Kursansvarig

Ullrika Sahlin
maria [dot] hansson [at] cec [dot] lu [dot] se (ullrika[dot]sahlin[at]cec[dot]lu[dot]se)

Antal studenter

13

Antal svar

10

Betyg

8 G, 5 VG

Summary of the course evaluation 

The course evaluation showed a large spread in how satisfied students were. Students in Environmental Science in general more dissatisfied than students at other Natural Science programs or students from the Master in Applied computational Science. Several students think that the course could have been better structured. In general, the content and linkage to real risk assessments was positive. Students were satisfied with the book seminars, although some students found the course book to be poorly structured. They asked for more lectures and a better introduction to course activities. 

Comments from the teachers 

This was the first time the course was given, and there is room for improvement on structure and choice of learning activities (not mainly the content). The concept with active learning were new for most students (and to some extent teachers) that might need to be better introduced and explained. The course is designed for students at master’s level and is therefore more advanced, detailed and demanding, compared to a basic level course. This information was shared at the beginning of the course. Reading and describing real risk assessments is an important part of the course material, and some confusion was the result that this material including exercises were gradually introduced during the course. It was a challenge to teach a diverse set of students with different backgrounds and knowledge, and efforts were made to make the best use of this diversity (e.g. when dividing people into groups). It is also important that students are active and ask questions for teachers to understand at what level to meet the students. Two students failed the first exam but passed the re-examination.  

Evaluation and changes made since the previous course  

NA 

Suggested changes for the next course  

To better structure the course content, we will expand the introduction the first day to include: - how the course platform in canvas is structured and used, - information about active learning (including data showing that students experience it more demanding and negative but that it generates better results on exams), - all topics that will be covered and in what order. The course includes many student-centred active learning-activities which requires more specific learning objectives for each specific activity (which can be more explained next time). We will add lectures introducing pest risk assessment, red list assessment, ecological risk assessment and health risk assessment. The set of lectures in the middle of the course will be replaced since this was joint lectures with another course. The exercises and case studies will be modified considering the experience from the course. It can be made clearer to students that this is an advanced course, although the requirements can be meet for a student at bachelor’s level.   

Other teachers involved in the course  

Erika Norén, Liam Kendall, Zheng Zhou, Christian Lindh, Annette Krais, Ebba Malmqvist