Muddy cards – Half way evaluation of TDDD50 – VT2017 # students present during the evaluations 52, # of cards 40 Overall impression: We would like to thank the students for providing feedback and try to summarise the views in the comments below. Overall, the impression is that there are far more positive comments than negative ones (which is encouraging) and there are not many things that we can change in this year’s instance of the course. Student comments (1): There were 28 students that referred to the positive aspects of the course in many different ways, e.g. “interesting”, “broad coverage of topics”, “fun”, “fun concept”, “like the course set up” and so on. Comments were directed both towards the contents, organisation, examination, the course load, and the level aimed for in the papers studied. Student comments (2): There were 9 students that referred to problems in managing the load in the given period with terms like “pressure”. This is due to the fact that the Methodology for Bachelor thesis course (taken by some) goes in parallel with this course, and that course also has a requirement in reading reports and discussing. Teacher comments: This is something that needs to be discussed in the program board and the only option for change would be to have the course in autumn term. Hence, beyond this evaluation. In general, given that the work load has been designed to be equivalent to a nominal 106h of work, placing it in other periods would also impact other courses and some kind of personal time management would be required. Student comments (3): Seven students described the “pressure” of having to “break in” other students’ discussions or having to “saying things just for the sake of doing so”, or difficulty of participating due to groups being larger than optimal (6‐8). One suggested clarification of information about the role of the discussion leader. Teacher comments: Yes, we do notice the fact that some of the group discussions would benefit from better structuring. A hint would be that every time someone tries to join, the leader asks whether it is about the current topic before letting them in, and that students who have already spoken allow others to talk first on this topic before re‐joining. That way one subject is discussed and completed before another subject starts and many loose ends do not hang in the air. We will try to enforce this pattern, but it needs collaboration by all of you! Student comments (4): Six students thought that some papers were hard to understand, hard to discuss, papers were not at the same level (uneven). Three referred to some articles being old. Teacher comments: With a mix of topics (that is positively commented by many) it is inevitable that some will have less background in an area compared to others. Perhaps this is a good way of going out of one’s comfort zone. We have a routine process of replacing articles when we see the content is out of date in terms of insight (not technology). But many later articles are much more advanced than the early ones and hardly usable in a G2 course