of this lecture, thank you for your attention, please solve the exercises referred to in the exercise document
Lecture 9: Courses and project work - the role og the teacher/supervisor