0x010088F6312065A70A44B630A6848498EAD80093CFEAFE161DC94D83C7C5C9A5A748B8

Reflections on action plan from last year (V22) vs. this year (V23): As course director, I took time to go through the previous year's action plan before making the plan for this year's teaching. I comment on each of the points I had recommended to improve on last year, below: 1) Facilitate and schedule a ‘Learning group’ for all ISS staffThis would have ideally organized by ISS staff, or even SU staff, rather than by PhD students. EiT organizes seminars online to prepare new course leaders, but I think that additional discussions are needed, even if informal reflections and exchange of experiences over just 60 minutes, at the department level. Team reflections - division of components between Project and Process reportsThis is something for NTNU EiT leaders to consider implementing, not for an individual course leader. Although I have learned through cross-evaluation of other EiT courses, there is considerable variation in how course leaders interpret the EiT-prescribed criteria for Process and Project reports. Reduce the number of background readingsDone, was successful. Share a schedule for planned group exercises well in advance of timeDone, students were informed of plans ahead of time, specifically time blocked for individual work, group work, vs. class time, in a more structured manner this year around. Continue to engage external experts as project advisorsDone, had some external advisors in person this year, others virtually. Engaged persons from London and Edinburgh and NTNU. If virtual component to course, continue to use tools like Miro or MentimeterDone, in an in-person classroom setting, and this worked well. End days sooner to allow time for individual work at end of dayDone, especially in work phase. Share the detailed Project Report guidance document with students earlierDone, in BlackBoard during first week and presented during the first week. Present Village topic soonerDone, with success. Used a framework for health policy analysis in this year's course which helped students conceptualize their task better than last year. Share Learning objectives soonerDone. Implement more ‘team building', ‘get to know each other’ exercises, and breaks during first village daysDone, used Learning Assistants for this and this was successful.

The students were informed of learning outcomes, and were provided more support throughout the course more than during last year's course. Main learning outcomes and tips for structuring of the project and process report were concretized through more learning activities throughout the course. The student grades were much higher this year compared to last year, and I was generally impressed with their final products. This tells me that the materials were clearer this year, and the course structuring a little bit more streamlined, compared to last year.

After cross-grading with other EiT instructors, I would like to note that there is much variation in the degree to which EiT course leaders apply the EiT criteria for grading, as well as which aspects of student performance they weigh in their reports. This leads to a lot of variation across courses, as well as confusion among students. While I am not opposed to course leaders tailoring their course requirements depending on the complexity of the subject matter at hand, what concerns me is that some course leaders go as far as uttering that "no one should get lower than a B in EiT". This to me indicates that they do not expect students to actually learn and apply learning during EiT, only "try their best". I hope that there will be more streamlining of grading and clarification of actual student requirements made across the EiT course leaders, as a mandatory component, ahead of teaching activities.

NTNU:TIA:REST

Institutt for sosiologi og statsvitenskap

Department of Sociology and Political Science

Engelsk

Faglig innhold

For mer informasjon om Eksperter i Team, se www.ntnu.no/eit og www.ntnu.no/eit/emnebeskrivelse

Læringsformer og aktiviteter

Emnet undervises intensivt over hele dager i uke 2-4, og det er obligatorisk oppmøte.

Oppmøte hver landsbydag

Muntlig presentasjon

Utarbeide samarbeidsavtale

Eksperter i team - Building future-proof health care systems

Statsvitenskap

Statsvitenskap - masterstudium

Web/Lists(guid'8b698a2d-6ad0-4f7d-b3be-219cc1979f02')/Items(23071)/FieldValuesAsText

There was information overload through PowerPoint during first student days (Ref: Student Reference Group Reports).

Tiltak

Implement more ‘team building', ‘get to know each other’ exercises, and breaks during first village days

Both for the Project and Process report (Ref: Point 1. in Assessment of course, above).

Share Learning objectives sooner

With broad overview already given on Day 1, to keep students engaged and meet their expectations (Ref: Point 1. in Assessment of course, above).

Present Village topic sooner

And present it during the first Village days (Ref: Point 1. in Assessment of course, above). 

