1. Introduction to Problem based Learning – The AAU Way
Program:
Tuesday: Structure, teaching task's, courses, PBL/Project Work
Wednesday: The Aalborg model - trying it out
Thursday: Supervision and assessment
Coffee break's at ap and Lunch at 12.00

2. Introduction to Problem based Learning – The AAU Way
Program for to day, Structure, teaching task's, courses, PBL/Project Work :
Welcome
Introduction and short presentation
Structure and conditions
Teaching task's
Courses
Exercise
Problem based learning and/or Project Work
Tell about each bullit by reading up the content from the program

3. Structure of Aalborg University
Welcome to
Aalborg University
If you look at the home page for the university (in English) you will see this:
The university of course has both education and research and at the moment wee are interested in the structure, so we have too look at the organization, click :
The university is governed by the senate, which off course only meets about 8 times a year an mainly discuss the policy of the university. The practical daily work of administrating this policy is done by the rectorat and of the 3 faculties. Lets see who is the rector. Unfortunately he couldn’t be here to day, but he has a message for you.

4. Structure of Aalborg University
University Senate
Rectorate
Faculty of
Humanities
Faculty of Engi-
neering and Sc.
Social Science
Departments
Study
Programmes
So now wee have a senate and 3 faculties. Yours is in the middle, and there home page is a picture of the university campus and they are responsible for the education and research within the engineering and science part of the university.

5. Structure of Aalborg University
Secretary and labs
Research
Teaching
University Senate
Rectorate
Faculty of
Humanities
Faculty of Engi-
neering and Sc.
Social Science
Institute of Elec-
tronic Systems
Study
Programmes
The research is done in different departments and the studies is controlled by study programmes.
There are a lot of departments and a little bit confusing the largest department is called an institute, and this is were most of you is working, within the institute of electronic systemet in one of its 3 departments …
So we might replace the departments with this specific institute. Every institute has secretaries and labs and are responsible for some research, which is done by you. But you also has to do some teaching, which is why you are following this course. But as a teacher you actually works for a study board controlling one or more of the study programmes, which are :
Basic year concentrating on learning the students to work in groups with problem oriented projects that has to be documented in a scientific way. Of course the projects are within the engineering frame they have chosen for their education, so e.g.. All 100 students who have chosen electronic and electrical engineering work within the same theme and are given the same courses. I will later dig a little bit deeper into the study programmes, but as for now it is the structure we are interested in, and you will be teaching within one of the two eee and or computer engineering.

6. Structure of Aalborg University
University Senate
Rectorate
Faculty of
Humanities
Faculty of Engi-
neering and Sc.
Social Science
Secretary and labs
Research
Teaching
Project work
Course activities
Institute of Elec-
tronic Systems
Computer Eng.
Electronic and .
So the study programmes mainly consists of project work and courses.

7. Working tasks for VIP’s
Professor
Associated Professor
Assistent Professor
Ph.D.
student
Research
40%
50%
80%
Teaching
20%
Administra-tion
10% 0%
Lets leave the structure for a while and summarize what are your working tasks, namely research, teaching and taking part in the administration. A professor and an associated professor is basically given the same amount of time for the tree tasks, but of course the professors usually has a main part of their teaching as supervisors for Ph.D students working within the professors research area, and thereby helping with the research. The figures for research and administration are approximately and differs a little bit from year to year depending on how the faculty divides their research capacity, and how good the research is founded by the government. If you get less research and administration you will just get more teaching. The assistant professors are guarantied 50% research time to continue their research education as a Ph.D. student towards a senior researcher. Finally the Ph.D. students are supposed to a little teaching but no administration.

8. Study board for Electronics and Information Technology
So now you all now how much of our time you are supposed to teach, lets have a closer look of the engineering education that you will be teaching. As a teacher you will be working for the study board for Electronics and information technology, or – if you are teaching the first year for the study board for the basic education. The first 1½ year after the basic education there are two sectors the students can follow….
Then there is a possibility to chose among 6 lines at this study board and another 2 lines, if you switch to another study board each with a number of theses for the last two semesters to become a master of science. After the 6’th semester the student can do a final project and become a bachelor of science but less than 20 % uses this opportunity.
So these are the educations that your study board are responsible for, but how is they controlled?

