What are the topics of the future in digitalization of higher education? Which innovations can advance education from your perspective? How would you like to contribute to push Dutch higher education forward? These questions will be discussed in the pre-conference workshop. You will get to know SURF and their activities, the current topics and projects they are working on and how they support innovation in higher education. Further, we will use innovative methods that are also applicable to learner-centered teaching and student-led workshops. If you want to know e.g. how speed-dating, silent writing discussions and design thinking methods can be integrated in a workshop, join this workshop and experience a welcoming warmup for the Herfstfestival!

At the end of the workshop, you will know more about 1) SURF’s activities and how you can profit from it, 2) what the pressing topics of students and teachers in digitalization of higher education are and 3) how students and teachers could be involved in innovation processes.
Your e-mail address from the registration form will be used once by the organizer Alexa Böckel from SURF to send you a summary of the session.

In this workshop you will learn, based on the video material from the Biology study program, how you can best use video in your own teaching. In the second part of the workshop you will apply this knowledge and judge a series of video clips on the basis of (educational) guidelines.

In this workshop the relevance of peer feedback as a strategy to reach deep learning will shortly be emphasized. According to recent insights peer feedback stimulates critical thinking, the making of new connections and the integration of new knowledge into what is already known. This is especially the case when the usual peer feedback process is extended: students will not only give feedback to their peers but the ones who receive feedback will now also engage in an online reaction and possibly an academic discussion with the feedback provider in order to improve the quality of the (written) assignment. The usefulness of some digital tools will be indicated. Finally, we will elaborate on the results of recent research in the context of a number of statements that will be discussed.

During this interactive workshop, participants are introduced to various types of online education. The workshop covers how to apply these types to the daily educational practice. Furthermore, advantages of this kind of education are discussed. In addition, virtual exchange with other universities and the availability of practical support will be explained.

At the end of the workshop, participants are aware of the different types of online education. They also know how to apply these types and how to exchange courses with other universities. A rough design will be created. This contains a plan of approach on how to implement online education into the teachers’ own educational practice.

Supported by ICT, the digitalization of teaching and learning is progressing rapidly. This offers many opportunities for initial learning as well as for post-initial (life-long) learning. Formats and modes of teaching, and even curriculum will be impacted. Educational institutions struggle with these innovations as corporate and public technologies enter academia. How to design and blend online and physical learning environments? How to ensure that students and teachers maintain a sense of community? José van Dijck and Jan Haarhuis, both Utrecht University, will engage in a dialogue to unpack their visions on the digitalization of education.

Biographies

José van Dijck is distinguished university professor of media and digital society at Utrecht University. She graduated from Utrecht University in 1985 and received her PhD in Comparative Literature from the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) in 1992. Van Dijck worked at the Universities of Groningen, Maastricht and Amsterdam. At the University of Amsterdam, she served as Chair of the Department of Media Studies and was the Dean of the Faculty of Humanities. From 2015 until 2018, she was the President of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW).

Jan Haarhuis is an Educationalist and a teacher in Mathematics and Physics and since 2014, he is leading the University-wide program “Educate-innovation and technology” (Educate-it) that supports teachers as they future-proof and enhance their teaching practice. In 2016, Jan received the ‘change maker’ award in the ICT and Education Professionals category in the Netherlands’ SURF education awards. He is Chair of the ‘Digital Education’ Group of the League of European Research Universities (LERU) and actively involved in the development of European University CHARM-EU.

Casper Hulshof (Utrecht University)

Educational technology is as old as technology itself, so there is no question about the impact of technology on learning. Still, a few almost ancient questions about uses and misuses of technology in education have been left unanswered, and given the increase in they may have become even more relevant than before. Does the internet belong in the classroom? Do computers make people smarter, dumber, or more violent? Does technology provide the key to answering today’s ‘21st century’ problems? Casper Hulshof will address a few of these questions, using his characteristic ‘mythbuster’-style.

Biography

Casper Hulshof is a teacher in Educational Science at the faculty of Social Sciences at the University of Utrecht. He specializes in courses on educational psychology, research methodology, and philosophy of science. To him, the most important points about effective teaching are humor and making the connection between classic theory and contemporary research. He is an active user of social media where he likes to discuss science and pseudoscience, and tries to bridge the gap between educational research and educational practice. He is co-author of two books that take a critical look at some educational ideas: Urban Myths about Learning and Education (published in 2016) and recently More Urban Myths About Learning and Education: Challenging Eduquacks, Extraordinary Claims, and Alternative Facts.

Redesigning Learning spaces has been a key trend in Higher Education for five years in a row now, according to the renowned Educause Horizon Report. Also in the Netherlands a range of alternative learning spaces have been designed, often initiated by teachers.

During this workshop you will start your own quest for an ideal learning space. We will make use of design principle cards for learning spaces and rapid prototyping with LEGO.

This workshop can be of interest both for policy makers and for teachers.

A personal pitch is a video statement about just what makes you tick. So in this workshop we are going to start by finding out what that might be. Then we’ll work on a script for a clip and finally we’ll go to the light board studio to actually record it.

Would you like to gain insight into your students’ learning process, or understand what the effects of an innovation are on your students’ learning process? If you do, you are using a systematic, research-informed approach to your teaching. In this workshop you will make a start with this according to the principles of Scholarship of Teaching and Learning. We will present the Utrecht Roadmap for Teaching Innovation and Scholarship; an instrument that will guide you through the first steps of research-informed teaching by proving information, tips, tricks, and pitfalls.

The USO project pre-labs and e-labs, which was granted in 2016 has yielded preliminary data that indicate that using “real-life” computer simulations of experiments subsequently carried out for real yields increased understanding, more enthousiasm and more efficient practical dexterity amongst student doing practicals.

In this workshop you will develop a feedback process for a course of your own choice. You will learn how to apply (digital) feedback effectively and how to use feedback to increase student’s learning.