Share the detailed Project Report guidance document with students earlier 

End days sooner to allow time for individual work at end of day

for more virtual engagement of students, in lieu of the large volume of top-down information sharing. Potentially structure these around the village theme, to deepen learning around health systems and policies (Ref: Student Reference Group Reports, and Point 6. in Assessment of course, above). 

If virtual component to course, continue to use tools like Miro or Mentimeter 

Particularly for midway evaluation. Potentially line up advisors pre-course, regardless of student project topics chosen, recognizing that this may not align perfectly with interests-expertise (Ref: Student Reference Group Reports, and Point 6. in Assessment of course, above). 

Continue to engage external experts as project advisors

Team exercises facilitated by LA’s with students. Alternatively offer time slots to choose from prospectively, since these can be time consuming and interfere with group work. This will help students plan their group and individual time better (Ref: Student Reference Group Reports). 

Share a schedule for planned group exercises well in advance of time

And make them more focused (not as broad), as the Reference Group report noted that some students found this overwhelming in addition to the vast volume they had to research through, and this being on top of formal EiT reading, such as theory around team roles and groupwork (and a vast amount of writing in a short time) (Ref: Student Reference Group Reports). 

Reduce the number of background readings

NOTE: REQUIRES FEEDBACK FROM WIDER NTNU EiT TEAM, NOT SU/ISS: Consider moving all ‘teamwork reflection/individual competency’ reflections (‘soft components’) from Project Report to all being in the Process Report, to make a clearer distinction for students in terms of what goes where, and to avoid duplicating work. This would be a change to be made in the wording of the manual distributed to students with the project requirements, as well as assessment criteria. (Ref: Point 3. In ‘Assessment of Course’, above). 

Team reflections - division of components between Project and Process reports

Who are conducting an EiT that year, or who have conducted a EiT in prior years. Ideally this would be during the planning Fall/autumn of the preceding year, to facilitate learning and guidance between those leading a EiT course for the first time, and designing it, and those who have prior experience in it. (Ref: Point 7. In ‘Assessment of Course’, above). 

