THE PEDAGOGICAL DEVELOPERS INITIATIVE - CHANGING EDUCATIONAL PRACTICES AND STRENGTHENING CDIO SKILLS

This paper put emphasis on change agents within the universities and how local initiatives can be systematically approached and ramped up. Rooted in the challenges and constraints that have been addressed in past educational program initiatives, the case consists of specific focus areas to leverage impact. Universities continuously strives to provide the best conditions for an inspiring and prosperous learning environment, and to provide educational programs with teaching of excellent educational quality. KTH is no exception and therefore the university management has initiated a pedagogical program starting in 2014. One of the first thing initiated within the framework of this pedagogical program is the creation of a group of 24 pedagogical developers.

The focus for the pedagogical developers is to facilitate the opportunities for KTHs faculty to work together and create consensus on educational development in different teaching teams. This paper presents the University's pedagogical developers' initiative as a whole and how this has been outlined in detail to reach specific redesign targets. The School of Industrial Engineering and Management pedagogical group consists of five practicing teachers that besides this new role also engage heavily in various courses of the School's departments. Since the pedagogical initiative is aligned with several important CDIO aspects, e.g. the learning environment, formats of formative feedback, assessment and examination there is also importance to reassure this in the existing Master level programs.

At KTH the five-year comprehensive Master of Science in Engineering programs concern distinct vocational educations in which the CDIO aspects are very important. At the same time the programs has been divided in a basic level (B.Sc. in Engineering) of three years and a advanced level (M.Sc.) of two years. This has for instance made it harder to align the progression between first cycle level and second cycle level regarding for instance the CDIO efforts (e.g. oral and written communication, teamwork). This paper will therefore discuss and enhance how the pedagogical programme, we as pedagogical developers, can support and strengthen the initiation and implementation of the CDIO aspects in the education.

Proceedings of the 11th International CDIO Conference, Chengdu, China, June 8-11 2015