Abstract
This work aims at summarizing the experience gained in the organization and delivery of a short-intensive and transdisciplinary teaching course offered inside the University College of Merit “Collegio Universitario Renato Einaudi” (Torino, Italy). Colleges of merit are shared residential facilities designed to accommodate talented students with high motivation and commitment, regularly enrolled in the different higher education levels ranging from bachelor to doctoral programs. Several services are also offered to support their personal and professional growth. This goal is usually achieved through both tutoring and complementary cultural activities.
Collegio Einaudi is a private Foundation connected to the University of Turin and the Politecnico di Torino (PoliTo). It was founded in 1935 and hosts about 800 students who are asked to develop various transdisciplinary skills through internal courses defined once a year around a theme. The courses are jointly organized with lecturers and university research groups. In the academic year 2020/21, the chosen central theme is “resilience”. Within the booklet course proposals, structured as a ThinkLab, “We have an IDEA” - Instructional Design Elementary Application - aims to co-redesign the first-year engineering courses offered by PoliTo.
PoliTo is an Italian public University offering both Engineering and Architectural tracks. Around 5000 freshmen are enrolled every year in the Engineering bachelor’s degree programs. During the first year, the students are divided into 20 parallel classes of about 250 each. The addressed topics provide a common background and include Chemistry, Computer Science, Mathematical Analysis I, Linear Algebra and Geometry and Physics I.
The emphasis of this contribution is on the description of the “We have an IDEA” laboratory and on the evaluation of its impact on the University daily lives. In the following section, the theoretical framework is defined. The remaining part of the paper discusses the Laboratory’s design, the Results, and the Conclusions.
Original language | English |
---|---|
Journal | Irish Journal of Academic Practice |
Issue number | 1 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 29 May 2022 |
Externally published | Yes |
Keywords
- Instructional design
- teamwork
- collaborative design
- resilience