Facilitate and schedule a ‘Learning group’ for all ISS staff 

Some reflections:<ol><li>At the beginning of the course, I had shared with students through BlackBoard some reading materials around the village theme, including a general list of resources that linked to authoritative sources (such as the OECD, WHO European Observatory of Health Systems) that they could consult for both substance/content knowledge as well as data for their projects. To concretize what the end product of the Project report was, I also uploaded on BB several examples of Policy Briefs I had myself produced during my career. By week 2, it became clear that students continued to be slightly confused by the format, as it was entirely new to them, so to better guide them in the specific requirements of the Project Report and therefore the scope of their project, I ended up creating a longer resource document that described in detail the minimum content required for the Project Report. Several students noted that this document should be shared sooner in future courses. Students also felt that too much emphasis was placed on the Process report (EiT requirement), and the Village theme (Project topic) should have been introduced sooner than day 3.</li><li>Based on feedback and conversations with my LA’s and their experiences from previous EiT years, I ran a Village Cup virtually, to have something fun for teams to do outside of the EiT requirements and to facilitate bonding. This was done during week 2 via Microsoft Form submissions of memes, catchphrases, or other ‘light’ activities that groups could work on. There was a voting process and the winning team was crowned during week 3. The prize was cinema gift cards (Trondheim Kino), as my faculty/SU/ISS provided some budget for bonding activities. Some students felt this was ‘more work’ or annoying, but I think mostly students appreciated this.</li><li>Some students felt confused that some of the ‘EiT’ requirements around work Process were also included in the Project report requirements, such as reflecting on interdisciplinarity and individual competencies. This felt like overlap between the reflective components in the EiT Process report and the Project report, and like ‘duplicate work’ for students, or alternatively challenging to know ‘which reflections goes in which report’.</li><li>A handful of students had other courses or jobs, alongside this full-time, intensive EiT course. This is also something noted by students in the Reference Group. This is something that I, as course leader, could not have impacted, and I hope that by submitting this evaluation report, the Faculty can address this by communicating early to students that this is not an advisable combination – it brings much stress both to the student and all the other group members.</li><li>The virtual environment posed several motivational challenges for the students. To reduce Zoom and screen fatigue, the LL and LA tried to encourage students to take screen breaks and work individually. Several students found the course very stressful, however, which I imagine made it hard to justify screen breaks. We encouraged students to turn off their video if they needed a break from being ‘switched on’ all the time, which most of the students did for plenum sessions.</li><li>Students were free to choose a Project topic that reflected their interests. Brainstorming exercises via Miro facilitated finding a convergent topic that all were comfortable with. The final projects chosen by the Teams were: addressing environmental health among children in Bangladesh, supportive policies to prevent burnout among intensive care nurse in the UK, opioid policy in rural U.S. states, vaccination policy among immigrants in Norway, and tobacco regulation to prevent bladder cancer in Malawi. To bring them a feel for ‘real world’ implication of their projects, and recognizing that my own personal knowledge is limited across this broad variety of topics and countries, I engaged with external experts and colleagues from my professional network, including policy experts from the OECD, Norwegian Public Health Institute (FHI), the Commonwealth Fund’s International Health Policy division, university-based researchers in global health based in London School of Tropical Hygiene and Medicine and the University of Bergen (who was also a former Ministry of Health in Malawi worker, since one of the student projects focused on Malawi policy), and the University of Massachusetts. The Reference Group report also reflected that both the students choosing their own topic, as well as external advisor engagement, motivated students and grounded them in how their self-defined projects, which sometimes felt very abstract, relate to actual, real-world policy problems. The timeline was very short, since students used a whole week (one-third of course time) to arrive at project topics, and the experts contacted were very busy. I was glad they could take part however, and they were very generous with their time. </li><li>It should be noted that in addition to frustrated students, I also experienced frustration as course leader, having no real framework, prior course example, prior project report example, or any guidance whatsoever provided by my faculty or institute (ISS) that would have guided me on the Project side of the course (50% of student grade and teaching time). While the materials provided by EiT are very clear for the Process Report deliverable, it was very frustrating to just be left alone to ‘just make something up’ that would not only be challenging, within the acceptable wheelhouse of political science research and methods, as well as be broad enough to be implementable/doable by an interdisciplinary Masters-level student team. It is rather baffling that this is the case; I would have thought that from the faculty/institute (SU/ISS) side, there would also be some quality requirements that they would uphold me to, as course leader, that would have been communicated to me, a priori. The importance of doing so is reflected in the student experience: In my view, there was an unnecessary amount of ‘trial and error’ from my own side, mainly because I was not guided in any way in terms of what is appropriate and expected of me. This made it challenging to set expectations and clear goals to students, and early; the end result being that students were frustrated. This reflects poorly on the department/faculty overall. This is something I hope the faculty/department will rectify with new PhD students who are given EiT village leader tasks, in future years. An example would be to hold a session for past years EiT leaders from the same institute, for sharing their experiences and tips and materials shared with students. I was personally not even aware who from my institute was having EiT course leader responsibilities alongside myself.</li><li>For next year, I will consider widening the choice of Project Report, from just a data-based policy brief, to a choice between a policy brief and a case study (with possibility for more qualitative data, such as interviews or descriptive measures). This is because not all students are comfortable with quantitative data analyses and the student’s skillset and preferences may be different from the prescribed format. Also, some students did not find appropriate data, and felt overwhelmed/exasperated when they didn’t. I recognize that introducing an alternative Project Report format (choice of 2 different ones) will introduce one more aspect in which they have to make a decision, which necessarily complicates things, but I do believe this will reduce the stress on students somewhat (Ref: Student Reference Group Reports).</li></ol>

Web/Lists(guid'8b698a2d-6ad0-4f7d-b3be-219cc1979f02')/Items(17594)/FieldValuesAsText

