Visionary Sessions - Why and how? (Lieke Schreel, Tessa van Leeuwen)
My name is Nikis Gheil, and I'm enthusiastic about learning by interacting.
Speaker 2:Hello and welcome to the edutalk's podcast. In this special series, the visionary sessions, we'll work our way through the new vision of learning and teaching at the University of Twente dubbed learning by interacting and I won't be hosting this episode alone as I Robin Vamilod have the honor of interacting and potentially learning from co host Tessa van Leeuwen. She may have started in Delft but luckily she quickly reconsidered and started in business information technology and now is almost finishing with a master's in public administration She also holds the student union portfolio on personal development and education and with this diverse background. It's a great honor to have her here as well. Welcome, Tessa.
Speaker 3:Welcome. Thanks.
Speaker 2:Welcome. So in front of us, we have this wonderful 15 page document. Before we dive into all of the the different sections of this document, we want to know why and how this document ended up on our desk over here and our guest today, she co wrote it and is the director of the Center of Educational Support at the University of Twente. She's also my boss so any words recorded here I might reconsider in my annual report, annual plan. Well, then let's give a warm welcome to Lika Steel.
Speaker 2:Welcome.
Speaker 1:Thank you, Robin.
Speaker 3:Nice introduction. Nice introduction.
Speaker 2:Nice introduction. Thank you. So let's indeed start out with that question. Why? Why a vision?
Speaker 2:Why not? Why not?
Speaker 1:No. I think it's important to to have a vision, on education as a university. So you need, a compass or guidelines that, helps us shape our education processes, all of them, education, bachelor, master, pre university, honors, lifelong learning, the whole lot, so that we have a significant, profile, a clear profile of what education at the University of Twente means.
Speaker 2:So it's it's not just marketing and unique selling points then?
Speaker 1:No. Not at all. No. Not at all? No.
Speaker 1:No. I've been at the University of Twente now for about two and a half years, and, I remember that about 10, 12 years ago, I heard about this this whole idea of the TOM model, trends on the Weisz model. And I I was intrigued by it, that you would apply such a model across a whole university and that you actually managed to pull it off was also rather fascinating to me. And it was one of the reasons why I wanted to come and work. It was one of the attractions for me to think, okay.
Speaker 1:This is a university that has a very clear idea on what education is and what kind of education they want to give.
Speaker 2:Because then back then, did you still live in Ireland, or did you already move I was in,
Speaker 1:Leiden. In The Hague by then.
Speaker 2:Oh, The Hague.
Speaker 4:The Hague.
Speaker 1:That was Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Almost Leiden or Leiden is almost The Hague. They're close
Speaker 2:Very close.
Speaker 1:Very near.
Speaker 2:For me in Enschede, that's just all one cluster. That's what I think of that's what I think as well.
Speaker 1:Don't tell them. But okay. That's so for me, that was one of the attractions to apply for a job here because education is one of the things that I find most fascinating and also most rewarding, to to do with your professional life. For me, it's a great inspiration to create an environment in which, academics and teachers and instructors can help their students to learn as much as they can. And just and to see students develop in the years that they're here and then they graduate and that big smile, that that's just, you know, every year.
Speaker 1:That's great. Yeah. So, so why a vision? It started for me with very practical things. One of the things that, my department is responsible for is scheduling, and we were experiencing a shortage of classrooms.
Speaker 1:So we proposed a couple of measures, and then everyone said, what? It needs to come from a vision. And I said, great. Give me that vision. I was here, like
Speaker 2:I'll just write it myself then.
Speaker 1:I was there for 3 months maybe in the middle of a pandemic. So so where where is that vision? And then I was presented with a whole stack of partial visions. So we had a DOM model, and, there was a vision on digital development and internationalization and digitalization. But there was no document where all these things came together.
Speaker 3:And how was that like? Like, starting up, like, from the ground up, building the vision again? Well, combining visions also. But it was the first time writing a combined overall vision.