9. Controlling the studies
Study Regulations:
General regulations
The Danish government has maid some general regulations for all engineering educations in Denmark, both bachelors and masters, which I am sad to say are not published in English. On top of those the faculty of engineering and science have made some general regulations for all engineers educated at Aalborg university, also only in Danish.
Based on these general regulations each study board describe what the students have to learn. The first level are the sectors lines and specializations from the last figure. Lets take an example from one of the specializations that are open for foreign students. They actually start already on the 8’the semester and has a length of tree semesters providing the students with an international master degree.
Intelligent autonomous systems, which are described by objectives and content of the specialization, held on a general level in stead of specifying courses.

10. Controlling the studies
4.6. INTELLIGENT AUTONOMOUS SYSTEMS
Objectives and contents of the specialisation
The objectives of the specialisation in Intelligent Autonomous Systems are summarised as follows:
to provide students with knowledge in modelling of mechanical systems such as
spacecraft, ships, and mobile robots,
enable the student to apply modern methods of control to problems related to
autonomous systems,
to analyse methods of state observation, parameter estimation and sensor fusion in
mechanical systems,
to provide students with a comprehension of supervisory control, fault-tolerant
control and fault detection,
to let students analyse software architectures for autonomous systems.
The courses include necessary general theoretical topics within process control for
autonomous systems but modules are also made available in scientific communication and proficiency in English language for those who need it.
Controlling the studies
Study Regulations:
General regulations
Sector’s, lines or specialization’s
Objectives and content
The Danish government has maid some general regulations for all engineering educations in Denmark, both bachelors and masters, which I am sad to say are not published in English. On top of those the faculty of engineering and science have made some general regulations for all engineers educated at Aalborg university, also only in Danish.
Based on these general regulations each study board describe what the students have to learn. The first level are the sectors lines and specializations from the last figure. Lets take an example from one of the specializations that are open for foreign students. They actually start already on the 8’the semester and has a length of tree semesters providing the students with an international master degree.
Intelligent autonomous systems, which are described by objectives and content of the specialization, held on a general level in stead of specifying courses.

11. Controlling the studies
SPRING Semester – Intelligent Autonomous Systems
THEME: Modelling and Control
PERIOD: 1 February - 30 June
PURPOSE:
To give knowledge and comprehension of optimal and robust control theory.
To give the students the ability to analyse modern control methods for multi
input/multi output systems.
To give students the ability to apply modelling methods and control synthesis for
advanced mechanical systems.
CONTENTS:
The project is based on a problem of control and supervision of an autonomous system. The model of the mechanical system has to be derived. The vital part of the project is the choice of the set of actuators and sensors for onboard application. Different control strategies have to be investigated and compared. The supervisor system responsible for autonomy onboard has to be designed. The chosen solution has to be implemented on a real time platform and tested, either by the computer simulations or dedicated hardware.
COURSES:
Courses will be given in the field of modelling of mechanical systems, supervisory and
fault tolerant control, and modern control theory.
EXAM:
The external oral examination is based on the prepared project documentation. Each student is marked according to the 13-scale.
Controlling the studies
Study Regulations:
General regulations
Sector’s, lines or specialization’s
Objectives and content
Specific semesters
Theme
When we reach a specific semester it will have a theme, and there is a more detailed description of purpose and content of that semester and its courses, example ….

12. Controlling the studies
Model based tracking for navigation
Background
As part of an ongoing research project (with Computer Science AAU and The Danish Institute of Agricultural Sciences) an autonomous vehicle is developed which navigates autonomously in the field. The aim is to reduce the inputs to the field and monitor the growth of the individual plants, thereby providing obvious environmental and economic advantages over more traditional farming.
Purpose
It is important in such applications to both navigate accurately in the field but also to be able to identify individual plants. The aim in this project is to use perspective images captures from a camera mounted on the front of the vehicle to provide estimates of structure of the crop rows as well as position of the individual plants. The focus will not be on the image analysis but on sensor fusion with non-vision sensors mounted on the vehicle e.g. wheel encoders, differential GPS as well as integration of information about the known structure of the field.
The aim is to use all available information on the autonomous vehicle in order to achieve the best possible estimates of the vehicle and individual plant position (in the order of cm).
Methods
The project will include:
Modeling of vehicle system and plant pattern in the camera image
Prediction of the crop structure based on the system models as well as previous measurements (images and
data from sensors)
Estimation of vehicle position and orientation as well as plant position
Algorithms are simulated in the laboratory on simple setup.
If possible the algorithms are applied to data acquired in the field.
Controlling the studies
Study Regulations:
General regulations
Sector’s, lines or specialization’s
Objectives and content
Specific semesters
Theme
Projects
Together with the theme their will be some proposals for projects, that the students can do. Based on these descriptions and often and oral presentation from the supervisors the students forms groups (5-6 persons) and chooses one of the project proposals for their project within the semester.

