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Joint International IGIP-SEFI Annual Conference 2010, 19 - 22 September 2010, Trnava, Slovakia

INTERDISCIPLINARY THINKING FOR FIRST YEAR STUDENTS OF

AALTO-UNIVERSITY
Heikki Hallantie1, Kati Vilonen2, Pirjo Pietikäinen3
1
Heikki Hallantie, Aalto-University, P.O. Box 19205 FI-00076 Aalto, Finland
heikki.hallantie@aalto.fi
2
Kati Vilonen, Aalto-University, P.O. Box 16200 FI-00076 Aalto, Finland
kati.vilonen@aalto.fi
3
Pirjo Pietikäinen, Aalto-University, P.O. Box 16100 FI-00076 Aalto, Finland
pirjo.pietikainen@aalto.fi

Abstract: An introductory course planned especially for the first year students was
organized in autumn 2009 by the three universities merging to form the new Aalto
University. That course combined the special fields of technology, business, art and
design possessed by those universities. In addition of the first year students the
course was advertised to all other students of those three universities and also to the
faculty as an introductory course for the whole new cross disciplinary field of the
coming Aalto University. The basis aim of the course was to enforce and guarantee
long term Orientation and motivation for sustainability in technology, economy and
arts among the students and also build elements of academic community between
students, university staff and faculty. A lecture series held by the most prominent
professors combined with students’ written individual Lecture Diaries was chosen as
the tools to reach the above goals. The lectures were supported by streaming videos,
which were also available after the lectures giving more freedom of choice for
participating students. The course was voluntary and it was advertised especially for
the first year students. However, quite many of the participating students were
already further in their studies and they participated because they were interested
about the topic. The participation of older students, in addition of freshmen, gave
different perspective to the settled goals, but also the older students felt the course
interesting and useful. During the course they learnt new things, which they found
advantageous. Lectures given by prominent professors tempted also other university
staff to participate in. Faculty members were also active in the discussion with
students in the end of the each lecture increasing the interaction during the course.
Accomplishment of learning goals was evaluated during the course based on the
Lecture Diaries written by the students. The feedback about students’ opinions of the
course and general arrangements was collected in the end. Based on the feedback it
can be summarized that in general the lecturers, the course personnel and
participated students were highly satisfied with the course, all the goals set for it were
met to a high extent.

Keywords: Sustainability, Study orientation, Motivation, Lecture Diary, e-learning,

Lecture videos.
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Joint International IGIP-SEFI Annual Conference 2010, 19 - 22 September 2010, Trnava, Slovakia

1. Introduction

Lectures are the conventional way to teach but there have been discussions that
lectures might be used even too much in universities. However, it is very effective
way to deliver new information which is not yet in books and also to highlight the
most important topics of particular field. [1] Today, discussions and activation
between the lecturer and the audience are a recognized as an important effect in the
creating inspiring and successful learning/teaching environment supporting both the
students’ motivation and their learning through interaction [2].

Lecture Diaries together with lectures offer a tool for students’ own individual thinking
and constructing the information delivered during the lectures, which is a requirement
of deep learning and understanding [3]. Interaction between the university faculty and
students can be increased if faculty members participate the reading and
commenting those diaries. This communication via Lecture Diaries between students
and teaching assistants from faculty was seen an important part of the learning
process. There are also evidences from other research, that the interaction between
students and faculty members is one of the key issues in the forming/enhancing of
students engagement and motivation [4,5].

In this case study we report the planning and implementation on a lecture series
having a theme Sustainable development of technology, business, art and design.
The idea for this course was born in the development phase of Aalto University.
Helsinki University of Technology, Helsinki School of Economics and University of Art
and Design Helsinki were merged to form Aalto University in 1.1.2010 and during the
planning phase of this process there were several working groups between the
parties. In one of those groups, dealing with learning culture, it was decided to
organize a special course where most prominent and distinguished professors of
Technology, Economy and Arts address the themes of sustainable future from their
point of view to first year students. In order to support students learning process the
Lecture Diaries with guided questions were to be written from each of the lectures.
The success of the course and evaluation of reaching of its learning outcomes were
estimated based on these Lecture Diaries and on a general feedback collected in the
end of the course.

2. Learning Objectives

The main objective of the course was to present important current research topics of
the three universities, which merge to form the Aalto University. The possible
solutions for sustainable development in building information society were chosen as
a theme. This gave a possibility to introduce new interdisciplinary ideas to motivate
the students and prepare them for the needs of tomorrows working life. Another goal
was to build basis for uniform and equal community of students and university staff,
chosen as a development target and defined in the (draft) code of conduct document
for Aalto University [6].
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Joint International IGIP-SEFI Annual Conference 2010, 19 - 22 September 2010, Trnava, Slovakia

After the course the student was aimed to be able to recognize central research
topics in technology, economy and art. He/she was also aimed to be able to analyze
his/her own knowledge building and learning processes in the form of learning diary.
This goal was part of the idea to offer an introductory course in the beginning of the
studies where the learning process and the recognition of its individual aspects have
a significant role in addition of the knowledge content of the course.

