Learning to Teach

Teaching skills for doctoral teaching assistants

Teaching project

Providing students with optimal conditions to independently

solve a challenging problem set of control theory

Julian Koch
D-CHAB
Function Materials Laboratory

Learning to Teach classroom dates:

20/21/27.2.2018

Learning to Teach course leader:

Karin Brown

Submission date:

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 Optimal conditions for independent problem solving

Note: In your own teaching project, please erase all explanatory text in orange.

a) Goal
Your goal is to adapt generic concepts and ideas that resonated with you in the Learning to
Teach course with a view to benefiting learning and teaching in your particular subject at ETH.

b) Approach
The Learning to Teach course proposes four generic teaching strategies for teaching in higher
education. These provide starting point of and orientation for your project:
Learning is an active process on the students’ side. The I establish a culture of cooperation in the classroom
most helpful question for teaching is: What do I want by communicating what students will be able to do by
TS 1 that students are able to DO by the end of a course, a TS 3 the end of the course and how I recommend they will
lesson, an exercise? develop these competences throughout the course.
I find out if students are able to do what I want them My teaching needs to provide opportunities for
to do at the end of an exercise (lesson, class) and to students to practice doing what I want that they are
TS 2 TS 4
support their progress towards these objectives. able to do by the end of an exercise, a lesson or a
course.
Your teaching project allows you to develop expertise as you select and adapt generic
teaching strategies so that they become suitable tools for encouraging students’ learning in
your subject. You thus become experts for your own teaching context. In this way, you
contribute to didactic expertise among doctoral TAs at ETH.

c) Procedure
(1) At the very beginning of your Learning to Teach course, you define a question that intrigues
you about teaching. (2) Throughout the course, you collect resources (ideas, concepts) that are
relevant for your question. (3) After the end of the classroom phase, you plan a small project in
your own teaching context that helps you alleviate the concern you address in your question
with the resources you collected. (4) You describe your teaching project on between two to
four pages.

d) Publication
Please complete the following steps to publish your project:
1) Submit your project for peer review in your Moodle course. Submission date: 1 month
after the course)
2) Peer review other submissions (Submission date: 2 months after the course)
3) Implement advice from the peer review phase.
4) Publish your teaching project on the Learning to Teach community page 3 months after
your course.
Your Moodle course will provide the exact submission dates.

Please add your electronic signature below.

1. With my electronic signature I confirm that I wrote this text with no unauthorised external
help. I have acknowledged any sections, words or ideas quoted from or based on other
sources.
2. With my electronic signature I agree that all of or extracts from my teaching project may
be used by ETH LET in an anonymous version for quality assurance and for research
and publication purposes. I am aware that this agreement is strictly voluntary and that I
may withdraw my consent at any time by writing to ETH LET.
Enter your
electronic Julian Koch
signature
here:

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 Optimal conditions for independent problem solving

Table of Contents
Abstract 3
1. Introduction 4
2. Analyse your teaching challenge 4
2.1. Context analysis 4
2.2. Resource analysis 4
3. Implement your plan 5
4. Evaluate your plan 5
5. Appendix 6

Abstract
The goal of this project is to identify optimal conditions for students in Control theory classes to
be able to independently solve challenging sets of problems outside of class. The time of
contact between teacher and learner is limited and this project should help improve the learning
experience and efficiency. The course is given to 5. Semester students in Chemical Engineering
in 2 hours of lecture and 1 hour of exercise and comprises usually around 25 students. Two
aspects are focused on in this analysis, namely how instructions are given to students and what
can be learned from the cognitive perspective of learning.

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 Optimal conditions for independent problem solving

1. Introduction
This project revolves around asking the following question: “What are the optimal conditions for
students to be able to solve a challenging problem independently?” The assistant of the course
has the opportunity to guide the learning process in the Control Theory course for about 45 min
per week, while directly conversing with students and getting feedback.

The experience of teaching and following exercise sessions at both Swiss Federal Institutes of
technology in Switzerland (Zürich and Lausanne) showed me that in most cases, exercise
sessions are meant to give a basis of how to be able to solve problems, rather than being able
to solve all problems during the session. As a teacher, I want to be able to give students a
strong foundation of transferable knowledge, which can then be applied in homework exercises
and giving the student a sense of accomplishment.

The fourth LT teaching strategy is providing a guideline for approaching the aforementioned
challenge. Providing students with opportunities for learning involves many aspects such as
giving clear instructions or making use of the cognitive aspects of learning. At the end of this
project, I want to give an analysis of techniques for giving optimal learning conditions out of
class. The goal is to identify the cornerstones of giving the student an optimal self-learning
opportunity.

