News

Earlier this year a Teaching Cultures Survey was conducted amongst 4TU lecturers to gather their views about the status of university teaching at their university. 33% of our academic staff members have responded. The outcomes are taken very seriously at all 4TUs as part of the professional development of teaching career paths. The findings have been compared with peer universities around the world. In the Netherlands the Teaching Cultures Survey was introduced and sponsored by 4TU.CEE.

Ineke ten Dam will temporarily take over 4TU.CEE coordinating activities at the University of Twente. Ineke has long-standing experience in education as a teacher, teacher trainer, consultant and manager. Twelve years of this experience are in the context of ITC, the geoscience and earth observation institute and now the UT faculty with an international profile. The last seven years Ineke worked as the programme manager of the Technical Medicine programme. Her interest areas are innovation, quality enhancement, e-learning, internationalisation and intercultural education. Ineke will also initiate new routes for students to be trained for tutor roles in several courses, so-called learning assistants. Input from international partners and best practises in Twente and other TUs will help define a first training in Spring 2020 to be executed with all relevant parties.

‘Create the future of education in 24 hours’, that was the challenging task for TU Delft educators, innovators and students during the Education Hackathon that took place on 3 and 4 October. Winner of the challenge is team Meysa that designed the Teacher’s Toolbox. A highly customisable online platform, which gives teachers the opportunity to become creators of their own educational games and share them with their peers.

First year students at Eindhoven University of Technology study obligatory courses in mathematics, such as Calculus (approximately 1800 students) and Linear Algebra (approximately 120 students). A survey was carried out by Birgit Pepin (4TU.CEE leader at TU/e) and researcher Zeger-Jan Kok to find out how first-year mathematics/engineering students have selected and used digital, traditional, social and general resources for their learning of these subjects. The survey provides insight in study behavior of students and helps in designing blended learning environments in an informed way.

TU Eindhoven has fundamentally redesigned its basic course on ethics with help of the flipped-classroom concept and challenge-based learning to increase students’ motivation. A group of 180 students participated in a pilot, which was led by Gunter Bombaerts. Inspiration was taken from Nottingham Trent’s SCALE-UP. Key to challenge-based learning are of course the external parties that bring in their real-life case-studies. Pilot results show that intrinsic motivation, autonomy and competence with students are significantly higher in the co-creation case compared to the other approach not using challenge-based learning. The external stakeholders were also enthusiastic about the approach.

We are proud to announce that Wageningen University & Research has joined the CDIO network last October. WUR is the first of the 4TU to join with all BSc and MSc programmes. The membership opens many opportunities to explore and exchange innovations in engineering education. Perry den Brok, chairman of 4TU.CEE: “I am pleased that WUR now also has become a member of the CDIO network and look forward to a fruitful cooperation with other member universities”.

Last October, TU Eindhoven was visited as part of the 4TU.CEE Learning Spaces Tour. During the day attention was paid to the current student journey with challenge based learning (CBL) at TU/e, aligned with the educational vision of the university towards 2030.

The 3rd of October is all about 'eat-work-rave-repeat' during a 24-hours Education Hackathon at TU Delft. In 24-hours the future of education will be co-created together with students, innovators and educational enthusiasts. The hackers work on 5 challenges introduced by teachers of TU Delft. The aim of the Education Hackathon is to identify key challenges for education and co-create innovative solutions with students. The Hackathon kick-starts these projects and may lead to potential educational startups. This event is co-organized by 4TU.CEE, Leiden Delft Erasmus Centre for Education and Learning, Teaching Academy and YES!Delft.

Many teachers would like to improve their teaching by making use of media that enhance their learners’ experience, but fear that it might take a lot of time or not knowing which tools to use, can make it difficult to actually do so. At TU Delft, lecturers had the opportunity to join in a ten week programme that helped them to effectively embed media in activity and assessment. This pilot, called EdMedia Protégé (EMP) programme was made possible by 4TU.CEE and TU Delft Teaching and Learning Services. TU Delft was the first university in the Netherlands to pilot this development programme.

Online support for biomedical labs (or other labs) can help save teacher efforts and expensive lab time according to Cornelise Vreman-de Olde, Janneke Alers and Chris Rouwenhorst (University of Twente) as can be read in their conference article 'E-learning on the lab with lab education software; Deeper learning & more efficiency?' for SEFI Budapest.

On the 28th of August, Aldert Kamp, 4TU.CEE leader of TU Delft, was invited by the Swedish Royal Academy of Engineering Sciences (IVA) in Stockholm to join their 100-year Jubilee Seminar for a keynote, a seminar presentation and a contribution to three workshops. He presented his vision on the future of higher engineering education and also discovered that in Sweden 4TU.CEE is seen as a role model of universities working together in enhancing engineering education.

No less than six articles on architecture and built environment design education have been published in the latest open access issue of the International Journal of Technology and Design Education. It is the result of the call for papers of 4TU.CEE in 2017 on the ‘Latest developments in architecture & the built environment design education’. Twenty staff members from all over the faculty Architecture and the Built Environment (A&BE) at TU Delft contributed to broad range of topics, from disciplinary and pedagogical developments to interdisciplinary learning and the cultivation of the next generation designers.

An article describing a Twente case study on interdisciplinary project-based learning has now been published (open access) in the European Journal of Engineering Education.

In 2015 the physics curriculum was updated for upper secondary education. Reasons for this update were: declining numbers of students that continued studying sciences at University, lack of clarity for students what physics is actually for, and a consensus that the curriculum contained too much 18th century physics. There was hardly any room for achievements of modern physics. The updated curriculum contains topics such as quantum physics and relativity.

One of the main goals of 4TU.CEE is the dissemination of knowledge about Engineering Education. Numerous PhD students have been or are conducting research within Higher Engineering Education, but they are rarely familiar with each other’s research. On the 4TU.CEE website an overview can be found of these (former) PhD students and their thesis. Amongst them are also PhD students who are conducting research for 4TU.CEE. They are highlighted here: