Intent:

Motivation:

This pattern allows the students to acquire these abilities by forcing them into being the teachers for themselves.

Applicability:

The pattern is usually instantiated for groups of 2-3 students. It have also successfully been used for individual students. Student groups with more than three students are usually not successful.

Structure:

The pattern then consists in four major parts, which are more or less sequential:

1. Explore: Here it is the obligation of the students to gain an insight into the subject matter. In most cases, sufficient insights cannot be gained from the materials, and it is the students' responsibility to seek further materials (by tracking references from the materials, seeking further materials at the library, or elsewhere).
   In this phase, the Lecturer offers assistance in understanding the difficult parts of the materials, and by giving pointers to other, possibly interesting materials on the subject matter.
   This exploration phase is usually 2-3 weeks.
2. Present: Here the students are expected to prepare a lecture for the other students in the course on the subject matter. The quality of the lecture is expected to be comparable to the lecture, the Lecturer would otherwise have been giving. Emphasis is put on clarity of presentation and especially the ability to present the essentials of the subject matter.
   The lecture is usually 2x45 min.
3. Interact: Immediately following the lecture, the entire course discuss the subject matter, guided by the students responsible for the subject matters (i.e. they must have prepared this discussion phase). In this phase, it is important to make comparisons with the other subject matters, that might have been presented previously in the course (or in some cases, those that will follow later on in the course).
   This interaction phase is usually approx. 30 min.
4. Critique: Immediately following the interaction phase, the entire process is discussed. The students responsible for the subject matter give their evaluation of their work, and the rest of the students in the course offer critique (positive as well as negative) on (1) the preparation, (2) the presentation, and (3) the discussions.
   This critique phase is usually 5-10 min.

   The pattern is used repeatedly within the same course. The entire course is organised as a sequence of instances of this pattern. These instances are active, overlapping in time (more later).

   Each week, one pattern instance is active in the lecture time of the course. This implies that the presentation, interaction and critique phases are conducted in the lecture time of the course.

   Each pattern instance is active for approx. one month (depending on the students).

   Consequences:

   The EPIC pattern:
   1. Provides practice for students to learn by themselves
   2. Provides practice for students to present material to pears (sharing knowledge)
   3. Provides practice for students to give and receive critique to and from pears
   4. Compels students to focus on essentials rather that details when approaching new subject matters

   Implementation:

   Issues to consider:
   1. The subject matters needs to be chosen to match the capabilities of the students in the course.
   2. The sequence of subject matters presented in the course should be planned ahead at enable interesting comparisons during the course. Especially important is to plan for possible contradicting conclusions in the different subject matters (to spin off discussions in the group).

   Related Patterns:

   (none so far)

   Example Instances:

   Please note, that this pattern is targeted towards being used as the overall pattern for an entire course. The following is a list of subjects, that were covered in the last course, where this pattern were used repeatedly.

   Subjects:

   Week 0: Introduction to the course

   Week 1: Introduction to Smalltalk

   Week 2: Introduction to C++

   Week 3: Introduction to Eiffel

   Week 4: Introduction to CLOS

   Week 5: Introduction to Self

   Week 6: Multi-methods in OO languages

   Week 7: Constraint OO Programming

   Week 8: Concurrent OO Programming

   Week 9: Distributed OO Programming

   Week 10: Introduction to CORBA, SOM, etc. (* hand-in of group reports *)

   Week 11: Persistence and OO Databases

   Week 12: OO Analysis and Design

   Week 13: Evaluation of course and discussion and evaluation of group reports

   In this instance, the students were required to supplement their presentations with a small written report on the subject matter (5-10 pages). This report were presented, discussed and evaluated (nograding) in the last week of the course (jointly by the teacher and the students).

   The hand-outs for each subject was 2-4 papers (or book chapters). Details on the contents of these hand-outs can be obtained from us.

   Special Resources Needed:

   The EPIC pattern does not demand any specific resources.

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