2. Analyse your teaching challenge

2.1. Context analysis
The course of Control theory is a mandatory course for 5th semester bachelor students in
chemical engineering and corresponds to 3 ECTS points. Usually, around 25 students are
inscribed and the course is assessed by oral examination. Independent of the exact number of
students, one teaching assistant is assigned to the course and is in charge of 45 minutes of
exercise session. The philosophy of the teacher is that the assistant uses this time to give
instructions and conceptual aide for solving the problem set at hand. Additionally, the previous
problem set can be handed in and looked at by the assistant. This gives feedback to the
assistant and allows addressing obvious misconceptions or difficult problems at the beginning of
each class. The assistant therefore is never present while the students are solving the problem,
but rather before and after. This leads to the unique challenge of providing the students with
tools and concepts to be able to independently solve the problem.

The assistant’s duties are providing guidelines, correcting problem sets and give corrective
feedback to the students. Feedback flow is therefore guaranteed in both ways. However,
resources are limited, as there are around 25 students, 45 minutes contact time and 1 assistant.
Learning requirements differ between students and the amount of guideline providing a
nurturing basis for independent learning is highly individual. Compared to tutoring with 5
students per assistant, the assistant of this course cannot individualize too much his teaching
approach.

The exercise feedback for the students will be given 2 weeks after receiving the instructions and
at least one week after handing in the problem set. The time lag between solving and getting
feedback can be positive for learning activities, as the content is processed and reactivated.
However this might also nurture despair in students, concerning exercises where they are
blocked. Also the efficiency of feedback might decrease over time as the student does not have
the issues fresh in mind.

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 Optimal conditions for independent problem solving

2.2. Resource analysis

Giving clear instructions for an activity is an essential part for providing a good basis for
students to meet the learning objectives. This is related to teaching strategy 2 and directly linked
to teaching strategy 4, which is about giving students the opportunity to practice. A handout,
based on an article from John Kongsvik, resumes well the important aspects of giving clear
instructions and will serve as a resource. Another document, which helps identifying optimal
conditions for independent learning is a chapter, written by Schneider and Stern, which reflects
on the cognitive aspect of learning.

3. Plan your implementation

 Strategy:
The concept of giving clear instructions can improve the learning experience of students
substantially, since they will be learning a lot on their own and should have a clear idea of what
is asked of them. The implementation of these aspects will give them a framework for
independent learning and limit frustration levels, by setting clear boundaries.
 Rationale:
Giving students ideal conditions for solving problems on their own at home is related to LT
teaching strategy 4, which says that it is of essence to give the student the opportunity to
practice doing what is asked of them at the end of this course.
 Action:
I will apply the skills I learned during the Learn to teach course and more specifically from this
project, in the course of Control theory.
o What will I do: I will improve upon my instructions for the weekly exercises that are to
be solved independently, using the resources I have gathered.
o Purpose: To improve conditions for students to independently solve the weekly
exercise independently from the assistant.
o How: Explain the purpose of the exercice, in what way it is linked to a learning
objective. Prepare the exercise session thoroughly in the context of giving clear
instructions. Break down the instructions into step-by-step. Provide a realisitic
timeframe.
o During the two semester that I will be assistant for this course.
a) Context: in which particular course and which particular lesson are you planning to
implement your plan?
b) Sketch your plan: give a bullet point overview of
 what you will do
 for what purpose
 in what way
 when and for how long.
You may find it useful to follow the guidelines offered in the respective Learning to Teach
handouts.
c) Substantiate your plan by providing artefacts in the appendix that illustrate in detail what
you are planning to do; e.g.: a lesson plan, a plan of a CAT or a participatory learning
activity, a text version of a “Portal”, or similar artefacts. Again, you may find it useful to
follow the guidelines offered in the respective Learning to Teach handouts.
d) Challenges: Identify those steps in your plan that you consider particularly challenging
and explain why you think so.
You may choose to represent your implementation plan in a format that you consider suitable
(e.g. in a table or visualisation).
This section is the very heart of your teaching project: This is where you can add your own
personal touch to your project. Based on your analysis, you can now select one specific
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 Optimal conditions for independent problem solving

resource that you are planning to apply in your teaching with the goal of addressing your
question and alleviating the challenge you described earlier. Your goal is to adapt generic
concepts and ideas that resonated with you in the Learning to Teach course with a view to
benefiting learning and teaching in your particular subject at ETH. Outline your implementation
plan to illustrate how you are planning to put your teaching principles into practice by describing
in detail your personal approach to using the specific resource(s) you selected in your own
teaching context.

4. Evaluate your plan

After devising your plan, now take a brief moment to think about the kind of evidence that will
you be looking for to find out if your implementation is successful. How will you know if you
achieved the benefits that you proposed in the rationale? How will you collect this evidence? -
e.g. by observation, through feedback - from students, from peers at Learning to Teach
classroom visits?

5. Appendix
Provide here the artefacts that you want to enclose to illustrate how you are planning to
implement your teaching project plan in your teaching.

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