Abstract:

Most university curricula include orientation courses. These courses differ substantially between universities and even between curricula in the same university. Some orientations include only the workings and insights of university life, i.e., how to register for courses or the essential processes on campus. Others are more in-depth and cover a wider variety of topics. A growing variety of orientation courses also focus on time management and study skills.

This article is about an orientation course at the University of Tartu for computer science curricula. This course is relatively large, with 6 ECTS, and lasts for the entire fall semester. The topics covered in this course are teamwork, study skills, careers in the private sector and academia, curricula choices, and presenting skills. The course also includes a consultation hour for other subjects taken by the students during the same semester. Some of the more work-intensive teamwork activities are built around project work in which students create a simple web page in semi-randomly created groups of two to three.

This article covers some of the tasks in this course, the processes and principles in place to enhance adjustment to university, the preliminary data analysis from self-regulated learning activities, and course feedback. We also introduce some of the automation that takes care of the grading and attendance for 200+ students.

This article's main contribution is showcasing a course design of an orientation course for a relatively large number of students.

Keywords:

Course design, computer science education, orientation, higher education, adjustment.