Topic outline

  • Course Assessment & Feedback

    Course assessment is based on the assessment by both teachers and students in a following way: 

    • Half of the grade comes from the assessment by teachers 
           - 1/4 of the grade based on Reading Circle Summary
           - 3/4 based on Case Study (25% from Case Study presentation, 75% from Case Study Report)

    • Half of the grade comes from the assessment by students through Peer & Self Assessment

    Instructions about Peer & Self Assessment will be provided during the course.

    Note that as there is no exam in the course but learning and assessment is based on group work, individual assignments and sessions, it is compulsory to participate in all Contact Sessions and Case Study Sessions. You can miss one session, after that you must do a personal Compensatory Task (see Sessions & Reading Circles sub-page).

    • Not available unless: You are a(n) Student
      File icon
      Course grades: WAT-E2080 File PDF

      Attached file shows your final grade from WAT-E2080 course, including grades for Reading Circle Briefs and Case Study as well as from Peer & Self Assessment. The personal written feedback from Peer & Self Assessment will be sent to your email separately, while the comments on your Case Study Reports can be found from your group's Teams sub-channel.

      If you have any questions regarding the assessment, please send email to course email address: wat-e2080@aalto.fi.

    • Course Feedback 

      You can give feedback both during and after the course. Feedback encourages your own reflection while also helping us to improve the course, so please be active! 

      The feedback from the last year's course is available here, and we have used it to develop the course further by e.g. clarifying the Case Study instructions and timetable as well as developing the analytical framework further. At the same time, the remote learning mode for this year's course has naturally changed many course practicalities.


      Feedback during the course

      There are three ways to give feedback during the course. Easiest way to give feeback is to talk to course teachers after the sessions. Alternatively, you can send email to course email address: wat-e2080 (at) aalto.fi. You can also give anonymous feedback box through MyCourses (see below).


      Feedback after the course

      There are three ways to give feedback after the course. You can give feedback electronically as part of your Peer & Self Assessment as well as through usual Course Feedback through Webropol. In addition, we will have a short feedback and reflection session during the last Contact Session of the course, where you can discuss the course with your group and teachers. 


      Thank you for your feedback! 


    • Feedback on your course feedback ('vastapalaute')

      Thank you for the feedback you provided on our course through Peer & Self Assessment (on your group work) and the standard Course Feedback Survey in Webropol. We very much appreciate your answers! 

      At the end of this page you will find as separate pdf-files both your feedback on the group work as well as the summary report from Course Feedback Survey: please read them and reflect your peers' views against your own ideas. Also let us know if you have any further questions and comments! 

      The survey report shows that the course went generally well, with all of the 14 respondents finding the course good (6), very good (7) or even excellent (1). A great majority i.e. 13 out of the total 14 respondents also agreed that the teaching methods applied in the course supported their learning. These were also supported by your written answers, which showed that the respondents were generally satisfied with the course structure and the different learning activities. 

      Overall, these responses indicate that the course is generally working well, and we therefore plan to maintain the basic structure of the course similar also next year. 

      Compared to the previous year, however, the overall grades for the course dropped slightly: this most likely reflect the challenges related to online learning. As we had not taught this course fully online before, we were unsure how well the different platforms work (and therefore also working first with both Zoom and Teams, before moving primarily to Teams). This of course created some confusion, which can also be seen from your answers on the course online practicalities. Yet, we were pleased to find also that several respondents still found the online practicalities functional and well organized, and we will most likely make use of Teams and its subchannels also in the future. And we do very much agree with the comments that it would have been beneficial to have the lectures in a real, physical lecture room: unfortunately this year that was not an option.

      We also appreciate the vides and suggestions you provided regarding the different aspects of the course. The workload is one issue where the respondents views seem to differ every year: bit less than half (43%) of you saw that the course requires more work than planned, while rest i.e. 57% saw that the workload is in balance. We can also see the same kind of differences in the answers regarding e.g. the preparatory reading circle and the case studies: while some of you were unhappy on how they were organized, others found them useful. 

      We will consider all your comments when planning the course for next year. One clear thing to improve relates to the case studies and their guidance: we will pay additional attention to this and will e.g. consider giving examples of possible research questions for each case study already at the very beginning of the course. Relating to this, we do feel that mentoring the case study work was much more difficult in online environment, which most likely also had an affect on your work. 

      Finally, we appreciated your comments on the course assessment, especially the role of Peer & Self Assessment. Although the respondents' views varied in this regard as well, we will consider the possibilities to develop the course assessment, including possible decreased role of Peer & Self Assessment. 

      Thank you again for participating in the course and for your feedback!

      Have a nice spring and stay safe! 

           Marko, Mia & Lauri

       


    • File icon
      WAT-E2080 Course Feedback Report File PDF

      Attached document provides synthesis report of your anonymous course feedback: thank you for your feedback! Kindly also read our feedback on your feedback ('vastapalaute') above.

    • File icon
      Your views on WAT-E2080 group work File PDF

      Attached file summarises the views and feedback you gave on your group work as part of the Peer & Self Assessment. 

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