Examination arrangement

Course content

On our journey towards smart and sustainable cities, we will need pilots. The village believes that citizens must be able to access the cockpit to lead the development towards a destination that best fits their needs without compromising those of future generations. However, the role of the people sitting in the control tower is crucial to guide the pilots throughout the journey. The village believes that Urban Facility Management can lead the way towards more active and inclusive co-creation processes by upskilling citizens and provide them with the skills and knowledge required to pilot the development of smart cities.

The village puts the knowledge, skills and concerns of citizens as the main focus to reach the ambitious sustainable development goals in the urban context. The village will focus both on processes and mechanisms in which citizens are currently involved, as well as processes and mechanisms through which citizens could contribute in the future, provided the opportunity to do so. In order to investigate this topic, the village will offer a multi-disciplinary environment where students are empowered and encouraged to collaborate with Industry partners and municipal actors. The village is a collaboration between the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and other departments at NTNU. The students’ teams will benefit from guidance from experts in both engineering, architecture and urban planning.

Based on fieldwork and real interactions with all relevant stakeholders, the village will aim to:

• investigate the barriers and incentives to citizen participation,
• propose new arenas, digital and physical tools for co-creation,
• make recommendations for inclusive citizen participation in the co-creation of smart cities

The students will be encouraged to use their expertise in engineering, planning and communication technologies to develop solutions that could upskill citizens in order for them to make informed choices in the co-creation process.

For further information, see www.ntnu.edu/eit, https://www.ntnu.no/eit/tba4860 and www.ntnu.edu/eit/course-description

Learning outcome

Knowledge

• Students have gained knowledge about group processes and are familiar with key concepts and prerequisites for good teamwork.
• Based on experience from the team, students can describe the prerequisites for good interdisciplinary teamwork.
• Students have insight into how their teamwork is influenced by their own behaviour patterns and attitudes, as well as those of others.

Skills

• Students can apply their academic learning in cooperation with people from other subject areas, and jointly define problems and find solutions to them.
• Students can apply fundamental group theory and concepts to describe their own specific collaborative situations.
• Students can reflect on their teamwork and analyse the way that the group communicates, plans, decides, accomplishes tasks, handles disagreements, and relates to professional, social and personal challenges.
• Students can provide constructive feedback to the individual team member and to the team as a whole and can reflect on feedback from the team.
• Students can take initiatives (actions) that encourage cooperation, and they can contribute to changing patterns of interaction to create more productive, constructive, and social collaboration in a group.

General competence

• Students have extended their perspective on their own specialized knowledge in their encounter with skills from other disciplines. They can communicate and use skills they have developed in their own field in collaboration with students from other disciplines.
• Students can collaborate with people from other disciplines, and they can contribute to realizing the potential of their combined interdisciplinary expertise.

Learning methods and activities

Learning method

The learning method in EiT is experience-based. A key aspect of the learning process is the situations that arise as team members work together across their disciplines. Students develop teamwork skills by reflecting on these situations throughout the project. Team members perform reflection activities together, stimulated by facilitation as well as a variety of exercises such as writing down reflections, exercises in teamwork, and feedback. The Experts in Teamwork Academic Section creates the professional foundation for facilitation, which is carried out by the village supervisor and learning assistants.

Learning activities

Teaching consists of both teacher- and student-directed activities. At the beginning, activities are arranged to introduce the students to each other. The village theme is presented to the students, who draw up a cooperation agreement in the team. The student team draws up a proposal for their project based on the village theme and the individual student’s academic competence and interests. After approval by the village supervisor, the student team works with the project throughout the semester or the intensive period. The student team is responsible for following up the cooperation agreement and for revising it if necessary.

The student team is facilitated while the members work. To be facilitated involves being observed and receiving feedback on the interaction in the team. Students write both personal reflections and team reflections. Reflections initiated by facilitation and writing of reflections provide the basis for understanding the prerequisites for good collaboration and how the individual member’s actions influence the teamwork. The team must take actions to improve its teamwork if necessary. What is meant by "actions" is defined in the assessment criteria. The effect of the actions must be evaluated.

Compulsory activities

• Attendance is compulsory.
• Drawing up a cooperation agreement between the members of the student team during the first two village days.
• Oral presentation of the project and a dialogue about the teamwork in the student team when the teaching ends.

The compulsory activities must be approved by the village supervisor before the final reports are submitted for assessment. It is a prerequisite that the entire student team participates.

Final reports

These consist of a project report and a process report by the students. The project report must describe the student team’s problem formulation and the result of the project work. The process report must describe the collaboration in the team and what the individual has experienced and learned through shared reflection on relevant situations from the project teamwork. Expectations for the student team’s work and criteria for the evaluation are described in the "Guide for Students in Experts in Teamwork".

Compulsory assignments

• Attended all course days
• Oral presentation
• Preparation of a cooperation agreement

Further on evaluation

The final reports (the project report and the process report) by the student team are assessed according to the grading scale A-F. The team receives one common grade.

The project report and the process report are each worth 50 per cent of the final grade.

In the event of a "fail" grade or a resit of a passed examination, the entire course must be repeated.

Required previous knowledge

EiT is normally compulsory in all programmes of study at second-degree (master’s) level at NTNU. The programme descriptions for the programmes of study provide information about the stage in the programme at which EiT is to be completed and whether EiT can be taken as an intensive or semester-based course. Other students may apply for admission to EiT, but they must be qualified for admission to a master’s programme in order to participate. Students must be able to speak the language of instruction (Norwegian or English).

Course materials

• The Book of Reflections for students in Experts in Teamwork, which is distributed at the start of studies
• Guide for Students in Experts in Teamwork, available at the EiT website
• Compendium for students in Experts in Teamwork, which will be made available digitally