3. Theoretical framework

The following framework (Figure 1), which is called ICT-synchronized learning,

illustrates the design principles followed in organizing the course. The framework
shows the many aspects having influence in a learning situation being useful in the
planning of the course in order to balance the different factors and to guarantee good
teaching and learning quality.

In the framework the learning is in the centre, as it is required also in teaching, and
all actions related to the course support the learning. Planning of the teaching actions
were carried out using the determined learning outcomes of the course. This included
the choosing the learning tools and the creation of the whole learning environment.
For example lectures were decided to be available on the web to increase the
flexibility of time. On-line Teaching and Learning Portal “Noppa” was used for
delivering course information, lecture notes and Lecture Videos. The use of virtual
learning environment Optima was needed to handle the reading and commenting of
all lecture diaries. Time management of students was supported with weekly
timetable; Learning Diaries were required to be return after one week of the lecture.

The content of the course was presented in a form of lectures given by the expert
professors and the students’ knowledge management was supported by the Learning
Diaries. Guidance during the course was given by teaching assistants reading and
commenting the lecture diaries. Peer support was not utilised in a best possible way,
because it was too much to require any additional group discussions with in the
extent of this two credit course. However, students were encouraged to discuss
about the topic of weekly lecture also outside of the lecture hall with each others.
Actually many of them mentioned about the new ideas they hade got about those
informal discussions in their learning diary. The motivation of the course was
managed with interesting and actual lecture topics, promoted by lively presentations
of professors.
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Joint International IGIP-SEFI Annual Conference 2010, 19 - 22 September 2010, Trnava, Slovakia

Learning Content Knowledge

tools Management

Learning Guidance
Environment Learning

Teaching Peer
Support

Time Learning
Planning management Outcomes Motivation

Figure 1. ICT - Synchronized Learning

The framework shows the many aspects having influence in a learning situation. It
was used in planning the course in order to balance the different factors in order to
guarantee good teaching and learning quality.

4. Course Organization

The course was organized in the form of ten open lectures which were broadcasted
to the internet and lecture videos were stored on a media server. No obligation for
attendance was demanded because of the Lecture Videos.The recruiting of lecturers
succeeded very well and all professors who were invited agreed to give their lecture.
The lecturers represented all three schools of Aalto University. The lectures covered
a wide range of interesting topics like future of computing, brain research,
economical impact of innovations, future of education, possibilities of
nanotechnology, and relations of art and business, just to mention a few topics. The
largest lecture hall available was reserved for the course because the amount of
participants could potentially vary from hundred to several hundreds. The lectures
were available in PPT- or PDF- format and high quality videos.

All students wrote a diary of all lectures. Lecture Diaries were returned to Optima-
learning management system. The template of the diary with some preliminary
questions was given in advance. Those questions were for example, mention the
most important and interesting points of the lecture from your own perspective,
analyze the content using both your previous and new knowledge about the topic,
and give some reasons about if the presented field of science would offer interesting
future job opportunities to you. Five teaching assistants were recruited from different
departments at Aalto University School of Science and Technology to read and
comment the Lecture Diaries. [7,8]
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Joint International IGIP-SEFI Annual Conference 2010, 19 - 22 September 2010, Trnava, Slovakia

155 students enrolled to the course and 87 students finally passed this piloting
course. Those around sixty students, who drop out the course, did it mostly in the
very beginning of the course and this was probably due to overloading of courses
they had taken in the beginning of semester. The Lecture Diary as learning method
proved to work well. The creative and original diaries showed that the students had
good motivation and they found the dealt subject areas meaningful. The high
motivation and interest into subject was seen also from generally very well made
lecture diaries, although the diaries were assessed only accepted / failed. Students
were really interested in the subjects and some of them had even looked for more
background material or studied something relating the topic of the lecture.

There were also dozens of faculty members present on the lecture, either
occasionally or even participating to all the lectures. Some of faculty member were
also utilizing the lecture videos although the number of those participants was not
able to count. However, those videos offer the useful resource presenting the ten
interesting research areas of the Aalto University.

5. Statistical feedback, direct feedback from participants

Feedback from students’ thoughts and their learning was got from the Lecture Diaries
they wrote on every week during the course. In addition of that the general feedback
was collected in the end of the course. Statistical feedback in the end of the course
was collected from the participants in the form of summative questions and also free
text questions. Some of the results are shown in Figure 2.

Estim ate your ow n w ork during the Did the course m eet the Course as a whole (contents, methods,
course requirem ents you had set for it? lectures, arrangements …)
0%
0% 0%
0%
8% 4% 8% 4% 10 % 24 % Poor
32 % 32 %
Passable
Satisfactory
56 % 56 %
66 % Good
Excellent

Figure 2. Overall summary of the three summative questions: (52 responses)

There were lots of written positive comments reviewed in the diaries and in the
feedback form. Students felt that they got both new knowledge and useful ideas from
the lectures and they were also managed deepen their thinking by writing Lecture
Diaries.

