The Community for Learning and Innovation (CLI) offers teachers MicroLabs on a wide variety of topics. Anyone who teaches at Erasmus University Rotterdam (EUR) can brush up their knowledge on specific topics via these short modules. In the MicroLab ‘How to design impact-driven education’, participants learn how they can give shape to impact-driven education.
How can you formulate good exam questions and how do you then grade them; how do you ensure an inclusive learning environment and how can you use game elements to motivate students even more? Just a few of the topics of the MicroLabs that lecturers at our university can attend. MicroLabs are short how-to modules on specific educational issues, lasting two to four hours. The format is hybrid and consists of an online preparation and one workshop. During the MicroLab ‘How to design impact-driven education’, lecturers learn how to develop teaching programmes that focus on impact-driven education.
According to Jeroen Jansz, director of the Community for Learning and Innovation (CLI), the MicroLabs offered by Erasmus University Rotterdam are unique in the Netherlands. The modules respond strongly to the needs of the faculties. The professionalisation of lecturers is an important objective of our university and MicroLabs make this possible in an easily accessible way. Also because they are easy to fit into the often busy work schedule of lecturers. “What makes MicroLabs special is that they are always tailored to very concrete questions that arise in daily teaching practice. Teachers learn from their own experience to take the next step in a way that suits them.”
What is impact?
Now that Erasmus University Rotterdam is strongly committed to making an impact, he noticed that there was a great need to put this into practice. “I got into a discussion with a number of lecturers about the university's mission ‘Creating positive societal impact’, which can be read in large stickers on the walkway to the auditorium. That raised the question: what is creating impact actually and how do you give it shape in education?” An important starting point in the MicroLab is therefore learning to reflect on how you can make an impact with the knowledge you have. For example, you can’t go into an external stakeholder or community centre thinking that, as an academic, you know everything already. That is why the module also pays attention to this pitfall.”
One of the participants in this MicroLab is Diewertje Houtman from Erasmus MC. As a lecturer, she is working in a team of the Department of Clinical Genetics on the development of the new research master’s programme ‘Genomics in Society’, starting in September 2022. “This master's is completely impact-driven, so I felt the need to learn more from the theory of impact-driven education. With this type of education, not only is the solution unknown at the start, but often the problem as well. That is why you must guide students through the process and that is quite a change, also for the students. Because of the MicroLab, I understand better how students experience impact-driven education. They too are jumping in at the deep end and doing something that is unknown.”
Teacher's role changes
Her colleague Boy Vijlbrief, with whom she followed the MicroLab, also sees that it is important to pay attention to the experience of students and the changing role of lecturers. “What really appealed to me in the MicroLab is the hands-on approach, where you can bring in your own case. You encounter other lecturers and get to work on concrete assignments. In addition, there is plenty of room for philosophical reflection on education and your role as a teacher.”
According to Jansz, the role of the lecturer is changing significantly, as are the demands on an education. When he started at the university in 2009, impact was hardly a starting point in the curriculum. He is convinced that the highest impact is achieved by providing good and inspiring education to thousands of students every day. Talking to a lecture hall for two hours no longer suffices: “If you manage to keep students motivated by introducing them to the impact their knowledge can have, you contribute to improving the quality of education. For that, teachers do need to learn new skills.”
Both participants warmly recommend the MicroLab to anyone who wants to provide more impact-driven education. Vijlbrief: “It has convinced me more that this type of education is valuable. But the module is also relevant if you feel the need to reflect on the education you are currently giving and want to get in touch with lecturers from other disciplines.”