UDTU
Welcome to UDTU
UDTU is your University teacher training programme at DTU. The overall objective of UDTU is that you acquire knowledge, methods, and tools that enable you to teach with proficiency at university level with a focus on how to educate engineers. UDTU also provides you with tools to continually develop your teaching practice and to enhance your understanding of student learning and its prerequisites.
Prerequisites
It is necessary that the following elements are in place when you start the course:
Completion of Teaching Lab (introductory course)
- You must be booked to teach at least 3 sessions during the second half of the course
- You must be approved by your pedagogical supervisor
Contact Learning Lab
Learning Lab Course Administration learninglab@dtu.dk
Assistant Professors must complete UDTU in order to be course responsible, as well as to qualify for a position as an Associate Professor.
Exemptions may be given to staff who live up to all of the below:
- Has a sound grasp of theoretical models of teaching and learning, as well as a minimum of three years of experience implementing these in university teaching.
- Can plan, carry out, and evaluate student-centered teaching
- Can apply key concepts: E.g., constructive alignment, the didactical triangle, and Bloom’s revised taxonomy of learning objectives
Structure of UDTU
You can spend up to two years to complete UDTU, but if you plan ahead it is possible to complete the programme within one year.
During the first semester you will be (re)designing a DTU course whilst attending a range of facilitated sessions, both shorter, longer and residential. When you sign up it is essential to check the dates to make sure that you are free to attend all planned sessions, as it is not possible to skip or swap around the facilitated sessions along the way.
During the second or third semester you will be producing a Teaching Portfolio and testing your Capstone Project, i.e. running the course you (re)designed during the first semester. You will be collecting and evaluating data on your course as you teach it and ultimately present your findings at a Poster Presentation.
Learning Objectives
After completion of the UDTU programme, you are able to:
- Plan, teach, evaluate and develop student-centred and learning outcome-based teaching at DTU
- Design a teaching sequence, preferably an entire DTU course, using innovative teaching methods and didactical design to promote student motivation and scaffold student learning and conceptual understanding.
- Design a DTU course using constructive alignment and formative feedback to support students as self-regulated learners.
- Reflect on and continue your development on becoming an excellent DTU Teacher
- Contribute to the development of courses and educational programmes at DTU
Assessment
The programme is assessed on the basis of two primary elements:
- Teaching Portfolio, to be submitted in writing and presented at a cluster defense
- Capstone Project, to be submitted as a poster and presented at a poster presentation
Dates & registration
UDTU starts twice a year. The programme takes a full year to complete.
Please note: It is very important that you participate fully in all
parts of the programme. Otherwise your completion will be delayed.
Dates in Autumn 2024
- Introduction Meeting: 2 September, 2024, DTU, Lyngby Campus
- Teaching Methods and Didactical Design: 2-4 October, 2024, Residential course, Comwell Copenhagen Portside
- Thematic day: 22 October, 2024, DTU, Lyngby Campus
- Assessment and Feedback: 13-14.November, 2024, DTU, Lyngby Campus
- Presentation day: 4 December, 2024, DTU, Lyngby Campus
- Capstone Project: Individual project culminating in Poster Presentation
- Teaching Portfolio: To be presented and discussed at Teaching Portfolio Defence
Fully booked - Enroll for waiting list.
Dates in Spring 2025
- Introduction Meeting: 27 January, 2025, DTU, Lyngby Campus
- Teaching Methods and Didactical Design: 4-6 March, 2025, Residential course, Rungstedgaard
- Thematic day: 21 March, 2025, DTU, Lyngby Campus
- Assessment and Feedback: 9-10. April, 2025, DTU, Lyngby Campus
- Presentation day: 30 April, 2025, DTU, Lyngby Campus
- Capstone Project: Individual project culminating in Poster Presentation
- Teaching Portfolio: To be presented and discussed at Teaching Portfolio Defence
Dates in Autumn 2025 (TBA)
Enroll for UDTU
Programme content
"(S)He who works, learns. Period."
The overall teaching philosophy of Learning Lab at DTU penetrates the entirety of how we have planned and will engage with you throughout your teacher training programme here at DTU.
On this introductory day, we will go through the roadmap for the entire UDTU-programme; Which activities have we planned, and which products will you design and produce during your UDTU-programme?
Furthermore, we will set up the didactic contract; what can you expect from us as teachers and facilitators - and what do we expect from you as participants?
We will have time for questions, clarifications, and inspiring discussions.
After completion of "Teaching Methods and Didactical Design", you are able to:
- Plan a teaching sequence, preferably an entire DTU course, with constructively aligned learning objectives and teaching and learning activities.
- Design and apply didactical designs in your own teaching practice.
- Set up didactic contracts with your students.
- Develop new and innovative teaching methods to activate students.
- Identify materials to collect for your Teaching Portfolio, e.g, practice examples, teaching philosophy-in-progress and applied methods.
- Residential two-day course comprising of group work and active learning activities.
- Use the constructive alignment model to design your own DTU course with respect to valid and reliable assessment.
- Develop and apply different kinds of formative feedback to develop students as self-regulated learners.
- Utilize motivation theory and the student perspective to support self-efficacy, promote sense of belonging and clarify perception of curriculum in your DTU course.
- Incorporate feedback and reflections to evaluate your own teaching practice and create a teaching portfolio.
This course is two and a half day, and will take place in Lyngby Campus.
Present your ongoing (re)design of DTU course to fellow UDTU participants and Educational Developers in Learning Lab.
Your UDTU Teaching Portfolio will
- Present how your current teaching philosophy informs your teaching practice.
- Reflect on how your perception of teaching and learning has developed over time.
- Show how your ongoing observations of student behaviour and feedback contributes to the development of your teaching practice at DTU.
- Make reference to relevant literature from educational science to describe how you support student learning and develop your teaching practice.
- Demonstrate how collegial observation of your own and your peers’ teaching practices influence the continued development of your teaching practice.
Teaching Portfolio defence:
The Teaching Portfolio defence is a conversation regarding the strengths and areas for improvement in your submitted portfolios. The conversation will take place in clusters of 4-5 participants and will be between you and your peers, facilitated by LearningLab and/or a pedagogical supervisor.
The programme:
- Short (5 minute) presentation of own portfolio. This can be an oral presentation, perhaps supplemented by powerpoint slides and/or writing/drawing on whiteboard.
- Questions and feedback from peers (10 minutes).
- Wrap-up and feedback from LearningLab DTU (5 minutes).
Please notice that you will receive an email from Learning Lab after the defence informing you if you have passed, passed with corrections or failed.
Future dates for portfolio defence:
- 17 January, 2025 10-12 am - Sign up before 17 December 2024
- 7 April, 2025 10-12 am - Sign up before 7 March 2025
- 18 June, 2025 10-12 am - Sign up before 19 May 2025
- 14 August, 2025 10-12 am - Sign up before 14 July 2025
- 5 November, 2025 10-12 am - Sign up before 3 October 2025
- 16 January, 2026 10-12 am - Sign up before 14 December 2025
- 9 April, 2026 10-12 am - Sign up before 9 March 2026
- 23 June, 2026 10-12 am - Sign up before 22 May 2026
Sign up for portfolio defence here
Important Information:
You must submit your portfolio for evaluation and feedback two weeks in advance of the actual defence.
Please submit to DTU Learning Lab @ learninglab@dtu.dk
We will distribute the submitted portfolios one week in advance of the defence so you have time to read and prepare feedback for the other participants in your cluster. At this time you will also receive the location and final programme for the defence.
After completion of the UDTU Capstone Project you are able to:
- Present a clear research question and the activities you have undertaken to address this in the (re)design of your DTU course.
- Analyse, evaluate and reflect on the major findings from teaching your newly designed DTU course with respect to student learning.
- Utilize feedback from colleagues and students to improve your teaching and future development as a teacher at DTU.
- Participate in higher education discussions on how to develop teaching, learning and educational programmes.
You will test, collect data on and evaluate your (re)designed course in the semester following your last facilitated session (Assessment and Feedback).
Poster Event
The poster event concludes the UDTU teaching and learning programme at DTU. Whilst only UDTU participants will present their Capstone Projects, we cordially invite all who are interested to attend the event. There are many reasons for attending, here are just a few:
- The poster presentations are a great source of knowledge about current pedagogical developments at DTU.
-
UDTU participants come from departments from all over DTU, and there will very likely be examples from and
inspiration for teaching and learning within your own disciplinary field. -
The pedagogical discussions at the poster events gives you a chance to discuss your own experiences and teaching and learning issues with colleagues from different departments.
Please make sure to register correctly in terms of whether you participate as audience or as a presenter:
Spring 2025 - 30 January, 2025, 1-3pm (at Campus Lyngby) -
Autumn 2025 - 5 September, 2025, 1-3pm (at Campus Lyngby) -
At the Poster Event, you will be assigned a station from where to present your poster. Each participant has ten minutes to present their poster, followed by ten minutes for questions – depending on the number of participants we will run 2-3 rounds of presentations. At the end of the presentations the audience will pick “best poster”.