Webinar Series: Challenge-based Education at Wageningen University & Research

4TU.CEE started a new webinar series on challenge-based-education at the 4TUs. We are looking forward to hearing from 4TU staff about their challenge-based initiatives and sharing our experiences! We wish to engage in an open debate about the best ways to implement challenge-based learning at the 4TUs. This time WUR will inform you.

Challenge-based education at Wageningen University & Research

Wageningen has a variety of challenges. While some of these challenges take place within the curriculum, many of them are extracurricular. During this webinar we will zoom in on one such an extracurricular challenge, namely the Rethink Protein Challenge. We will discuss how these extracurricular challenges come about and how they are organized. By using the Rethink Protein example, we will give a clear idea on what these extracurricular challenges look like.

To make the link between these extracurricular challenges and the curriculum, the WUR has developed a parallel course “Student Challenge” in which students work on the own learning goals (related to the “I”, “WE” and “IT”) for a challenge. This optional course can be followed alongside an (extra)curricular challenge, and provides students with 12 ECTS. The course focuses on the students’ personal, professional and team development and allows for individual learning paths. It consists of coaching, intervision, experimentation and reflection activities. One of the coaches of this course will take you along in the setup of this course, and gives an insight into how this works in practice.

During this webinar, a student following both the Rethink Protein and the parallel coaching course will give her experiences with both these educational experiences.

About the webinar series

This new webinar series will explore the many forms and variants of challenge-based education at the 4 Technical Universities in the Netherlands. Challenge-based education is propagated as “The framework for Education” preparing students for addressing complex challenges forwarded in the sustainable development goals. These represent the most significant challenges in society, such as climate change, covid 19 and many others in need of technological or other creative and innovative solutions. A challenge typically proposes a real-world and authentic challenge, creating deep, meaningful and purposeful learning, while bridging the gap between academia and society. Yet many questions on how to best realise this type of education remain. Therefore 4TU proposes a series of best practices of Challenge-based learning within each institution and an open debate on specific aspects of the challenge-based learning, and it’s many remaining questions in dire need of substantial educational research.

We are looking forward to hearing from 4TU staff about their challenge based initiatives and experiences and sharing our experiences! We wish to engage in an open debate about the best ways to implement Challenge-based learning at 4TU. We’ll meet you on the following dates: 

• TU Delft – 16 February 9.30 – 11.30 | What type of challenges work best for education; design brief & stakeholder involvement
• University of Twente – 18 March 10.00 – 11.30 | Interdisciplinarity at work
• Eindhoven University of Technology - 14 April 9.00 -11.00 | TU/e innovation Space
• Wageningen University - 19 May 9.30 - 11.00 | Personal/Professional development; a support course for challenge-based education and exploring the preparation and learning outcomes of WUR challenges
• International Contribution – June 

Registration