The potential for student-supervisor learning contracts at a reform university

Over the course of a semester, problem-oriented learning (PPL) projects drift from their early articulations as new information and knowledge is developed under the research process. Meanwhile, learning objectives established for each semester do not change and serve as the ultimate assessment criteria. Many project planning tools are offered to students for planning their projects and establishing communication protocols, yet their effectiveness at recognizing project drift remains understudied. In this CUTL project, we introduce the so-called “learning contract” that has been developed by scholars to help students maintain focus on learning objectives across the semester. The learning contract is a negotiated framework agreement between a project group and a supervisor in which the objectives, resources, strategies, products and assessment criteria for accomplishing the learning objectives of a project are co-ideated. We take inventory of the supervision tools that colleagues inside and outside of RUC are using and set out to explore the potential of learning contracts at Roskilde University by undertaking a pilot project. We find that implementation is non-trivial and document the lessons from the pilot and link them to pedagogical theory and offer recommendations to supervisors, education coordinators, and administrators who might consider using learning contracts in a reform university context.