1. The Aalborg model - one way of dealing with PBL
Session 4: The Aalborg model.
Topic 3: Projects and teams
Key words:
Problems
Projects
Team work
Welcome to this lecture about the third topic of session 4: Projects and teams, your teacher is still Lars Peter Jensen
This time I will continue digging into the details of the Aalborg model,
As last time where I explained about Problems, The key words will again be addressed by asking what, why and how to each of them We start out with projects.

2. Projects What ? A unique task Have a lot of complex activities
Needs several people with different skills
Have a final goal/objective
Limited resources (time, money, people)
Have to deliver a result at a given time:
As a minimum a written report
And now for the second key work in the Aalborg model: Projects
Every project in Aalborg is a unique task for the group, even when the same project was made last year or some other groups has chosen the same project proposal, every project takes its own direction and/or uses different methods, so each group solves the problem differently.
A project will have a lot of complex activities and thereby need people with different skills.
Each project sets out to reach a specific goal and have to reach it with limited resources because the report has to be delivered at a specific date at the end of the semester.
All this calls for planning and controlling the project.

3. Projects Why ? More and more companies use project organization
Much engineering work is performed as projects
Motivates the students
Leads to student activity
Improves documentation skills
Secures deep learning in subjects covered in the project
The reason for using project work is that more and more companies in Denmark use what is known as a project organization, and even those who doesn’t use projects solved by a group of persons with different skills in most of the engineering work.
It has shown that the project work motivates the students very much, and leads to a great activity for the students, and it improves the documentation skills which is very important for their later work.
And also it secures a very deep learning in the subjects that are covered by the project.

4. Projects How ? One project each semester
Necessary theories and methods given in project courses
As mentioned before the students in Aalborg work with one large project each semester, and at the same time they have courses that gives them the necessary theories and methods to help them to do the project

5. Structure of a semester:
Project courses
50% - 33%
Study courses
Examination
Project
50% - 67%
It is easier to understand the connection between the project and the courses if we take a look at the structure of a semester:
As you can see on this slide approximately half of the time is used for project work.
This is at the first semesters, later on in the education a larger amount of time each semester will be used for actual project work.
But there are also courses which take the rest of the time in the semester.
At least half of the courses is what we call project unit courses – this is courses as i explained before that helps the students with the project and these courses are examined through the examination of the project.
Then we have what is called study unit courses, which is courses teaching basic mathematics, physics and so on, or maybe courses that shall be used on the next semester, and they have their own examination.
The next lecture will explain more about how both types of courses are conducted in Aalborg.

6. Timing of a semester Project courses Project Study courses
In order to get the best connection between the project courses and the project, the semester is timed as you see on this slide:
Most of the project courses are given at the beginning of a semester, meaning that there will be less time in the beginning for the project work, but as the semester moves along the project time increases.
We have found out in Aalborg that this is a good timing because the students need to know the theory on beforehand to be able to use it in the projects. And at the same time it takes some time to ”dig” into the project in the beginning, and this is calendar time – not actual time according to hours, so it doesn’t matter that they have less time for the project in the beginning, because they are not ready to work hard on the project until they have a broad understanding of the problem and the implications.
When they reach this understanding – after 5-7 weeks – they uses a lot of time on the project, so it matches perfectly with the fact that now their are less courses, and for the last five weeks the students have almost all their time for project work, except for some of the study unit courses that are given at the end of a semester.

7. Projects How ? One project each semester
Necessary theories and methods given in project courses
Each group has (at least) one supervisor
Documentation:
a written report, oral defence, (construction)
Courses in:
project management and planning
Continuing on projects:
As Palle Qvist mentioned in lecture one, each group has at least one supervisor for their project – at the first year there will be two supervisors and at some educations they will also have more than one at some semesters, but one is the most common situation.
What comes out of a project is a documentation: they write a project report and at the examination they make an oral defense of it – some times there is also a kind of construction: maybe a hifi amplifier or a program controlling something. These constructions is usually demonstrated as a part of the groups defense.
There are also courses that are going to help the students in managing the projects, planning the time and controlling it, These courses is mostly given in the first year of the education.

8. The four phase model of a Project
Analysis
Design
Implementation
Test
The ideal
Student Project
Student
Project
too narrow
Industriel
Project
Student
Project
too broad
What does a typical project look like? Basically most projects has four phases:
Analyse, design, implementation and test.
If it is an industrial project, like creating a new mobile phone, then of course one have to analyse the whole product and its market situation before designing the whole phone, implementing it and test all parts alone and together before releasing the phone to be produced.
But a student project doesn't have to do it that way. If they try then they will find out that there isn't enough time and probably end somewhere between design and implementation. This is soon realized by the students and then some of them tries to narrow the project right from the beginning, choosing only to analyse a small part of the project, e.g.. The antenna of the mobile phone, and then design, implement and test that. But this is a too narrow approach where the students don't know the actual problem because they haven't analysed the whole problem.
The right way to do a problem oriented project is to start with a problem that isn't too big and then analyse the whole problem, chose which part to design – probably the parts the students think they can learn the most by designing.
Then again narrow the project by only implementing some parts, learning different implementation methods by using them once in stead of learning one method using it 5 times.
Testing is of course done of all the implemented parts to be sure they work, but using more formal testing methods and making test reports is only done for a small part of the implemented parts in order to prove that the students can do it.

9. What is analysis? Get an overview of the problem
Asking Questions
See Perspectives
Divide into different aspects
Top Down
Bottom Up
Look critically at all aspects
Estimate
Measure
Compare
Analyzing of course can be done in a lot of different ways, but one model that we show the students is this – saying that the first purpose of an analysis is to get an overview of the problem: to walk around it so to speak – asking questions, see the perspective of the problem.
And then, when you have an overview of the perspectives you have to make some structure: this can be done as a top down approach where you see at the whole problem and then break it down into minor parts – or it can be done by getting all the parts and perspectives on paper or a black board and then structure them into some categories – this is what we call a bottom up approach.
Then when you have a structure for your analysis, you should analyze all the aspects critically – you can estimate, measure, compare and do a lot of other things of course.

10. How to start analysing – presentation of two tools
The six W- model
Post It Brain storm
Everybody writes keywords on Post It notes for 5 min
All notes are placed on the blackboard
All notes are read out
Everybody goes to the blackboard and structures the notes together
Why?
What?
Problem
Whom?
Where?
How?
When?
Some times the students find it difficult to start analyzing, so we help them by introducing two tools already at the first year of the education.
The first one takes the problem as the center and we ask six w questions to it: why is it a problem, what is actually the problem, where does it occur and when, how do we see it and for Whom is it actually a problem. This kind of tool is the one that opens up the analysis, and we call it the six w-model.
The other tool we give the students are for structuring – it is called the post it brain storm.
It is a method where all the student are given post it laps, which is small laps with glue on the top of the back side, and they write key words on these laps – one key word on each lap. This takes about five minutes and then all the students will have 5-15 laps concerning what they think is important in the project.
Then they take all the laps and place them on a black board, where they can stick do to the glue on the back side.
Now in a group of six students there will be fifty to sixty laps on the black board, with the key word for the problem analysis.
Then one of the students read up all the key words loud, so everyone knows what is on them –
And then the exercise is to structure them. Everyone goes to the blackboard and tries to structure the notes, and due to the glue on the back side they can be put together and turn apart again and put together in a new structure, and the students should continue to rearrange the notes until they have a good structure for the analyzing part of the project.
They might also see which key words that most of them have thought of, because they will be there maybe six time, if everyone have written the same key word

11. Team work What ? A group of students working together on a project
They have to both carry out the project and document the results
Based on the documentation there is a group examination, but the marks are individual
And now for the third and final key word in the Aalborg model – Team Work, what is that?
It is a group of students at the same level or semester spending most of their time at the university together doing a large scale project that at the same time has to be scientifically documented. At the end of each project the group will be examined based on the documentation - that is the project report. It is essential that the group defend their project together but at the same time are marked individually based on the quality of their answers

12. Team work
Why ?
A survey in 1997 showed that 75% of the companies wanted new employees to have good skills in team work
The individual student in the group learns from the others (synergy)
Extra: Responsibility towards the group leads to very hard work
The reason for developing team work skills is that most Danish companies that employ engineers uses project teams in their development.
But it is also a good idea from a teaching perspective because the students not only have their supervisor as a teacher but also their fellow students, and there is actually a lot of synergy in students learning from other students but it is also an important factor that the student that is trying to teach he's or hers fellow students some difficult stuff actually learns a lot him self by doing the teaching.
The third reason for team work is gained by the fact that the students in Aalborg is working very hard because they are committed to the project and the group - they feel a great responsibility to their group mates.