Speaker 1:Yes. It was basically so so I didn't think we invented many new things in this vision. And a lot of the time that we spent on it was used to go through all those partial visions and to see where the where the connecting points were and then bring these together and bring it one step further, also considering everything we learned during the pandemic because that, of course, was a game changer.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Definitely.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, a boss at the the center of educational support and then, really, through a very practical question, you got in touch with it with with the whole vision. Because the scheduling, that was really the the lead up for you as Yep. Would you otherwise be involved? Would you still be interested, like, oh, I'm more involved, of course, with the administration process with we assess?
Speaker 1:I like the combination. I mean, the administration and and and supportive, processes, are there to support the learning process. So if you don't understand the learning process, then how are you going to give direction, as a director does, apparently, to, to all these people who are trying their best to support us and create that environment in which students can optimally learn. That, of course, for me, is the end goal. Students should learn, you know, be able to use their time here to learn as much as they can personally, but also intellectually and also develop their personality so that we can give them back to the world as as richer people who can make a contribution.
Speaker 2:And who else was also involved then with the writing? Is this now fully your piece?
Speaker 1:No. Not at all.
Speaker 2:No. Not at all.
Speaker 1:I wouldn't claim that. No. No. I would say all the authors of the previous versions and and visions and documents, obviously, those who've been involved. There was a group of, one of the vice dean of education, Jano Eideen, the coauthor, the other person who helped write this, but also educational scientists, teachers, students, someone from the IT department, the director of the IT department, actually, himself.
Speaker 1:So he was involved in the digitalization, agenda, so he could bring in that perspective. And especially the students that we involved, they were great. That's I always enjoy working with students, but they they can bring such a fresh and new ideas. It's really nice.
Speaker 2:And were you also involved from the student union side in this trajectory?
Speaker 3:I'm not sure. Well, I wasn't because I wasn't then yet in my position. But we did have talks afterwards about implementation and how to approach that one. So I think many students also enjoy to work with Leek. So that's no.
Speaker 1:Take it as a compliment. That's nice to hear.
Speaker 2:You already mentioned the implementation. And I'm curious then for you indeed as then back to the director of CES. How would that vision then impact your work then? Now it's here.
Speaker 1:My work directly, maybe not so much, but I do hope it will impact the work of the people I work with. We'll give them guidelines, for example, on scheduling issues or for the educational scientists that we have a large group of in my department, to give them also the direction of all the fantastic things that they do, maybe give it a bit more focus. This is what we're aiming for. For the information managers in my department, this is important to know, okay, which which systems should we support and where should we invest and not invest. The people in my department who are involved in scholarships and international relations, it's important for them that it says that internationalization is one of the core elements of what we do here that that will facilitate the learning that we want to achieve in our students.
Speaker 2:So we have quite some elements, internationalization, digitalization, community, all these things coming together now in 1 large of 15 pages. Not that large, luckily. No. Very practical, I think.
Speaker 1:And not all pages are language. Right? Yeah. It's not not all text.
Speaker 2:We have we have the the baremian knots. Right? Does that Yes.
Speaker 1:Baromian. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Baromian. Excuse me. Yeah. How did that come to place?
Speaker 1:That, I have to entirely credit to Ciano Adeen.
Speaker 2:He's like a mathematician that this is a tip for my wall?
Speaker 1:No. He's a he's a philosopher of education. Yeah. He's a professor of philosophy in education. And and this is a model that he worked with, more frequently.
Speaker 1:And this Borromean knot, for those who cannot see it and are just listening, a Borromean knot consists of 3 circles that are all connected. And if you cut through one of them, the other 2 will also fall apart. So it is an interlinked model, indicating how things connect with each other.
Speaker 2:So, really, making that connection is probably the most important part then for this vision.
Speaker 1:Yes. Yes. It is the the Borromean knot for us, was the model that we used to make clear why we educate people. But that's the starting point. Why, as a university, do we educate students?
Speaker 1:Yeah. Why do we think it's important? What do we want to achieve with that?
Speaker 2:So now, the challenge of implementing it and, one of your steps of doing so was at the 13th November this year, 2023. All sorts of higher management at a university came together to discuss the vision on learning and teaching at our wonderful design lab. Now, they've gone into all sorts of workshops ranging from student well-being to lifelong learning play along in UT strategy and student experience games, but I was there as well. And after the first round of workshops, I decided to ask some of the attendees the same questions that we were just asking you about, the why of this vision and how would it impact our work. Let's listen to some of their responses and see what they think of it.
