Prospectus

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Rebuilding Education

Course
2022-2023

Disclaimer: due to the coronavirus pandemic, this course description might be subject to changes. For the latest updates regarding corona virus, please check this link.

Topics: You will work in self-formed groups and use your personal experience, motivation, study discipline and (cultural) background to (re)design a part of the academic education of Leiden University. You will be guided in this process by coaches, stakeholders and a diverse panel of guest lecturers and consultants.
Disciplines: Education; Psychology; Neuroscience; Management; Artificial Intelligence; Marketing; Art; Technology
Skills: Analysing, Generating Solutions, Project-based working, Collaborating, Oral communication, Written communication, Presenting, Impact management, Reflecting.

Admission requirements:

This course is an (extracurricular) Honours Class: an elective course within the Honours College programme. Third year students who don’t participate in the Honours College, have the opportunity to apply for a Bachelor Honours Class. Students will be selected based on i.a. their motivation and average grade.

Description:

What is your best and worst learning experience in academic education? How would you redesign your own education if you could?

We are looking for students who are willing to actively tackle an educational challenge and change education for the better!
During this course you will have the unique opportunity to zoom in on one aspect of your own academic educational path and redesign it.
You can choose your own topic, for example, an educational situation you encountered in your bachelor, or may pick a case delivered by one of our stakeholders, like designing a new Bachelor Honours Class or creating internships for internationals. Once you’ve selected your topic of interest, you will form a team and define an action plan.
As you work on this plan, you will have weekly lectures that are guided by a multidisciplinary panel of guest lecturers presenting cutting-edge research. Practitioners and teachers will be demonstrating their innovation in education through engagement with various new learning techniques, tools and resources. There will also be room for working as a group while receiving immediate and relevant feedback.
The course will be concluded by an evening symposium where you will present your results to a jury of stakeholders and educational experts. Finally, all redesigns and presentations will be bundled on a website to disseminate the initiatives beyond the network of Rebuilding Education.

Want to get inspired to see what is possible? Check out this video with students who share their experience on Rebuilding Education or read here about last year’s symposium.

Course objectives:

Personal and group-based goals
During the sessions you will work on the redesign in close collaboration with stakeholders and educational experts. Here, the course coordinators will act as facilitators by assisting you and stimulating peer-to-peer feedback to understand problems in a hands-on way, and by coaching you in attaining your personal and group-based goals. In this way you can ultimately benefit by learning from your peers with different academic backgrounds.

During Rebuilding Education, students from different disciplines will learn various lessons from the same education session, but nevertheless work together with their peers and teachers to achieve this. An important condition for transformative learning is that you have a personal relationship with the subject material. After all, it is necessary to feel connected to a subject in some way if you ultimately want to form your own perspective. This connection can be based on, for example, a personal experience, interest or mission. Hence, during Rebuilding Education, you are personally involved and play a role in shaping your own education and course objectives.

General skills
Besides the opportunity of changing academic education for the better, Rebuilding Education also supports you in further developing the following skills:

  • Exploring different perspectives on academic education;

  • Working together in interdisciplinary teams;

  • Identifying and analysing educational flaws;

  • Interviewing various stakeholders and experts;

  • Creating practical solutions or educational tools;

  • Presenting to experts and stakeholders;

  • Providing and incorporating feedback;

  • Innovation management;

  • Presenting final product to wide audience;

  • Defining and reflecting on own learning goals and criteria

Programme and timetable:

The sessions of this class will take place on Tuesdays from 17.00 - 19.30.

Session 1: October 11th 17:00-19:30
What is a redesign?
During this session we will discuss what it entails to create a redesign. We will talk about the different cases available as well as the assignments and deadlines.

Session 2: October 18th 17:00-19:30
How do we create a redesign?
Based on the topics of your preference, we will use this session to form groups and define our topics. We will explore the method of self-assessment and work with different techniques to get started on (re)designing a learning experience.

Session 3: October 25th 17:00-19:30
How do we motivate to learn? – A psychological & management perspective
We will discuss concepts of student engagement, locus of control, SDT & OIT theory, as well as different unconventional ways of organizing education.

Session 4: November 1st 17:00-19:30
How can we create change? – A marketing perspective
During this session you will receive hands-on tips and tricks on how to get your stakeholders on board on your (re)design.

Session 5: November 8th 17:00-19:30
Feedback carousel & political perspective
We will start this session with a keynote from a Leiden politician. After this you will get the opportunity to share and discuss your design with stakeholders and experts.

Session 6: November 15th 17:00-19:30 (rooms 0B23, 1A22 and 1A33)
How do we create room for creativity in learning? – An art perspective
You will experience how giving room for creativity can increase a student’s learning curve.

Session 7: November 22nd 17:00-19:30
How do we facilitate learning? – A technological & artificial intelligence perspective
We will discuss different technological ways of guiding students and the role of the teacher. November 29th 17:00-19:30
How does neuroscience influence education (in)directly? – A neuroscientific perspective
How is the neuroscience for education relevant? We will discuss this and potential translation of research findings on neural mechanisms of learning to educational practice and policy.

