Programme Integrating Courses Making Engineering Students Reflect

Abstract

A programme integrating course (PIC) is a special type of course, lasting for several academic years and aiming to strengthen programme coherence, by tying the students, instructors and programme director closer together. The first PIC was started at KTH in 2008. Since then, the concept has been polished and adopted by many engineering and masters of science programmes at KTH and at other universities. The course is built around regular (four times a year) reflection seminars in small cross-grade groups, mentored by a teacher. Each seminar has a topic, for example, study skills, procrastination, exchange studies, generic skills, minorities and equal treatment and ergonomics and mental health. Before the seminar, the students are presented with some material to read and view. Based on the texts and videos, each student should write a reflection document and read and comment some other students' reflections. At the seminar, the students will further discuss the topic and discuss the courses that they are currently taking. PIC has been evaluated and found very valuable by both the students and the teachers acting as mentors. This chapter will review the existing literature on PICs, which is mostly in Swedish.

Leadership and Pedagogical Skills in Computer Science Engineering by Combining a Degree in Engineering with a Degree in Education

“…At the end of each academic year, the students of the reference programme Computer Science and Engineering (CS) have to answer a survey containing questions related to different aspects of the programme, for example, the learning environment, the development of specific skills through the programme, stress and mental health. We can make the survey mandatory because it is a part of the assessment of the Programme Integrating Course [12], which among its learning objectives has Review critically and reflect on both the setup and implementation of the education as well as their own study achievements. Of the 90 students answering the survey in 2019, 84 accepted that their answers might be used in a research study.…”

“…For example, the CL alumni responding to the career survey had taken the course Identity Formation and Socialization which included gender aspects, while the CS alumni did not have gender aspects in any of their courses at the time. In 2015, teaching regarding minorities and equality was introduced in the Programme Integrating Course at CS [12], but the respondents in the general career follow-up have not participated in this. In Fig.…”