Slutrapport kursutvärdering, EEMN21

Basfakta

Sammanfattning av enkätsvar

På alla frågor utom den om närvaro kan poängen variera mellan -100 och +100, där -100 innebär att man "tar helt avstånd från påståendet" och +100 att man "instämmer helt i påståendet".

Kommentarer

Kursrepresentantens kommentarer

Overall the course fullfills it's aims. Projects and laborations were especially engaging, various in topic, and well spaced out throughout the course. The workload was well balanced. A possible improvement on the lectures could be increasing the interwovenness of foundational physics and applications of microfluidics. This could mitigate the risk of student attendance decline as the course lectures move from basic theoretical concepts to technical aspects. During some lectures it could be relevant to study some mathematical or physical arguments on the whiteboards to increase understanding of some concepts. Overall, the students seemed engaged and enjoyed participating in the course. There were several questions asked to each other after student presentations. Keep doing the home lab with video presentations during week one to reel students in.

Kurslärarens kommenterer

All CEQ-scales were very positive and all of the responding students were very satisfied with the course. This should, however, be interpreted cautiously since the response rate this year was only 2 out of 14 registered students (14%).

Some more specific comments and suggestions from the CEQ survey and the discussion between a course coordinator and the student representatives were:

• The response rate may be low due to all surveys received nowadays. It may possibly be improved by the course coordinators reminding the students that it is important and used or making it mandatory. The alternative to have it in printed form at the exam may not be so good since the students are tired after the exam. It may be easier to get feedback while it may still help the current students, e.g. halfway or 3/4 through the course or in the weekly quizzes.

• It was good to start with the lab exercises the first week to quickly get into the course and to spread out the workload.

• It was good with variation in the lab and project tasks and reporting, and the students seemed engaged.

• The lectures had clear, concrete explanations and it was welcoming for asking questions.

• It would be good with more examples of calculations during the lectures.

• It would be good to connect back to the physics from the early lectures in the later part of the course and vice versa.

• Sometimes generally in courses the workload can be unevenly distributed in group projects and this can be hard to bring up with the teachers since you don’t want to tell on your fellow students. An alternative could be to have a shorter version of the tasks for students preferring to work alone. This may, however, prevent those who need it the most from practicing group work.

• It was convenient for the students to hand in a lab report and use the feedback to know what was expected of them. This is often not appreciated by the teachers, however, since it increases their workload. Even though instructions were often through, even clearer instructions or expectations may reduce this need.

• A way experienced in high school to make tests more pedagogical was to get to take the test home and hand it in with errors fixed for extra credit.

• In the exam the free text questions were more memory-based and the calculations more based on understanding. A suggestion was to distribute the credits evenly between the two exam parts.

• There were less and less students at the lectures over the course of the course. This may have been due to the workload increasing with time both in this and other courses, leading to mandatory tasks to be prioritized. Making the lectures mandatory does, however, not seem to be an attractive option. It may be an option to promote the coming lectures more in the previous lectures or with course portal messages.

• The workload in the course was reasonable and well balanced over time, making it possible to have time to understand the course.

All in all the students seemed satisfied with the course.

CEQ-enkäten fylldes i