Teacher teams and critical friends

Mapped principles 

The project is mapped to the following framework principles:

P9. A developing educational culture

P10. Continuous competence development in the teaching role 

P11. A management system for quality development 

Definitions of the principles

Contact

Iolanda Leite associate professor

iolanda@kth.se

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Anders Västberg associate professor

vastberg@kth.se , 087904455

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This project was implemented at the School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences (EECS) within the Future Education programme (project no. 2312-EECS).

Project context  

Teaching teams and "critical friends" groups have been proposed in the EECS School's previous quality work as forms of cooperation to improve the situation of teachers in large courses, joint competence development and quality assurance (See the report Education Quality Processes at KTH EECS). Teaching teams and critical friends have already been introduced and tested in the school, but on a smaller scale and without well-defined processes. Routines are needed to build and maintain teaching teams for large courses, as well as “critical friends” groups in the school’s departments. Such routines should also be harmonised with KTH’s new quality system. 

Purpose (outcome) 

The aim of the project is to recommend how teacher teams and “critical friends” groups can be created and maintained so that: 

• teachers are able to support and relieve each other in case of illness or high workload

• coordination and reuse of similar course content is enabled

• course development in a more joint and systematic way and exchange/reuse of good examples between courses is facilitated 

Project results (output) 

• Current situation analysis: identification of the degree of cooperation and coordination in major courses and across different departments, of good examples that are already being applied today, and of which areas would benefit from increased cooperation

• Workshops (e.g. on EECS Teachers’ Day) to present and discuss possible solutions

• Proposal for routines on how teaching teams and critical friends will work and how these can be maintained (incl. best practice examples of different forms of cooperation)

• Pilot with a few courses in high need of teaching teams or critical friends

• Pilot evaluated. 

Time plan 

Start date: 2023-06-01
End date: 2024-05-31

Project documentation 

If you have a KTH ID, you can read the latest project documents on OneDrive when logged in:

• Poster: PosterFrU24vt_2312-EECS_Lärarlag o kritiska vänner_240506.pdf (English) 
• Project initiation document: Projektdirektiv_FrU23_2312-EECS_Lärarlag o kritiska vänner.pdf (Swedish)