Course implementation from teacher's view

The course design is a part of the curriculum design. This happens currently every two years. The collective planning starts typically in programme or departmental meetings. Programme directors or department heads invite all teachers (in charge) to discuss and plan curricula. The final product of the process is the curriculum which is approved by the school academic committee. There should not be any changes in this curriculum during the study years. In addition, the time and space scheduling takes place in spring before the study year. In this way, students are able to plan effectively their studies.

Curriculum Design at Aalto University – Strategy and Policies

Designing course level intended learning outcomes | Aalto University

Duties of a teacher (in charge) typically include:

• Recruiting course personnel and orientation, making possible work contracts (HR Services at your department help)
• Designing teaching acts (teaching, assignments, materials, contents) and assessment of learning which are aligned to the intended learning outcomes described in the curriculum. Estimate the course workload and study time allocation. (Get Inspired!, chapter 4)
• Checking the teaching spaces and schedule both for contact teaching and possible exams. Ask for new spaces or deletions because non-usable spaces cost. Notice that the model schedules are written so that a student is able to complete all courses in the degree in the target study time
• Update the course syllabus in MyCourses at least three weeks before the course starts
• Inform the library about the possible course books. The library typically acquires a few copies of the books

How to write course descriptions and course syllabi

Course workload and study time allocation

Check just before the course starts:

• All teachers of the course have correct roles in Sisu (responsible teacher, teacher). These roles give access to MyCourses and Course feedback system
• Students are able to join to MyCourses after registration in Sisu. Their MyCourses calendars contain all study events (lectures, exercises) from Sisu.
• You can find the list of enrolled students of the course in MyCourses or Sisu. The registration has to be confirmed in Sisu
• Update the materials and activities in MyCourses. Hence, students are able to form a clear picture of the course structure
• Send your first message in MyCourses (on main page, Announcement), where you tell students the time and venue of the first teaching event, and where you welcome students to the course

MyCourses learning environment

Prepare well for the first teaching event (Get Inspired!, chapter 5). Consider the following issues:

• Students wait for your ambition to the subject. The corner stones of building study motivation are making studying meaningful and supporting student's expectation of success (Get Inspired!, chapter 2.3)
• Students want to know practicalities in the course, such as time schedule, assessment, and communication. Justify your decisions, if needed. Information should be in MyCourses Syllabus
• Say something about previous course feedback and how it has been dealt. This motivates students to give feedback
• Be approachable: come early enough, create a safe learning atmosphere. Introduce other teachers of the course, and how to contact them. Listen to students in breaks and after teaching sessions. Have reception hours in your office

Students want to learn. Keep in mind:

• Let students have time to learn the core topics (Get Inspired!, chapter 2.1)
• Support students to improve their study skills (Get Inspired!, chapter 2.2)
• Give feedback from learning. According to study well-being survey, students want to know more about their learning progress than the points and final grades
• Discuss with students what improves or hinders learning so that it is not only seen afterwards in the course feedback. If needed, use anonymous surveys
• Take care of yourself and other course staff. Do not overload yourself with duties

When the course is coming to end, notice the following:

• Explain clearly the requirements of the possible final exam and its practical arrangements
• If you have a final exam, be aware of arrangements in your department: exam papers, invigilators, etc.
• Course feedback is collected automatically anonymously from all courses. Teachers can add own questions. You can motivate students to give feedback (e.g., by giving some extra points)

More about course feedback

There are some important issues in the end of the course:

• Evaluate students' assignments and exam as quick as possible.
• You can save the evaluation directly to Sisu or you can use use a csv file that you can get from Sisu or MyCourses.
• Export the results to MyCourses (either using Gradebook or giving an attachment in Section "For Aalto Users" or "Results") so that students are aware of them. There must be only the student ID in the result list, not student's name! Students can see the grade distribution of the teaching event through their completed grades in Sisu.
• Finish the results and save the final evaluation to Sisu no later than 28 days from the exam or last study event. The accomplishment date is the latest study event (e.g., final exam, submission deadline of assignment), not the latest inspection day or day when study evaluations are saved in Sisu
• Organize an event where students can see their own exams and criteria for the evaluation (Aalto University General Regulations on Teaching and Studying OOS 20§)
• Store the exam papers required time

Examinations and course results

Some advice after the course:

• Read the course feedback and process it with other course staff. Write a short summary of your findings in feedback and publish it in MyCourses. Write down the processed development activities for the next course implementation
• If you collect your teaching portfolio, append the material (Get Inspired!, chapter 6)

Here are some possible exceptionial cases during the course:

• Adding new events, or changing time or location of your current course events. The schedule planning reserves spaces and time for teaching and exam. This has been done in the previous study year. If there is a need to add new events, you can request it from school's learning services. Changes are useful to do in the ASIO booking system so that changes will be copied correctly to Sisu and MyCourses
• Lack of access rights in Sisu and MyCourses. Each teacher should have correct rights to utilize Sisu, MyCourses, and course feedback system
• Changing the opening date of the course feedback. The course feedback system reads information from Sisu, e.g., when the survey is published to students. You can ask to change opening date so that is suits your teaching better. The requests can be sent to [email protected]
• Sudden cancellation or change of an event: use MyCourses (Announcements message) to inform students about changes

Contact informion of university and school Learning Services

Some notes of the communication:

• Tell students in the beginning, how to contact teaching staff
• Information concerning the course is primarily provided through the MyCourses course space. In urgent matters, the course teacher can send e-mail via MyCourses. It is recommended to use the MyCourses "Announcements" feature to send fortified messages to the students. It is advisable to target information mainly for students approved to the course (instead of all of enrolled). Students should be guided to present general questions in the MyCourses discussion forum area so that everyone can benefit from the answers given to the students
• Particular attention should be paid to the informing about assessment of study attainments. Assessments can be reported to students in MyCourses within Aalto's time frames. For more information, see "Examinations and results". 
• Notice data protection in your communications
• Decorous communications is polite, focuses on topic at hand and does not include personal factors (e.g. religion, gender, character, age), which are mainly insignificant in terms of studying. Decorous communications involves to give the students all the relevant information to accomplish a course
• Notice that Aalto University has code about responsible behavior: Code of conduct
• Informing students in the major, programme or whole department.Many departments, majors and programmes have student mailing lists for general informing, such as for course marketing. The way of using student e-mailing lists may vary, staff of services can more accurately describe the use of the e-mail lists
• Everyone working in Aalto University is good to add own contact information to Aalto People. In addition to specifying contact information, you can tell e.g. when students can meet you at your office
• The most important thing about communication is reachability - so that students can get their things done