Quality of the project part of the course, as evaluated by the village supervisor: The project reports and the village supervisor’s interactions with the students show that the students have clearly learned about and experienced first-hand the challenges of a mediatized society where organizations one is a member of (or even they as individuals) may be in the public spotlight, or this at least is a possibility. This potential of the public eye and its implications at various levels has been explored by the students from various theoretical perspectives from journalism research, political science, media effects research and media psychology. Students also report personal growth and increased awareness of the intricate relationship between protagonists of media coverage and journalists producing this coverage, the creation/staging of “mediatized events” and “pseudo-events” and the unique psychological pressures both journalists and protagonists of media coverage face. Also, the interdependency between news organizations and public relations of various organizations has been exemplified, and the dynamic interplay between different interest groups has been exemplified. Interesting suggestions for further improving the lectures and the planning game have emerged in the reference group and most of these suggestions will be implemented (see action plan) until next year. Quality of the process part of the course, as evaluated by the village supervisor: The team process reports clearly show that the students have acquired the knowledge about group processes, teamwork, and the handling of the challenges and potentials in interdisciplinary and intercultural teams (or “diversity” more generally). They have acquired the skills to actively observe, document and reflect on situations they experience, both individually and as a group. They also display the capacity of linking their observations with theory and making their observations more meaningful. Also, they have shown the capacity to take action and implement changes in order to facilitate group processes. They are aware that active communication and feedback to improve collaboration and effectiveness. One group had particularly strong challenged in establishing the ability to identify and detect problems and the situations in which they arise, but following efforts by learning assistants and the village supervisor, they have acquired better skills in taking note of problematic situations and the problems they might exemplify.  Interesting suggestions for further improving the observations/facilitations/practices by learning assistants have emerged in the reference group and most of these suggestions will be implemented (see action plan) until next year.

Expected learning outcomes for EiT in the spring of 2020 Knowledge·        Students have gained knowledge about group processes and are familiar with key concepts and prerequisites for good teamwork.·        Based on experience from the team, students can describe the prerequisites for good interdisciplinary teamwork.·        Students have insight into how their teamwork is influenced by their own behaviour patterns and attitudes, as well as those of others.Skills·        Students can apply their academic learning in cooperation with people from other subject areas, and jointly define problems and find solutions to them.·        Students can apply fundamental group theory and concepts to describe their own specific collaborative situations.·        Students can reflect on their teamwork and analyse the way that the group communicates, plans, decides, accomplishes tasks, handles disagreements and relates to professional, social and personal challenges.·        Students can provide feedback to the individual team member and to the team as a whole and can reflect on feedback from the team.·        Students can take initiatives (actions) that encourage cooperation, and they can contribute to changing patterns of interaction to create more productive, constructive and social collaboration in a group.General competence·        Students have extended their perspective on their own specialized knowledge in their encounter with skills from other disciplines. They can communicate and use skills they have developed in their own field in collaboration with students from other disciplines. ·        Students can collaborate with people from other disciplines, and they can contribute to realizing the potential of their combined interdisciplinary expertise. Quality of the project part of the course, as evaluated by the village supervisor: The project reports and the village supervisor’s interactions with the students show that the students have clearly learned about and experienced first-hand the challenges of a mediatized society where organizations one is a member of (or even they as individuals) may be in the public spotlight, or this at least is a possibility. This potential of the public eye and its implications at various levels has been explored by the students from various theoretical perspectives from journalism research, political science, media effects research and media psychology. Students also report personal growth and increased awareness of the intricate relationship between protagonists of media coverage and journalists producing this coverage, the creation/staging of “mediatized events” and “pseudo-events” and the unique psychological pressures both journalists and protagonists of media coverage face. Also, the interdependency between news organizations and public relations of various organizations has been exemplified, and the dynamic interplay between different interest groups has been exemplified.  Interesting suggestions for further improving the lectures and the planning game have emerged in the reference group and most of these suggestions will be implemented (see action plan) until next year. Quality of the process part of the course, as evaluated by the village supervisor: The team process reports clearly show that the students have acquired the knowledge about group processes, teamwork, and the handling of the challenges and potentials in interdisciplinary and intercultural teams (or “diversity” more generally). They have acquired the skills to actively observe, document and reflect on situations they experience, both individually and as a group. They also display the capacity of linking their observations with theory and making their observations more meaningful. Also, they have shown the capacity to take action and implement changes in order to facilitate group processes. They are aware that active communication and feedback to improve collaboration and effectiveness. One group had particularly strong challenged in establishing the ability to identify and detect problems and the situations in which they arise, but following efforts by learning assistants and the village supervisor, they have acquired better skills in taking note of problematic situations and the problems they might exemplify.   Interesting suggestions for further improving the observations/facilitations/practices by learning assistants have emerged in the reference group and most of these suggestions will be implemented (see action plan) until next year.