Based on given feedback the students were in general satisfied with their working
during the course. More than half of them gave themselves grade good (4 on a scale
1-5) when it was asked about their own working during the course and commitment
on it. Several reasons why not all of students were not totally satisfied to their own
work were that some of them had been occasionally too busy with other studies.
They also mentioned that they were not able to participate on all lectures because of
overlaping duties although they would have liked. They felt that it would have been
better to be more present although they were happy about the possibility to see
lectures later from video.
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Joint International IGIP-SEFI Annual Conference 2010, 19 - 22 September 2010, Trnava, Slovakia

Most of the students mentioned that the course filled their expectations. Some of
them even told that they got more than they had expected. A few comments were
obtained of too general perspective; because every topic was treated with a two hour
lecture and the topics differed largely form each other. Also few students said that the
course was not concentrating enough on sustainable development although it was
mentioned in course name. On the other hand, higher amount of students said that
they liked the idea of giving so many different perspectives to sustainability and
things that can be related on it.

The students found the Lecture Diaries beneficial. They mentioned that writing gave
a very nice way to rearrange their thoughts and get a deeper approach to the subject.
The feedback and comments given to these texts was working as a source of
motivation. The availability of lecture videos was greatly acknowledged and many
students said that without those videos they would not had possibility to complete this
course. Students appreciated also the discussions after lectures and many of them
were sorry because they were not able to attend all the lectures. The most common
idea for future development was to increase the interaction between the participants.
For example some kind of discussion forums or group works were suggested. Few
students presented the idea of having lecturers also from industry, not only
academia.

General interpretation from the answers was that although there was no exam and
student did not get numerical grading from this course, they were highly motivated in
writing Lecture Diaries. The students found it rewarding that they could focus in
topics they were personally interested in their essays. They also felt that they had
learnt new and useful things at the course: Not any details but a broader perspective
to art and design, business and technology. They understood more about idea of
multidisciplinary in academia, correlations of different disciplines in society as well as
critical thinking.

6. Conclusions, lessons learnt

6.1. Students’ experiences

The feedback shows that the first learning objective, to recognize central research
topics in technology, economy and art, was reached well. Almost everyone
mentioned that they were able to gain a wide perspective about many interesting
fields. Lecture Diaries also gave a clear picture that students had understood the
general issues from the lectures and they were also able to reflect their own thoughts
in the lecture theme. They mentioned in their diaries that very often they had also got
some new ideas. Based on the texts it was easy to observe the thinking process
which was initialized by the lecture. Also the goals with interaction and students
focusing their own learning process were fulfilled.

The most important thing to improve during the next time for the interaction between
the participants, for example in the form of discussions groups in the internet,
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Joint International IGIP-SEFI Annual Conference 2010, 19 - 22 September 2010, Trnava, Slovakia

focusing on some general themes of the course. This gives also a possibility for a
larger part of the faculty member to participate in those discussions.

6.2. Faculty’s experiences

All professors who gave their lectures were intrigued by this whole seminar and they
were also interested in reading the students’ Lecture Diaries. They liked the general
discussion with audience in the end of the lecture. These discussions were usually
very catching and in addition to students also the faculty members participating in
lectures were also participating in sharing ideas and opinions. Most of the professors
have already accepted the invitation for the lecture on the next autumn seminar.

From the course assistants’ perspective the weekly Lecture Diaries divided the work
nicely throughout the whole semester. Approximately 20 students per assistant was a
controllable work load in addition to all normal duties. It was interesting to read those
diaries and discuss, comment and challenge students’ thoughts. It was good that
same assistant was reading all Lecture Diaries of the same students. It gave the
possibility to see the development of thoughts during this learning process.

6.3. Some General Thoughts

Lecture topics were interesting and fascinating, which increased students’ motivation
towards to course. Lecture videos were very popular. They made it possible to
participate discussions after lectures using either chat in Optima virtual learning
environment or Twitter, which were appreciated by students. There seems to be a
clear need of this type general lecture series, for sharing information which is not yet
in books. This kind on teaching and learning activities could help also in forming a
common forum of interaction and discussion between students and professors, as
well as the whole faculty.

As a conclusion the course met very well its targets and it will be repeated for a
larger audience during the academic year 2010-2011, as a final conclusion this
course was definitely worth of arranging.

7. Acknowledgements

All professors willing to give their interesting lectures and also allowing the videos of
those lectures are greatly acknowledged from the success of this course. The writers
want to thank the other teaching personnel participating in general arrangement and
reading of lecture diaries. Also technical staff, EC-Media team, is acknowledged from
their work which made the delivery of lecture videos possible.
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Joint International IGIP-SEFI Annual Conference 2010, 19 - 22 September 2010, Trnava, Slovakia

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