Speaker 1:I'm very curious.
Speaker 2:Yeah. The first one is actually a student at this Higher Management Day but the student was Noah. He is a student of applied physics but is also a member of the faculty board at the faculty S and T. Let's listen to what he said about it after joining one of the workshops.
Speaker 5:One of the things I really like about the, vision that's currently implemented is the group work.
Speaker 2:Which workshop are you joining?
Speaker 5:I'm joining the student well-being workshop. Yeah. So it it came to it came to, attention that, maybe having more focus on the, group work itself and the and the progress is more important than, your final mark.
Speaker 2:And
Speaker 5:maybe your final grade should be should not be, given based on what you have delivered as a final product, but maybe more on the process side.
Speaker 2:Do you think that is no. I have a good vision?
Speaker 1:I think it's it's it's really nice that he has this insight, because that is part of of of the model that we have for our bachelor programs, The the various roles, the 3 roles that students can take in, in the project modules that we have are there to to learn how to work together. And I think it's one of the strengths that our students take with them when they enter the labor market. But I'm also curious curious to hear what what Tessa said because she's she's nodding.
Speaker 3:Yeah. I most definitely agree. I think the collaboration, the working with students from different cultural backgrounds is really something that strengthens your not only hard skills set but also your soft skillset. So I think Noah already had a quite practical implication of what the vision could mean for the education.
Speaker 2:So the the vision really entails this quite well then, the the focus on group work. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1:So Yeah. It's it's, the 3 core aims. I mean, one of them is building inclusive communities and another one is self development. And, the whole thing is learning by interacting. So if you're not in group work, how are you going to interact with other I mean, that that's really, like, an environment in which you have to interact.
Speaker 1:And it can be challenging. Right? And it can be really difficult. I've been a teacher at university, and you have groups where it really does not work at all. Cultural differences, personal preferences are different.
Speaker 1:But you have to learn and deal with this because that's what we have to do as well in our careers and in our work. You cannot always choose the people that you work with.
Speaker 2:You also said that this this, vision really got another boost during the pandemic. I can imagine the topic of group work was difficult back then.
Speaker 1:I think the pandemic, gave a boost to to thinking about education. So before the pandemic, it was all, like, in the classwork. And I was at a different institution then, but it was that was very much focused on small classes, maximum 20 students, a lot of interacting, and boom, pandemic. And moving to digital tools was, of course, something that very many people resisted before the pandemic and we were just forced to. You had to.
Speaker 1:And then people started realizing, hang on. There's a lot actually that we can achieve with these tools. And, of course, the development of the technical, support of that also boosted enormously. I mean, I'd never heard of Teams before. Whatever it was, March 13, 2020, something like that.
Speaker 2:No. No. We can't live without it, basically.
Speaker 1:That it's taken over a whole part of of our work and the way we organize things. And you put your documents there, and you have your meetings, and you can easily connect to people at our institutions. And
Speaker 2:yeah. And we would just, talking about, your time as a student, you weren't here in the middle of
Speaker 3:of that then. Yeah. Yeah. I just started my bachelor's. It was after my first half year, and I, actually, already mentioned already started in Delft.
Speaker 3:So I was, luckily already quite a bit used to studying and to, like, study at a university. But it was definitely a big change. Also, the you really saw the progress from teachers as well after, like, half a year when they were just used to it and and the classes were way better arranged digitally than they were during the first module that had to be online.
Speaker 2:So there's emphasis of of group work then? You're happy that's in here?
Speaker 3:The emphasis on group work?
Speaker 2:Yeah. With with that experience during the pandemic. I imagine that was difficult then.
Speaker 3:Yeah. There was like, it's also it's challenging. It's hard. You develop yourself. It's also fun.
Speaker 3:Right? Because you're connecting with these around you who most likely have the same interests because you're studying the same study program. That's also part of what makes being a student nice.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So connecting to others around us, we'll go to the 2nd sound bite and that's from someone relatively well known. That's Tom Weltkamp, better known as the boss of the campus, director of Magnificus. I've asked him about this vision as well, but also how this impacts his work then as director of this university. Let's listen to what he said.
Speaker 4:And I think the the vision has put a lot of emphasis on the methods we teach and not as such on the content because we are automatically assume that the content is always up to date and state of the art.
Speaker 2:And now this vision is here. How will this impact your own work then as Hector?
Speaker 4:It makes my life a lot easier because, like I said, there's a lot of adversity in the University of Twente, also in the teaching programs. This also highlights what we have in common, and that also helps me when I talk to a program director of the students who came. But this is the backbone of what we, how we do and how we want you to learn.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So, I think it was the client of this project that make it a project management terms. Project's well done.
Speaker 5:Thank you. It's always nice to hear that
Speaker 1:you make someone's life easier.
Speaker 2:You make someone's life easier. Hey, but, you also mentioned something about it's not about the content, but more about the methods. How do you think about that?
Speaker 1:I think he's absolutely right. I mean, the content is in very, very good hands with the academics in our university. You know, these are these are very good scholars, academics. They know what they're doing. They know what they want to teach.
Speaker 1:But for us, as Twente, to really give our student that extra benefit, that is in the methods and what and, yeah, in the way we present that content. And you can present content by standing in front of a class with, or an auditorium with 300 students, and go over it and just hope that some of it will resonate and that they will remember, or you can say we'll do it differently. I will make sure that students will actually engage with the content and with each other and work through it and then learn. And then the learning is much deeper.
Speaker 2:So you're really hoping you were born a couple of years later? And did you experience these types of lectures?
Speaker 3:Yeah. Well, what Lig already said is that it's not Neo deficient. So I think part of it
Speaker 5:is already implemented and part of
Speaker 3:part of it I could already experience. Yeah. So maybe the, of course, we'll keep on improving but I don't think I've missed all of that, what Dirk already mentioned.
Speaker 2:Yep. So during this workshop I spoke to one more person that I wanna at least play for now. The final clip here is from Maarten von Steyn, the Scientific Director of the Digital Society Institute and he is heavily involved with lifelong learning. Let's listen to what he thinks about his vision.
Speaker 6:And as an expert on lifelong learning, what's your own vision on learning and teaching?
Speaker 7:First of all, I'm not quite sure whether I'm an expert on lifelong learning, but, let's let's put that aside. What I particularly like in the vision that is now, being developed is this learning by doing. This is this is at least my, my one, one liner. And, I think that's actually at the core. And now, the question is, how can you do, learning by doing?
Speaker 7:There are lots of different ways to actually implement that. But I think it's most challenging also for our own teachers to actually get into a mode that they're doing more than just teaching. They should be participants in the learning process.
Speaker 2:So I had a carpet pulled away from me on the lifelong learning. This, of course, is a very new aspect in the in the vision and the statements made this year about it at the university.
Speaker 1:I like it. It's nice. And it and I I think it it is also I mean, it aligns with my own ideas about education. I mean, I can stand there and and tell someone something, but if you don't engage with them and you don't facilitate the learning process of your your your students, then they're not gonna learn. And and every person learns differently.
Speaker 1:I mean, for me, a very clear example, when when I was a student, I was a coach of a rowing team, 8, male, huge, big men. Apart from the fact that it was just fun and rowing is a fantastic sport, it also told me a lot about how do you approach individuals. And I could explain something to 1 rower in one way and not and he would get get it immediately. And then for another, I would have to phrase it differently or have a different exercise for let for it to let sink in. And at that stage, I still thought that it will have nothing to do with education in my life so that was wrong but for me there wasn't a moment that I thought okay you have to approach each individual differently because I learn individually
Speaker 2:And he said something about getting teachers in 4th and maybe also changing again those methods. How do we get teachers involved?
Speaker 1:The impression that I have from our teachers that they are already quite involved, but Tessa will know more about that. We have a lot of small group teaching, so you have to facilitate that they can be involved. And and if you put someone in front of a class and says, okay. Now you're gonna teach your content to a group of 50 students and just send her and you send the message, and that's it. As the teacher myself, I didn't enjoy that very much.
Speaker 1:You want to have the interaction with your students. And if you can show teachers that that is, you know, the fun part, and that's also the part where you learn yourself, I've learned so much from my students, Then then it comes at real interaction.
Speaker 3:I definitely noted the difference between a bachelor's and master's in that because the master's was way more small scaled
Speaker 5:and there were way more discussion.
Speaker 3:It was more of a two way street between the teacher and the student than compared to the bachelor's because yeah. It's also you have to learn the basics then, sort of, so there's less time for it. So I definitely that's the aspect I enjoyed way more in my in my master's than in my bachelor's.
Speaker 2:So would you say that this aspect would be better if it's also more present in the in the bachelor's then?
Speaker 3:Yes. I I would definitely, like, be a promoter of that, but, I also acknowledge the fact that that may be harder to implement because of just a lot of elements, but I do think it's something, that I would be a promoter of. Yeah. Definitely.
Speaker 2:So any ideas how can we do that?
Speaker 1:Yeah. We blend it.
Speaker 5:We blend it.
Speaker 1:You're right. It's in that one. Right? Yeah. I'm
Speaker 2:just selling my own course. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah. No. But I I do think that that's a new opportunity that's here that we didn't have before. When I started teaching, I mean, that that was in the previous century.
Speaker 2:Did they have caller TV back then?
Speaker 1:They did. Yeah. Yeah. And email was just happening.
Speaker 2:Just happening.
Speaker 1:I'm that I'm that old woman.
Speaker 2:This is going into the annual annual review of mine. Exactly.
Speaker 1:But we didn't have those tools, so, yeah, you had to invent things yourselves. And now, this generation of students, and and that keeps changing rapidly, they are so used to all kind of electronic devices, input information, digitalization, that you have to use it because that's the world that I live in. And it gives a lot of opportunities to make your education flexible. So if you present the the kind of the the more, theoretical content in a manner that students can study it themselves at a time that they know that they learn best, some people do better in the morning, others in the evening. Maybe they want to watch something 3 times or maybe they can skip through it because they already understand.
Speaker 1:But if you give students that flexible way of interacting with the basic content, then you can use your classroom time for interacting with it and getting into it and whatever, doing games of quizzes or presentations or whatever fantastic things that people come up with.
Speaker 2:Yeah. The one line of math and learning by doing.
Speaker 3:Exactly. It also gives them opportunities, for example, the extracurricular activities, which they also learn and develop themselves. The flexibility gives students more time to do so. So I that's really the thing I enjoyed during the pandemic was being able to be flexible with my education and still doing everything you have to do but also having time to end your team's next to my studies.
Speaker 1:Yeah. I think a fantastic example was at the institution where I was before. There was one course where they had they had lectures, once a week, and that professor decided to make a podcast, probably just on his own microphone at the beautiful studio that we have here, but he has a very pleasant voice. So students would just take their podcast, with their phone, put on their headsets or their their ears, and put in their their listening things, and go for a walk while listening to his lecture. And the results were fantastic.
Speaker 2:It's actually one of the things I heard about, one of the ad tech companies that developed different tools for us at university, and one of them developed a lot of accessibility tools. And they said, well, the most used tools of the whole toolkit we offer is the the playback function. And we see that students just use that, to listen to the content as just a podcast and on the go rather than having to read all of it. That was really interesting for me. Like, okay.
Speaker 2:So, you don't have to go all in with this studio with a full script and having all these slides. No. You can just go to this format as a podcast.
Speaker 1:Yeah. And I think that can work very well. And we also know that people process information in different ways. Some people are more auditive, others are more visual. Some like to read, others need to draw things.
Speaker 1:So if you can offer that variety of offering the content as well, then students will learn better and learn more. And they can, yeah, use it to meet their own learning style.
Speaker 2:Well, speaking of students, besides this higher management day, we've also thought, well, what do our clients, to call that? Do students think of this new vision of learning and teaching? And we, of course, also expect that they don't all know this exact document, but
Speaker 1:It would surprise me if
Speaker 2:they were. Yeah. Certainly. We were still interested to see what they find important then and, if they would ride it, what would they ride into it? So, we first spoke to Mike and Stan, both students in electrical engineering.
Speaker 2:So let's listen to what they find important in learning and teaching.
Speaker 6:I think I'm a bit old fashioned that way. My preference are actually just very good lectures and, I can't do the rest myself, basically. Have you?
Speaker 5:Yeah. Kind of the same, but also something a bit more fun and interactive. I also do enjoy that.
Speaker 6:The writer of this piece, what would you like to say to us?
Speaker 5:Well, yeah, I'd say make it fun, basically.
Speaker 2:Make it fun.
Speaker 5:Keep the fun there. It's, that's important. Let's say Get people motivated.
Speaker 6:Yeah. I do agree. I think that is the main thing that's, that I would like to improve on teaching actually.
Speaker 2:So make it fun. You have a recommendation there.
Speaker 1:Okay. I was more intrigued by the fact that it said make us motivated because I would expect students coming to university to be motivated to learn. That's why you come here. But, anyway, who am I? Make it fun.
Speaker 1:Yeah. I think that that that's a very good remark. And don't get me wrong. I don't think there's anything wrong with a very good lecture. You have people who can give fantastic lectures, and for an hour, you're looking, wow.
Speaker 1:It's really fantastic. And where is this going? But all the time and and, yeah. Maybe not. People learn in different ways, and I think that became very clear in this example as well.
Speaker 1:And make it fun, when I was still teaching, I started out as a language teacher, teaching Dutch to, Irish students, which was fun as well. And that was very much learning by doing because I think I learned proper Dutch because I was teaching it. But there, I tried to make it fun. I'm a huge fan of board games. I love board games.
Speaker 1:So, every year, we would have this this this wrap up session, where I would divide students from all years because, of course, this was a very small program. And we would play trivial pursuit, and we made categories like geography of the low countries and, history and something about the books that I'd read, irregular verbs, and they would have to play lecture field pursuit and go through all those materials. And it really helped them to prepare for their exams. It was a lot of fun.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So good lecture. Does that help you as well? Or
Speaker 3:Yeah. Most definitely. But there's
Speaker 5:a really difference between a good lecturer and a
Speaker 3:bit less lecturer, and that makes a difference. And also, I can see what the boys were saying regarding the fun aspect makes it easier to do so. I remember for my bachelor's, I had to program a
Speaker 5:a game. I didn't know
Speaker 3:the game before. I forgot the name. But we had to program a game such that you could play towards an AI agent. And it was because of the game elements, it was really simple. And at the end, we had a tournament which all the different AIs had to compete towards each other.
Speaker 3:And, yeah, it is one of the things I remember from a bachelor's and I think that says a lot.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Yeah. And it's also something that, as I just said, I started at UT, in the middle of a pandemic. So, I attended open days, as well because I thought I need to know what we teach here. And those were online, so I could easily skip from one to the other.
Speaker 1:But I was just fascinated by all the the things that the students create here. It's just okay. Was it a classical university before this? And these these are people who invent things and they build things. And, I mean, I have 2 left hands, so don't ask me to build anything because I'll make a huge mess of it.
Speaker 1:But that that, I think, really makes it fun. And that's also in our projects where students actually apply all the knowledge that they get. They understand why they need it because they need to to build this fun thing. And then, of course, I mean, the solar powered car, that's, you know, the project is that's amazing. That's really how much fun is that?
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Let's go to our final student we interviewed. That was Saba, a student in educational science and technology, a future expert in learning and teaching. Let's listen to what he thinks is the role of the teacher when learning by interacting.
Speaker 8:Feeling friendly, being available anytime that is necessary for the students. That I found it, good here, actually, to be connected with teachers and, more or less, they were available anytime that we needed them. Yeah.
Speaker 2:And about, empathy.
Speaker 8:Yeah. To have the empathy. And, you know, they should care, actually. As far as I know, they should care that what, you are doing is not just like a project, and you are just a person that is coming and going after a year, and you matter what you do and what you're expecting matters. And, yeah, they should care what you're you're spending your life here, at least for 1, 2 years.
Speaker 8:So
Speaker 2:Yeah. Spending your life here. Does the role of the teacher evolve, though, with this new vision?
Speaker 1:I think that the role of a teacher always evolves because you have to evolve with society and and the students that you get in. I mean, the students that we have now are different from the students that we had 10 years ago and definitely different from students from 20 or 30 years ago. So as a teacher, you always have to evolve. And if you are here for 20 or 30 years, you cannot continue doing what you did 20 years ago with the same. The material will stay the same.
Speaker 1:I don't think gravity will change, at all. But the way you teach it, you have to adjust to the population that you have. So, yes, there's a changing role for the teacher. And I think, looking over the past 20 years, I think we have been moving towards a more coaching role. And also, that is also what Martin was saying.
Speaker 1:You facilitate learning rather than being the one fountain of knowledge that knows everything. And it can be scary as a teacher because you have to stand and say, okay, I don't know everything, and I have to look this up. But it's also honest towards your students, and they come up with fantastic questions. And you think, wow, I never thought of that. That's a great idea.
Speaker 1:We'll just go and develop that. And if you can allow that for yourself, that's just great.
Speaker 2:So really giving room for empathy.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Understanding your students, now knowing where they come from, I mean, being available whenever students want to, I think that's a bit much because our academic staff works really, really hard, and they deserve to have a personal life as well. So don't send Yeah. Yeah. Don't don't send them an email at midnight, and then be annoyed that you don't have an answer by 3 o'clock in the morning.
Speaker 3:Student and teacher well-being is also also in the vision. Right? Exactly.
Speaker 5:It's one
Speaker 3:of the foundation variables, I think.
Speaker 1:Yeah. But during office hours or, you know, whenever the time frame that you give being available to students Yeah. Is important. Yeah. And not and not every I mean, students are all individuals.
Speaker 1:Right? I mean and that's the small scale also helps with you can really interact with with individual students, and that's what makes it fun.
Speaker 2:So it's really then learning by interacting for teachers as well. Like, they they learn by interacting with these students.
Speaker 1:Definitely. Yeah. Definitely. Yeah. And that's also what makes teaching fun.
Speaker 1:I've had people saying to me, you're teaching, you do the same thing every year. It must be boring. No. It's never boring. I actually miss it.
Speaker 1:I don't teach anymore, but I miss it. Because one thing that that may work 1 year fantastically, the next year doesn't work at all. I think, okay. Something went wrong here. What happened?
Speaker 1:And then you try out something new. And, yeah, the huge reward when you see a student finally understand something. That's really great.
Speaker 2:Yeah. It's really fun. I used to teach myself, and I'd have 3 parallel groups all doing following the same class, and the dynamic is always different. One time, you're trying to do this discussion and you really have to put a break on it, like, guys say, give each other a room and the other time you really have to say, come on. Who's who's up for something?
Speaker 2:Come on. Really push it. And maybe it's a time of the day, it's way too early in the morning, maybe they're all hungry, they had a horrible lesson beforehand or whatever. That's always so interesting. Like, you can't fully define all of it.
Speaker 1:Not at all. No.
Speaker 2:No. So we've heard quite some responses from both higher management but also just students on the campus. What's the next step then for this vision?
Speaker 1:Start using it.
Speaker 2:Start using it.
Speaker 1:I think we're already doing it. I think, perhaps make it more visible, because now it's just a PDF somewhere on the website.
Speaker 3:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:I don't think passing around, hard copies will help a lot. I mean, even though I have one ahead of me, but that's or in front of me. I don't think that that that's the way to go. It's not very sustainable, but also these things tend to end up on the bottom of a stack of paper somewhere in a closet. So that's also not very useful.
Speaker 1:We are going to do have some workshops on specific aspects of, of the vision. One of my dreams is still to develop a tool in which programs can score how well they do on the various aspects of it, And they don't all have the score the same way on on each aspect, but just they should take us into consideration so it could really become a part of our quality management cycle. These podcasts, I think, are a very fun way of telling people about it. One thing that I took from the higher management afternoon is actually that talking about it will see will make it clear to people that people coming to me saying, oh, it was so nice that you presented it because, you know, I can read the document, but now it really I started understanding and thinking about the bromine knot. So those things are, I think, you know, what what I said before, people learn and and, absorb information in different ways.
Speaker 1:We have it now on paper. We have it on text. But I think, if we can make different, versions as well to talk about it, then, then that would also be good.
Speaker 3:Yeah. And from a student perspective, would you also say it will be valuable if students will be more aware of it? Because they if it's implemented alright then
Speaker 5:they would know that they
Speaker 2:Like everyone knows Tom.
Speaker 3:Yeah. They live the consequences of course But do you think they need to be aware of the vision that's behind it? Or do you think there is much value to gain there?
Speaker 1:It's not something that I think we should, you know, use the introduction period and say,
Speaker 3:yay, here's the additional learning
Speaker 1:and we're gonna do a quiz at the end
Speaker 5:of it. I don't think that's the way to go. It won't work. No.
Speaker 1:It won't work. No. Exactly. It would be nice if if they knew it exists, but I don't think it's necessary. If we live by it and if we use it in our education and they kind of feel this unity in our education at the University of Twente, then it will work.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Because the same thing, like, students often don't know that there's an examination regulations, the EER. They have no idea until they encounter something, oh, do we have that document? But it doesn't mean that we don't have to have it, apart from the fact that we legally have to have it. You have it, but if all goes well, you don't really need to know the the ins and outs of it. And I think that's probably the same for these things.
Speaker 2:And I'm glad you complimented a podcast as a medium. My question to you then, we're now talking more high over. Who should I have here at this table next episode, and what should we talk about? What experts we have would help you in implementing?
Speaker 1:I think it would be nice to have a teacher.
Speaker 2:1 of the teachers.
Speaker 3:One of the teachers.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Yeah. And then, hopefully, already enlightened.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Maybe both. Right?
Speaker 1:Maybe a more someone with a more traditional view on education and a very straightforward or innovative person who really likes to use all kinds of tools.
Speaker 2:Yeah. It
Speaker 1:would be really interesting to hear their because it should work for both of them. That's the thing. But both can facilitate something with learning by by doing and and the interaction and the self development and inclusive communities. So Maybe it's nice
Speaker 3:to have the teacher of the year last year. Yeah. The one, was awarded the UT award. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah. We had the previous teacher of the year, Neli Littwack here as well, doing one of the episodes. So we'll we'll get this new one on Osborne, hopefully.
Speaker 3:Heide, I believe.
Speaker 2:If you're listening, I'm going to reach out to you.
Speaker 1:And even if you're not listening, he will reach out to you.
Speaker 2:Yeah. I'll be there. We're nearing the end of, this very first episode. So are there any other things you still wanna share about this vision now on a way forward?
Speaker 1:I think what I want to share is that, one of the things that I enjoyed in the process is that, it was a cooperation between support staff and academic staff and students. And in the end, the the final writing up was done by Channa Aden and myself, and that was not always easy because I'm very practical. I need to organize support for teaching, so I need to be practical. And he's a philosopher, so you can imagine that that sometimes was okay. How do we understand each other?
Speaker 1:But we did, and in the end, we did. And that, for me, was a very strong learning, experience as well. So, we also learned by interacting. So, we were actually living our own educational vision. And I think the vision has become stronger because it was people from all aspects of the university involved.
Speaker 2:It's really this cocreation, this idea.
Speaker 1:Yeah. If you want to use that term.
Speaker 2:I love using that term. I have a lot of I have a whole dictionary buzzwords with me all the time.
Speaker 1:Excellent. I'm glad that you got an opportunity to slip it in.
Speaker 2:Just any final remarks from you?
Speaker 3:No. No. I think from our Synchrony perspective, we really like fishing because it aligns with our personal development decisions as well. And then you can also I think, the combined efforts will really have a good influence on the learning journeys of students. So
Speaker 2:yeah. Great. Then I think, we're there. I wanna thank both of you for joining me in this first episode of podcast.
Speaker 1:Thank you for having us.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Of course. Thanks.
Speaker 2:Thank you for listening to the special series of EduTalks. This podcast was produced by the video team in collaboration with the strategy and policy center of expertise in learning and teaching, Technology and Analysis Learning and Teaching, and the BMS Teaching Academy team. We hope you listen along next times as well and by subscribing and rating this podcast on your choice of platform. Do you have ideas or want to be featured in the next episode? Send us a mail through edutalk@yourtwenty.nl.
Speaker 2:For now, thank you very much. Bye bye.