13. Controlling the studies
Study related courses (SE):
Fault Detection and Automated Systems
Modelling of Mechanical Systems
Controller Structures
Modelling of Mechanical Systems II
Engineering Responsibilities
Project related courses (PE):
Robust Control
Optimal Control
Supervisory Control
Neural Networks and Fuzzy Logic
Project Management and Team Building
Controlling the studies
Study Regulations:
General regulations
Sector’s, lines or specialization’s
Objectives and content
Specific semesters
Theme
Projects
Courses
For each semester there will also be a list of courses, most of them related to the projects but also some more related to the study in general. Every one of these courses has its own specific description, but I will dig closer into that in a minute.

14. Controlling the studies
Study Regulations:
General regulations
Sector’s, lines or specialization’s
Objectives and content
Specific semesters
Theme
Projects
Courses
Semester group
Finally there will be a semester group responsible for the semester. This group is formed 1-2 month before the semester starts and consists then of all the supervisors and those who are giving the courses. This means that if you are working on different semesters at the same time you might be a member of more than one semester group. This group now has to plan the semester: found out who shall give the courses, discuss eventual changes in the courses. Make new project proposals if necessary (often), make a specific syllabus (calendar plan) for the semester and held an introduction for the students before the semester starts, to tell about the semester content and its projects.

15. Teaching task’s Structure of a semester: Study courses and lectures
Project courses
lectures seminar
Lecturer/instructor
Examination
50% - 33%
Examinor
Lecturer/instructor
Project
So now you know what a semester is , but what is your teaching task’s on a given semester?
Depending on what semester we look at the projects takes among 50% (first year) and 67% (9’th semester) of the students time, so a major teaching task is to be supervisor for a project group. The tasks for the supervisor will be a major issue on Wednesday, but now I will say that it is about advising and facilitating. At the end of the semester each of the projects and the members of the project group have to be examined, so the supervisor will now act as an examinator, and there will be appointed another teacher as a censor. So if you for instance is a supervisor for 2 project groups at 6’th semester, you also might be asked to be censor for one of your colleagues on another semester that is within your expertise. The study board pays you some hours for being a supervisor, depending upon which semester it is and how many students there is in the study group, but it will normally correspond to 10 – 15 % of your working time within a semester, meaning that if you e.g.. Is supervisor for four groups, then you will be fully occupied as a teacher (50 %) if you are an associated professor.
The rest of the time the students take courses, both the project related ones, where your job is to held lectures but also, as you will know in the afternoon to instruct the students doing exercises. When there are many students following the course (normally more than 5 groups) there will be an extra instructor to help during the exercises, and this job is often done by Ph.D. students who are not yet giving courses them selves. The payment for giving courses depend on the length of the course, but I will tell you about that in the afternoon.
The study courses needs lectures and instructors as well, but as they are general courses they have to be examined individually, and this is done by the lecturer, mostly by a written examination without a censor. The study board will pay you ½ hour for each student to make the examination exercises and to control the students answers.
Supervisor: Advisor and facilitator
50% - 67%
Examinor/censor
Examination

16. Forming of groups Please form 4 groups of 6 persons
The groups will be used for exercises during the course
You will learn the most if you mix as much as possible:
Position
Teaching experience
Department

17. Courses Description Course Description Optimal Control Theory Purpose:
To give the students knowledge in optimal control and practical experience with optimal control strategies based on minimisation of a performance index.
Contents:
Dynamic programming
LQ control
Introduction of reference and disturbance conditions
Introduction of integral conditions
Use of observer, LQG control
The position of closed loop poles
Prerequisites: Analogue and Digital Control (FP6-4, PR6-1, PR6-2), Stochastic systems (FP6-3, FP8-5)
Duration: 1 module
Category: Project theme course (PE- course)
Courses
Description
Now you have learned a little bit about the structure of this university, the conditions undcer wich the studies are controlled and described and what teaching tasks you can be asked to do. In the rest of the course we will dig deeper into these tasks, especially those concerning project work and supervision of it, which is where Aalborg university differs the most from most other universities. But also regarding courses there are some differences, that I will tell you about, and we will discus this afternoon.
I will NOT tell you about how to give a lecturer, because I think most of you now already and also it is NOT the scope of this course.
For each course there will be a specific description mostly made by the study board consulting some of the experts in the area. An example:….
The duration is related to our definition of modules. One module is 20 hours of confrontation with the students, parted in 5 times 4 hours e.g.. Every Monday afternoon for 5 weeks. To prepare one confronting hour you will be granted 2½ hour, meaning that the study board will pay you 70 hours for giving a one module course, which again is about 8% of your working time pr. semester, meaning that if you are an associated professor an only gives courses then you will have to give 6-7 modules of courses each semester.

