Education Day 2017 recap
More than 150 teachers found time to participate in the Education Day 2017: From Vision to the Classroom.
After a short introduction movie by Rob Mudde (Delft Teaching Academy) on ambition in education, Anka Mulder (Executive Board) and Timo Kos (Education & Student Affairs) opened the Education day for a Teaching Lab full of TU Delft teachers. They presented TU Delft’s new Vision on Education. Together with all Education Day participants, they examined several topics. Timo Kos: “This vision is now still only a document. We need teachers to make our shared vision a reality.”
Five future educational developments were plenary discussed and voted on. The topic ‘challenge based didactics’ appeared on top. What kind of words our teachers relate with this topic? Mentioned were: real life problems, motivation, try and fail, team, competition and many more. These insights gave good starting points for further discussion during the afternoon and the execution of our strategy in the future.
Workshops for teachers
The discussion was followed by two rounds of workshops given by our teachers within the themes challenged based education and competencies of the TU Delft engineer. Topics of the workshops ranged from ‘real life challenges in an online classroom’ and ‘educating socially responsible engineers’ to ‘applying game elements in your course’ and ‘integrative teaching of Python programming’.
The workshop participants were very enthusiastic which was confirmed by comments like. “The topic of the workshops are all very interesting, difficult to make a choice. Every topic is an incentive to discuss your education with peers. Very valuable.” It was also mentioned that some workshop participants got new insights from the workshop they attended, like one teacher who thought that it was quite a challenge to incorporate self- and peer assessment in his course. Together with his group he came up with a way how to do it and he was able to pitch this to the rest of the participants.
During the workshop on ‘the challenges of challenge based didactics’ a lot of energy was felt in the room. Many good practices were discussed, both from within as outside the university, which inspired one of the directors of Education “If we have so many good practices of challenge based didactics and are good at it, why don’t we organize a conference”, he concluded.
Celebrating education
The most festive part of the programme was the announcement and hand out of the Education Awards. Marie Sam Rutten, president of the Student Council, handed out the Best Lecturer TU Delft 2017 award. Giulia Calabretta of the IDE faculty took home the honours. She will be TU Delft’s nomination for the national ISO Teacher of the Year award in 2018. Check out the other nominees for the Best Lecturer TU Delft 2017 award here.
Bart Root was elected Innovative Teaching Talent 2017. Bart teaches in the Satellite Tracking & Communications course at the faculty of Aerospace Engineering. With his vision, enthusiasm and passion in his teaching, this young lecturer convinced the jury to award him this title.
Tim van der Hagen of the Executive Board had the pleasure to announce four new Education Fellows: Kevin Cowan (AE), Pieter Bots (TPM), Anton Akhmerov (AS) and Pascquale Cirillo (EEMCS) We hope to interview them soon and find out about what projects they will be researching in the coming 2 years. You want to know more already? You read about their Educational Initiative in the Teaching Lab.
Final surprise
The final surprise was a present to Anka Mulder for her departure from TU Delft, offered by the TU Delft teachers. A drawing of all the education developments at TU Delft during her tenure. You can see it here below, but for a full experience, come check it out at the Teaching Lab yourself!
The Education Day team would like to thank everybody for their enthusiastic participation. We wish all TU Delft teachers a happy new year and hope to see you again soon in 2018.