13. Team work How ? Each group has a group room
Group size of 6-8 students first year, 2-3 students last year
Students are in charge of forming groups
Team building courses:
Roles, communication, co-operation, conflicts
To give the best facilities for team work the university buildings were planned with a lot of small rooms at about 18 square meters, so that each group can have its own room. The group size varies from 6 to 7 the first years to smaller group at the end of the education.
It is essential that the student them self are responsible for the formation of groups. This means that on the first day of each semester the student taking the same education is presented for the content of the semester and some project proposals. The presentation is done by the teachers but afterwards the students are left alone and have a half day to find out both to format groups and chose projects. This can be a tuff task because there might be students that nobody wants to have in their group because they might have been lazy or difficult to work with on the earlier semesters, but the demand are that everybody should be a member of a group and the number of group acceptable are decided by the teachers on beforehand. This selection process every semester also has its benefits because it puts a pressure on the problematic students to pull them self together and improve their performance or to realize that this education might not be the right one for them. At the same time it gives the well functioning student some unique skills in how to work together with different personalities and how to cope with persons that they either don't like or think that could do better - this is skills that is very helpful when the education is finished and the former students are to work in teams in companies.
At the first year the students will have courses to help them working in teams. These courses addresses different roles in a team, how to improve communication and co-operation and both argues for and gives tools for conflict handling.

14. Forms of groups - 1
If a group communicates like this it has a great need for both structure, communication skills and how to handle conflicts, but it might be worse that that

15. Forms of groups - 2
Fortunately it is very seldom that we see this kind of lack of engagement in a group, and if we do it will only be for one semester, for this group will never have a chance of doing a proper project nor a project report that can pass the exam, so the group will fail at the exam.

16. Characteristics for a well functioning group:
Common goal or objectives
Agreement about group standards
The members ”play” all the necessary roles
All group members respect each other
Usually it will only take one semester, and for some groups maybe two semesters to become what we could call well functioning:
This means that they discuss their goals and objectives, until they agree upon them, and they also agree upon some group standards in order to get the group to work well.
In a well functioning group you will also see all the necessary roles be “played” by the members – not necessary discussing the roles, but they are “played” anyhow –
And maybe one of the most important aspects of a well functioning group is that all the members respect each other.

17. Co-operation: group classification
Integrated
Instrumental
Hierarchic
Chaotic
Role casting
All
Some No
Work sharing
Control/Leadership
Yes
Few
Power
Equal
Equal ?
Unequal
Personal Engagement
High
Fair
Different
Low
Group identity
Conflict solving
A simple classification of groups could be:
The integrated group where all members are equal and share roles, work and leadership. They respect each other and have equal power in the group. This gives a very high group identity and personal engagement. But the main point about this group is that they don't ignore conflicts, in fact they have realized that a lot of progress in project work might come from conflicts if they are discussed and dealt with. So the group work actively with identifying, discussing and solving conflict.
In this way it differs from any other group classification and it makes the best projects and learns the most also as individuals. But is is not possible for all people and groups to be that way.
The instrumentional group reach a fairly good result by sharing roles and work so that each job is handed out to the person that knows most about it on beforehand and they use control and leadership as a tool more than giving power to someone. Usual there is a fairly high personal engagement with each persons tasks, but the group identity is low. This kind of group is good to get things done and might be preferable sometimes in a company, but being students it would have been better if they have shared work and roles so everybody learned more about their week sides.
In the hierarchic group, maybe like the one on slide 14, there is a battle of controlling the group. Usually there is 2 power constellations and this affect the group work. Roles and work has to be decided from the top of the group and usually peoples engagement is rather different. As the group often is working more like two groups there is a very low group identity. These group seldom exist more than one semester.
Finally the chaotic group, like the one on the last slide, where nothing is done because there are no engagement and no driving force. This kind of group is usually the result of the other students judgement of the group members, meaning that they are the left over when the groups are formed. It is persons that no other will have in their group because they have behaved badly or don't do their job, so it is a kind of rest group, and if it turns out chaotic then the student probably will fail and stop
That’s all for this time, thank you for listening