18. Courses Description Placed in a timetable for the semester
For each semester there will be a timetable, where the students can see when the courses are given and when they are supposed to make their projects.

19. Because of the module length of 5 times 4 hours the semester is parted in 3 periods of 5 weeks and each day is parted in a morning session and an afternoon session. E.g.. The course from before is held in the first period each Monday morning.

20. If we look at the total time plan for the whole semester you will see that the number of courses decrease during the semester due to two reasons. First most of the Project oriented courses have to be given in the beginning, so that the students can use the theory in their projects, but also because a project is a slow starter, but uses a lot of time in the final stage.

21. Courses Description Placed in a timetable for the semester Syllabus
For each course the lecturer decides how he or her will present the theory and what to present first, so based on the course description from the study board the lecturer makes a specific syllabus for the course, where the students can see what the content of each lecture or lesson (4 hour) is, what literature they are supposed to read and what exercises they shall solve.

22. Courses Each lesson/lecture (Mini module):
Duration 3 hours 45 minutes (½ day)
2 lectures app. 45 min each
Exercises in groups, app. 2 hours
The lecturer is now instructor
The purpose of the combination of lectures/exercises is to increase the comprehension of the curriculum
Lets look a little bit closer into a lesson or lecture also called a mini module.
The duration is not precisely 4 hours because of the lunch break. Typically there will be 2 lectures ..with a short break in between
For the rest of the lesson the students will solve exercises within their group and in their group room, so the lecturer is now working around visiting each group and helping or instructing them with the exercises, and as i mentioned before there will be a helping instructor if there are more than 5 groups.
The reason for this combination of lectures and exercises is…

23. Courses What kind of exercises would you chose?
Promote comprehension and methodical ness
How will you act as instructor during the exercises in the groups?
Ask questions about how they have made their solution
Make sure that they have understood the basic principles of the problems
But if you want to increase the comprehension using exercises, what kind of exercise would you chose?
Some of you might be very familiar with this combination, and others are more used to a total separation of lectures and exercises, but anyway i would like you to discus this issue together with the persons near to you for about 5 minutes, and then I will summe up your suggestions.
5 min, opsummering og sammenligning med mit korte generelle forslag, som de sikkert har mere specifikke bud på.
Lets take a small exercise more: How will you act as instructor during the exercises?
5 min osv.

24. Courses Differences between project course (PE) and study course (SE)
Examination
PE has no formal examination by the lecturer, it is examined during the project examination by the supervisor
SE is examined by the lecturer, normally as a written examination (passed/non passed)
Exercises
PE is used in the project, exercises is examples
In SE the student must learn to solve examination exercises
My final slide about courses is to summe up the differences between the two types of courses, because although they are very much alike, there are some major differences that you have to be aware of.
The major difference is the examination, where the PE course don't have to think about examine, and thereby the students is not driven by exam but concentrates more of the issues in the course that they think can be useful for their projects. As the supervisor seldom is the same person as the lecturer it is most common that only the parts of the courses that are actually used in the projects and those who might have been relevant to use are examined.
The study courses are examined by the lecturer ….. This means that the student are often driven by the examine, and maybe they read less of the theory and concentrate more about solving the exercises, thinking that they will have to do some of the same kind at the exam.
So we also have a difference in the exercises, where the PE don't have to use a lot of examples of the same kind, because the students have to dig deeper into the theory in order to use it in their projects, whilst the SE have to use typically examination exercises some times if the students are to be able to solve them at the examination.

25. Lunch until 12.45

26. Course exercise
Think of an engineering subject you all know something about
Suppose that you have to do a course on that subject
Make a short exercise that will learn the students the major point of a specific part of your course

27. Course exercise continued
For one group at a time do:
Give your exercise to the other three groups who starts solving it
Prepare how you will instruct the groups during their problem solving
After 5-10 minutes of problem solving 2 persons from your group enters each of the other groups and starts acting as an instructor

28. Problem-based learning and/or Project Work
Why use these pedagogical ideas?
To emphasize learning instead of teaching:
Learning is not like pouring water into a glass
Learning is an active process of investigation and creation based on the learners interest, curiosity and experience and should result in expanded insights, knowledge and skills
To day we will discus The Aalborg model for problem based learning and project work.
Why do we use these ideas……
So what is interesting here is that the learner and not the teacher is in the centre of the learning approach.

