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Teacher’s Handbook

Teacher's checklist for a course

Aalto is a multidisciplinary university, with each of its six schools possessing unique teaching traditions and needs. Despite these differences, there are certain administrative and pedagogical considerations that teachers must address in every course they offer.

This page outlines the key points to keep in mind before, during, and after the course. At the end of the page, you will also find a collection of links to delve deeper into the topic.

Before the course

  1. Each course is part of the curriculum, which aims to ensure aligned teaching. The curriculum defines key information about the course and its implementations, such as intended learning outcomes, content, and methods of working and completion. You can check these in the student information system Sisu. Also, check Sisu to ensure the teachers listed for the course are correct, as this informs MyCourses and the course feedback system.
    • Tip: Discuss the planning and implementation of teaching with your teaching community: How does your teaching fit into the overall degree structure? How has the course been taught previously? What good practices and challenges have others experienced in teaching?
  2. Ensure that you can access your course workspace, which is located in the digital learning environment MyCourses.
  3. Plan the teaching based on the course's intended learning outcomes and prepare the teaching materials, such as lectures and assignments, ensuring they align with the learning outcomes. You also need to plan the assessment and feedback practices.
    • Tip: Explore ways to create course practices and learning situations that support the learning of all students. Make your teaching inclusive and participatory.
    • Tip: Consider how you will address the use of AI in the course and guide students. For example, MyCourses label elements are a good way to communicate how AI may be used for an individual assignment or a section of the course.
  4. Update the course syllabus and create a structure for the course in MyCourses. If you need help with bookings, changes, or cancellations of teaching spaces and times, contact your school's Learning Services.
  5. Upload the teaching materials to the MyCourses workspace and create learning activities there. Remember to ensure that the learning materials, videos, and MyCourses pages are accessible.
    • Tip: Estimate the workload for students and plan your teaching considering the intended learning outcomes. Also, consider your own workload and that of any other teachers or course assistants – wellbeing is a matter for the whole community.
    • Tip: Inform the Learning Centre about new textbook titles. Please note that licensed materials should primarily be linked to. Read more in the Learning Centre’s guide on linking licensed e-resources.
  6. Confirm students' course registrations in Sisu. The students' information will then be automatically transferred to MyCourses.

During the course

  1. At the beginning of the course, inform students how communication will be handled during and at the end of the course.
  2. Strive to create a safe atmosphere for interaction together with the students.
  3. Remember continuous feedback. Collecting feedback during teaching allows for quick, small-scale improvements throughout the course. Feedback can be collected during the course through, for example, learning tasks or various surveys, either individually or in groups.
    • Tip: Remember to document your own observations during the course to make it easier to develop it after it ends.
  4. Ensure that students know which learning activities they will be assessed on and what the assessment is based on.

At the end of the course

  1. Assess the performances and assignments in light of the intended learning outcomes, based on the assessment principles and criteria you planned before teaching. Submit the final grades to Sisu within 28 days of the last course activity. The course completion date is the date of the last performance, such as the exam. Communicate the assessment to the students. 
  2. Aalto course feedback is collected automatically at the end of each implementation through an electronic system. Review the course feedback and your own notes made during teaching and critically assess what succeeded and what could be improved for the next implementation. 

    Tip: Respond to students' feedback and help other members of your teaching community improve their teaching by sharing your observations with them.

Read more about the core topics

Some of the links open to outside the Teacher's Hanbook.

Black icon of a laptop connected to a cloud on a white background, representing cloud computing.

Sisu and MyCourses: the core systems

How do courses get their online workspace? All Aalto University courses are listed in Sisu, the student information system. MyCourses online workspaces are automatically generated based on the Sisu information for each course.

Teacher’s Handbook
A tech workshop with participants working; a tutor points at a diagram on a screen. Laptops and cables are on the table.

Learning assessment at Aalto University

Assessment for learning at Aalto University is a carefully planned pedagogical process which aims to support learning instead of merely measuring it.

Teacher’s Handbook
Group of student working together

Agreeing on guidelines for inclusive interaction in the course

Inclusive teaching practices are inseparable from high quality teaching practices – therefore, inclusive teaching affects all aspects of a course and learning experience.

Services
Students at Undergraduate center

Course workload and Workload Estimation Tool

When designing a course, sufficient time must be allocated for students to study.

Services
Students at Aalto University Learning Centre

Programme director's handbook

The programme director's handbook is a collection of guidelines, templates, and good practices. The handbook gathers together information about processes, schedules and tools and the aim is to support degree programme directors, heads of majors and others involved to succeed in implementing, evaluating and developing the degree programmes.

Template examples to support lesson planning

Below you can download material that includes various templates for planning a course or an individual teaching session or for evaluating consistency. 

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