Session 8: November 29th 17:00-19:30
How does neuroscience influence education (in)directly? – A neuroscientific perspective
How is the neuroscience for education relevant? We will discuss this and potential translation of research findings on neural mechanisms of learning to educational practice and policy.

Session 9: December 6th 17:00-19:30
How do you present a redesign? – An attention perspective
There are different ways to capture the attention of your audience and make sure that your presentation or the information you want to share sticks. Get acquainted with different ways, to help make your presentation more interactive and engaging.

Session 10: December 13th 16:30-19:30 (Old Observatory, room C004 and C006 and B008)
Consult session

Session 11: December 20th 17:00-19:30
Concluding Symposium
You will present your course concept to experts and stakeholders. The committee and stakeholders will then provide you with their feedback. Hand in your personal self-assessment form by mail to y.croese@sea.leidenuniv.nl before December 20th 23:59.

January 2nd-8th
Final group consult session
With your group you will schedule a consult session with one of your teachers in order to receive final tips, tricks and feedback.

January 15th
Submission date Final product
Hand in your final product by mail to y.croese@sea.leidenuniv.nl before January 15th 23:59.

January 22nd
Submission date Self-assessment
Deadline for handing in your self-graded assessment form by mail to y.croese@sea.leidenuniv.nl before January 22nd 23:59.

NB: Keep in mind that due to schedules of the guest lectures, it might be possible that the order of the topics changes.

Location:
Pieter de la Court building, room 0B23

Course load and teaching method:

This course is worth 5 ECTS, which means the total course load equals 140 hours.

  • Engaging guest speakers and consult sessions: 28 hours (participation is mandatory);

  • Study materials: 29 hours;

  • Assignments and assessment: 83 hours;
    o Creating the final Minimum Viable Product: 70 hours
    o Preparation presentation Redesign: 10 hours
    o Contacting and meeting with stakeholders: 10 hours

Reading list:

Study material contains literature, video material and educational tools. All material will be uploaded online.

Examples of study material:

  • Ken Robinson & Lou Aronica, Creative Schools: The Grassroots Revolution That’s
    Transforming Education (New York: Penguin Books, 2015).

  • Eric Mazur, Assessment, the Silent Killer of Learning
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6sY7UJCYbNg&t=388

  • LeerLevels tool: https://embed.kumu.io/a7642a523abc97cf00869c42ee7ef92d#overzicht

Other possible literature will be announced in class or via Brightspace.

Assessment methods:

Presentation Redesign (40% final grade)
The course will be completed with a symposium where groups will present their design to fellow students, stakeholders and an expert panel. The feedback of this audience will also partly determine the grade for the presentation of the Redesign. The goal is getting feedback to improve your design and to get your project as close to implementation with stakeholders as possible.

Delivery form:
As long as the presentation represents the groups redesign you are free to choose your delivery form, for example video, theatre, role play or a ppt presentation.

Duration:
The maximum duration of the presentation is 10 minutes.

Guests:
We expect that every group makes sure that at least one stakeholder or expert is present at the concluding symposium. These guests will also partly determine the grade for the presentation.

Final assessment: Minimum Viable Product (60% final grade)

The goal of the course is that you will redesign an academic educational situation. This will be within a group of three to four students. All redesigns will finally be published on
https://www.rebuildingeducation.com/

Self-assessments (mandatory)

During the entire course you will be working on several self-assessments. By defining personal and team-based learning goals and project criteria, you will get the opportunity to grade yourself on the progress you’ve made.
At the end of the course you will learn to give constructive feedback to your group member by filling out an individual assessment for every member of your group. Think about what feedback you can provide them with that will help further their professional and educational development.

All assessment and grading methods will be further explained in the first session of the class.

It is not required to successfully complete all partial exams in order to pass this course. Students are allowed to compensate a ‘fail’ (grades up to and including 5.0).

Brightspace and uSis:

Brightspace will be used in this course. Upon admission students will be enrolled in Brightspace by the teaching administration.

Please note: students are not required to register through uSis for the Bachelor Honours Classes. Your registration will be done centrally.

Registration process:
Submitting an application for this course is possible from Monday 15 August 2021 up to and including Thursday 1 September 2022 23:59 through the link on the Honours Academy student website.

Note: students don’t have to register for the Bachelor Honours Classes in uSis. The registration is done centrally before the start of the class.

Contact:
Course coordinators:
Yentl Croese, Learning Experience Designer, Centre for Innovation, Leiden University.
y.croese@sea.leidenuniv.nl
Bertram Loth, Educational scientist, Co-founder Hack Je Les, Zwolle.
E: bertram@hackjeles.nl
Hossam Boutaïbi, Educational reformer, Co-founder Dare2Dream, Leiden.
E: hossamboutaibi@outlook.com