29. Comparing two models teamwork selfdirected learning
problembased learning
interdisciplinary
exemplarity
Study groups
working individually
thematic blocks
individual assessment/exam
Project groups
working on a common product
thematic semester ½ year
group assessment/examination
There is a number of different way’s to implement these new ideas using teamwork…
But most of them uses Study groups ….
In comparison the Aalborg model uses Project groups…..

30. Aalborg model a project each semester (1. year)
each group has a group room
group size of 6-8 students first year, 2-3 students the last year
each group has at least one supervisor
self selected group and projects within themes and disciplines
group assessment
Going into more details about the Aalborg model we have …..

31. Project Organization
The group have to choose a task or problem and set up their own objectives for the project
Every project is a unique and complex task
The students have to be active in the seeking and learning processes, which may lead to a deeper understanding
Teamwork
If we look at problem based learning and project organization separately then the special concept of project organization in Aalborg is ….
The group have to… This way the students takes the responsibility for their own project.
Every project is unique means that although the same project is done by several groups they come up with different solutions and might use different methods – e.g.. There is no correct answer to a project.
The students have… This means that although the focus for the students is problem solving, then the focus of the learning process is understanding.
Teamwork is not just working in groups but actually developing team skills to prepare the students for working in teams when they are finished. The basic year focus very much on that.

32. Problem-oriented – what is that?
Wondering
Asking questions
Draw up contrasts
Learning is about posting questions
We want most of the projects to be problem oriented, but what do we mean or want by that? ….

33. Problem-based awareness
Methodical objectives
Based on experience
The student is in control
Interdisciplinary
Discipline-based:
Technical objectives
Based on subjects
Teacher is in control
One discipline at a time
Actually problem orientation is the Aalborg way of using problem based learning in the projects. If we compare it to discipline based learning then there is a quite different awareness that we as teachers have to keep in mind.
Methodical/technical objectives
…..

34. The four phase model of a Project
Analyse
Design
Implementation
Test
The ideal
Student Project
Industriel
Project
Student
Project
too narrow
Student
Project
too broad
What does a typical project look like? Basically most projects has four phases:
Analyse, design, implementation and test.
If it is an industrial project, like creating a new mobile phone, then of course one have to analyse the whole product and its market situation before designing the whole phone, implementing it and test all parts alone and together before releasing the phone to be produced.
But a student project doesn't have to do it that way. If they try then they will find out that there isn't enough time and probably end somewhere between design and implementation. This is soon realized by the student and then some of them tries to narrow the project right from the beginning, choosing only to analyse a small part of the project, e.g.. The antenna of the mobile phone, and then design, implement and test that. But this is a too narrow approach where the students don't know the actual problem because they haven't analysed the whole problem.
The right way to do a problem oriented project is to start with a problem that isn't too big and then analyse the whole problem, chose which part to design – probably the parts the students think they can learn the most by designing.
Then again narrow the project by only implementing some parts, learning different implementation methods by using them once in stead of learning one method using it 5 times.
Testing is of course done of all the implemented parts to be sure they work, but using more formal testing methods and making test reports is only done for a small part of the implemented parts in order to prove that the students can do it.

35. Why is analysing important?
LP Wife
Some times the students think it is a waste of time to do analyse, they will rather solve the problem as they see it or think it is. Then i tell this little story ….
What i emphasise here is that very often we think we know the problem, but actually we don't and often an analyse will show the the major problem is quite different.
Water
What shall I do to get to my wife?

36. What is analyse? Asking Questions Draw up contrasts Estimate Measure
Compare
Evaluate
See Perspectives
If you were to describe what analyse is, what words would you use?
Note down suggestions and then compare to this list.

37. How to start analysing – presentation of two tools
The six W- model
Post It Brain storm
Everybody write notes on post it laps for 5 min
All laps is placed on the blackboard
You read up all the laps
All go to the blackboard and together you structure the brain storm
Why?
What?
Problem
Whom?
Where?
How?
When?
Some times the students find it difficult to start analysing, so we help them by suggesting two tools already at the basic year, and i will present them for you, so that you also know.
…….Demonstrate by using post it laps
The first model can open a problem and the second one is very good for structuring a brain storm.
The strength is that you get a chance to think for your self, you gets a good structure even though it might take some time and finally you can see if more than one has thought of the same (more laps)

38. Exercise
Choose a teaching problem that you as a group would like to do a project about
Use the Post-it brain storm to make a first ”analyse” of the problem and create a structure for the following analyse