Instructional Resource Modules: Communication in foreign languages

1
Instructional Resource ModulesCommunication in
foreign languages
 

• Activities
• Two courses held in English (lecturing) during
  spring 2002 in the first year of the program,
  Thermodynamics and Physics of materials
• The program also offers one optional course in
  technical English, elective for 3rd and 4th year
  students
• Findings
• There were no reported language related problems
  for the first year students during lecturing and
  reading the literature in the course in
  Thermodynamics
• It is difficult, to have a full overview of the
  level in English within the whole group of
  students
• Teachers have be very fluent in English

2
Communication in foreign languages cont.
 

• Recommendation
• Reintroduce an English diagnostic test in second
  year of the program
• Strongly advise students to take the optional
  English course in the third year and use
  technical contents from chosen specialization
  area
• Faculty competence development needed

3
Concept for Teamwork module
 

• Components to bee covered
• The Importance of Social Capital in Society and
  Organizations
• The formation and psychology of Small Groups
  (i.e., work groups, study groups)
• Leadership in Small groups
• Communication Feedback
• Division of labor and cooperation in group work
• Conflict resolution
• Format
• 3 day workshop, 30 students per group
• Exercises, theory lectures, reflection

4
Concept for Teamwork module cont.
 

• Learning objectives
• Cognitive goals
• knowledge on e.g. group size in relation to task
• knowledge in methods on project control in
  relation to task and group Knowledge
• Emotional goals
• Increased empathic ability
• Skill-based goals to be evaluated
• increased ability to perform a project
  presentation effectively and efficient
• conflict handling ability
• coaching ability
• Placement in education
• 2nd year, supporting Machine Elements
  Manufacturing Engineering joint project

5
Future work

• Detailed planning
• day 2 and 3
• Scheduling (3 day workshops do not fit our
  regular schedule )
• couple assessment to a particular course project
• Estimation of needed teacher time and cost
• Pilot in Y4 project courses AY 2002/2003
• Product Development and Mechatronics are
  candidates
• Run in Y2 curriculum 2003/2004

6
The project in cooperation with civil engineering
program with the titleDevelop and implement
renewed goal descriptions for two educational
program at Chalmers, Mechanical Engineering and
Civil Engineering
 

• Activities
• A comparison between the M-programme versus V
  programme goals.
• An identification of common and specific goals.
• Mapping the connection between the goal
  descriptions and curriculum.
• Teachers and students will be interviewed in
  order to map their views of goals, how goals are
  used in courses and how imported they are for
  their learning.
• A benchmarking of today practice compared to
  written goals.

7
Develop and implement renewed goal descriptions
for two educational program at Chalmers,
Mechanical Engineering and Civil Engineering cont.
 

• Outcomes
• Status in the program how goals are used both by
  teachers and students - action plan
• Examples of used processes in developing and
  implementing new goal and new objectives at
  different organisation levels, i.e. at
  university, in program, in specialization area
  and on course levels.

8
Preliminary findings from the interviews of 10
teachers from the Civil engineering program
 

• Courses are inherited 10/10
• In the goal process
• 3/10 have written new goals/objectives
• 4/10 have used old goals/objectives
• 3/10 have reformulated old goals/objectives
• 3/10 have worked in teams new 1/10 and
  reformulation 2/10
• Influences from industry
• 7/10 own experience or from discussion with
  industry
• 1/10 doesnt know
• 2/10 no
• Influence from Chalmers
• 4/10 yes
• 6/10 doesnt know

9
cont.1

• Influence from program
• 5/10 yes
• 5/10 doesnt know
• Where are the goals/objectives presented
• 9/10 in the course syllabus, 6/10 more concrete
  in their course instructions memos
• 1/10 doesnt know
• Have there been pedagogical influences of chosen
  working practice?
• 8/10 yes
• 10/10 uses project as a mean of reaching course
  goals/objectives

10
cont. 2

• Type of assessment
• 4/10 projects written exam
• 2/10 home tasks written exam and a minor
  project
• 1/10 oral theoretical test written exam
• 1/10 project written theoretical test
  written exam
• 1/10 preparation exams oral exam (given task
  and solution presented after 10 min)
• 1/10 seminar written exam
• Correlation between goals/objectives and
  assessment
• 5/10 yes
• 5/10 doubtful

11
cont. 3

• Here are comments of felt barriers from one
  teacher
• 7 weeks of teaching does it promote learning?
• first year courses have problem of students lack
  of student behavior
• huge variation of background knowledge in the
  student group
• are the goals/objectives for the course right and
  does it support the program goals/objectives
• the course is to broad, need three teachers to
  cover the contents
• level of ambition among the students are
  different
• difficult to reach a good mix of compulsory and
  voluntary subjects
• students delay in to get the work done
• what level of proficiency are needed
• Holistic contra atomistic learning
• difficult to promote student to work with goals
  and objectives

12
Project Bruno P4.2
 

• Activities spring 2002
• Interviews conducted with students within the
  project in order to
• investigate their role in the group.
• Fill in the learning styles test for the second
  time (first and third year in the program) to see
  if there have been any changes in their view of
  how they learn best.
• To do
• Try to correlate learning style and role in the
  group
• Recommendations based on the findings from the
  interviews and the learning style test
• Can the test be a guidance of forming effective
  groups in educational programs?

13
P11.2 Instructor-student teams for course
evaluation

 

• Status
• Second year of compulsory focus teams course
  evaluation
• Difficult to have fully engaged focus teams
• The quality of the activities varies a lot
  between the teams
• Changes
• A more detailed instructions for the focus teams
  has been developed in cooperation with the
  student course evaluation team in the program
• Dual responsibility for the teachers and the
  student focus groups to contact each other the
  first week of the course

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