Expected learning outcomes for EiT in the spring of 2020 Knowledge·        Students have gained knowledge about group processes and are familiar with key concepts and prerequisites for good teamwork.·        Based on experience from the team, students can describe the prerequisites for good interdisciplinary teamwork.·        Students have insight into how their teamwork is influenced by their own behaviour patterns and attitudes, as well as those of others.Skills·        Students can apply their academic learning in cooperation with people from other subject areas, and jointly define problems and find solutions to them.·        Students can apply fundamental group theory and concepts to describe their own specific collaborative situations.·        Students can reflect on their teamwork and analyse the way that the group communicates, plans, decides, accomplishes tasks, handles disagreements and relates to professional, social and personal challenges.·        Students can provide feedback to the individual team member and to the team as a whole and can reflect on feedback from the team.·        Students can take initiatives (actions) that encourage cooperation, and they can contribute to changing patterns of interaction to create more productive, constructive and social collaboration in a group.General competence·        Students have extended their perspective on their own specialized knowledge in their encounter with skills from other disciplines. They can communicate and use skills they have developed in their own field in collaboration with students from other disciplines.·        Students can collaborate with people from other disciplines, and they can contribute to realizing the potential of their combined interdisciplinary expertise. Quality of the project part of the course, as evaluated by the village supervisor: The project reports and the village supervisor’s interactions with the students show that the students have clearly learned about and experienced first-hand the challenges of a mediatized society where organizations one is a member of (or even they as individuals) may be in the public spotlight, or this at least is a possibility. This potential of the public eye and its implications at various levels has been explored by the students from various theoretical perspectives from journalism research, political science, media effects research and media psychology. Students also report personal growth and increased awareness of the intricate relationship between protagonists of media coverage and journalists producing this coverage, the creation/staging of “mediatized events” and “pseudo-events” and the unique psychological pressures both journalists and protagonists of media coverage face. Also, the interdependency between news organizations and public relations of various organizations has been exemplified, and the dynamic interplay between different interest groups has been exemplified. Interesting suggestions for further improving the lectures and the planning game have emerged in the reference group and most of these suggestions will be implemented (see action plan) until next year. Quality of the process part of the course, as evaluated by the village supervisor: The team process reports clearly show that the students have acquired the knowledge about group processes, teamwork, and the handling of the challenges and potentials in interdisciplinary and intercultural teams (or “diversity” more generally). They have acquired the skills to actively observe, document and reflect on situations they experience, both individually and as a group. They also display the capacity of linking their observations with theory and making their observations more meaningful. Also, they have shown the capacity to take action and implement changes in order to facilitate group processes. They are aware that active communication and feedback to improve collaboration and effectiveness. One group had particularly strong challenged in establishing the ability to identify and detect problems and the situations in which they arise, but following efforts by learning assistants and the village supervisor, they have acquired better skills in taking note of problematic situations and the problems they might exemplify.  Interesting suggestions for further improving the observations/facilitations/practices by learning assistants have emerged in the reference group and most of these suggestions will be implemented (see action plan) until next year.

Both the teacher and the reference group participants perceived the project and team process reports as relevant and useful for assessing to what degree student groups have achieved the learning goals.

Eksperter i team - Mediatization of Society: What the Media Do to Us and What We Do with the Media

Web/Lists(guid'8b698a2d-6ad0-4f7d-b3be-219cc1979f02')/Items(5301)/FieldValuesAsText

Eksperter i team - Building future-proof health care systems - POL3802