UNSPEAKABLE US

Project introduction and background information

While education is daily practice at the university, some matters remain unspeakable, because they are part of the hidden curriculum, delicate to define or grasp, have different names, never made explicit or maybe even  are considered a taboo. The skills addressed in challenge based education remain unspeakable between us (initiators from AE, A+BE, TPM and Teaching Academy), and remain implicit in several courses. This 4TU project explores these skills, both explicit and implicit, the related values in challenge based education and the actual and desired professionalisation of educators involved he exploration starts within the realm of the Technical University of Delft and 4TU. Nevertheless, it is expected that lessons learned will not be exclusive to this context but can be applied in other settings that aim for societal impact of science and education as well.  The project identifies challenge-based skills links transdisciplinary and impact skills to value-based approaches, and identifies educational practices including assessment and educator professionalisation.

What’s next and get in touch

Within the upcoming months (spring 2025) we will organize intervision sessions where interviewees and others interested in the research can join to learn together. If you are interested in participating, or would like to be involved in some other way you can reach out to the initiators, Saskia Postema, Fransje Hooimeijer and/or Sake Zijlstra, or the student assistants, Jonne van Bunningen j.s.m.vanbunningen@tudelft.nl and Julia Schasfoort j.schasfoort-1@tudelft.nl

Results and learnings

The project consists of three elements: 1) challenge-based skills, 2) value-based workflow, and 3) professionalisation of staff. To get an insight into what is already happening across all TU faculties, one-to-one interviews were conducted with course coordinators that are interdisciplinary and challenge-based, limited to the TU-relevant challenges of Energy and Delta. The (preliminary) insights gained from the interviews are summarised below for the different elements of the project: values, goals, skills, methods, professionalisation. These were presented at the ITD2024 conference in Utrecht, find the poster on this pace.

Values

The questions about values caused a lot of confusion and were interpreted very differently. The question remains whether this should be attributed to the specific terminology used (as research team from the Architecture faculty have our own language in which “values” might be used differently than at other faculties) or whether values do not play a major role in the design of these courses.

The values mentioned can be reclassified into three categories: 1) professional values, relevant in a professional/academic context, such as integrity, curiosity, being supportive, transparency, 2) personal values, important for personal development in general, such as self-confidence, empathy, responsibility. The division between the first two categories is sometimes vague, and can be combined under values for educational purposes. 3) External social values that you align with and internalize as a professional, such as sustainability. With these external values it is often mentioned that students must learn to make a trade-off between values, because they are not always compatible. This is where professional and personal values come in handy, such as transparency, honesty, and taking responsibility.

Course goals

Answers to these questions where more focussed and concise in comparison to the values and fall into two main categories: courses where interdisciplinary education is the main goal – focus lies on acquiring transversal and soft skills; and  courses where interdisciplinary education is the method to reach a certain goal. In the last category, solving a challenge is often the main goal, where interdisciplinary work is a suitable method. It is often mentioned that reality, and the associated challenges, are too complex to solve monodisciplinary (for some interdisciplinarity is thus a given). Many mention the importance of learning to navigate an abundance of information and translating this to actionable solutions (of which there are always more than one possible outcome).

Skills

The various skills discussed in the interviews can be divided into three categories: 1) traditional academic skills, eg. Critical thinking and skills specific to the discipline, e.g. programming, 2) soft skills that are generally important within education, e.g. communication and collaboration, 3) inter- and/or transdisciplinary skills that are added in a multi-/inter-/transdisciplinary context, e.g. linking themes, contextual sensitivity, dealing with prejudices about other disciplines.

 The classification of skills as traditional academic, soft, or inter/transdisciplinary is highly dependent on the context. For example in some courses dealing with a multitude of stakeholders is part of the profession (e.g. urbanism) and therefore traditionally academic. While in other courses dealing with stakeholders beyond the industry might be a indication of broadening (e.g. aerospace) and would be categorized as an inter/transdisciplinary skill.

The learning objectives within a course differ per student as each comes with a different background and should acquire different skills. 

Most courses focus on soft and interdisciplinary skills. Often it is assumed that these skills are “naturally” obtained during a course and seldom explicitly taught nor formally assessed.

Methods

Teachers use different educational methods and learning activities in their courses and classes. To sample some: workshops, reflections, roleplaying, team coaches, exams, writing and analyzing papers, literature reviews, group discussions, project reports, lectures by specialists and practitioners, excursions, and others. The variety of methods and activities in relation to the course goals challenges their relation: are these suitable to reach the learning objective(s)? Can methods be exchanged, or put to several uses as they might reach multiple goals at the same time.

Professional challenges

Interviewees encounter challenges in 1) setting up the subject within the university as an institution, and 2) in teaching courses and classes. Within the university, subjects often seem to be supported by individual enthusiastic teachers, rather than by the university at large. Learning objectives are often fluid, which means that the subject ends once a teacher retires or changes focus. To teach well, interviewees mentioned the importance of a broad teaching team with diverse backgrounds. In order to successfully guide students in integrating knowledge, it seems necessary that teachers themselves have a multidisciplinary background or interdisciplinary experience. It is difficult to find suitable teachers as specific skills are needed that require experience, flexibility, and leadership in discussions. Lack of time is often mentioned as a bottleneck, both for the teachers professionally as well as within the span of the course. There is a limited amount of knowledge that you can convey in the time span of a course, where theory and traditional academic skills are often valued as more important. This leads to the challenge of strong alignments between explicit learning outcomes, activities and rubrics so that learning objectives do not remain subjective/implicit.

Within the course itself, it is important that students have a good level in the field that is relevant to the project. Students need good interpersonal skills (often in advance) to do well in the subject, as it appears difficult to guide students in this. Students enroll with different backgrounds, making it a challenge to get everyone on the same level within the short timeframe of a course. The differences in prior knowledge bring additional challenges in teaching, as it is difficult to create an interesting program for all students.