Programme VU Education Day 2025

More information will follow soon.

Using drawings in your lesson can stimulate imagination. Every teacher or teaching assistant can make use of visual communication. With just a marker and a few simple drawing principles, anyone can learn it! 

Visual language supports didactics, communication, learning strategies, and thinking skills. As a teacher, you can  use drawings to support the learning process, but you can also encourage students to draw themselves in order to process the material in a deeper way. This makes the lessons more engaging. In a fast-changing world where online videos are often less than two minutes long and reading is becoming less common, keeping listening, reading, and learning exciting is more important than ever.

By: Het Huis van Verbeelding
Location: t.b.a.
Language: English

Adding visuals to a presentation or text can greatly improve the audience’s understanding of the story you are telling, but it's easier said than done. In this workshop, we will explore various methods you can use to give your own teaching a visual boost, with inspiration taken from various disciplines and forms of media. Afterwards, in a hands-on designing session, you’ll  create your own visual product that you can use in your teaching. For instance, you might design a graphical abstract, signature course icon, visual roadmap, or something else entirely. The best part? Anyone can do it! You don’t need to be an artist to craft a visual story.

By: Mats Riet, junior lecturer Earth Sciences
Location: t.b.a.
Language: English

SpringLab VU – the 'Students as Partners' (SaP) platform offers a space where co-creation education is provided based on the needs of students. In this environment, the student collaborates with experts in providing education. The focus is on stimulating students' curiosity in (and outside) their field of study, whilefostering intrinsic motivation. By exploring their personal interests, students gain additional experience in personal development and build connections to the future work field and society.

By: Aäron Spapens, project leader SpringLab VU & Geert Schenk, co-founder SpringLab VU
Location: t.b.a.
Language: English

More information will follow soon.

In this workshop, we’ll visit the VU art gallery and experience the Art-Based Learning method firsthand. Art-Based Learning is a reflective, slow-learning approach where you learn from art, rather than about art, to gain new insights.

By: Jaro Pichel, trainer and coach at the VU Centre for Teaching & Learning
Location: t.b.a.
Language: English

Let's Collaborate! Practicing collaboration skills through AI-powered avatar training
This workshop is designed for educators who want to use AI technology to improve student collaboration skills. Participants will be introduced to an innovative AI-powered avatar application that simulates realistic team scenarios, alowing students to practice giving and receiving feedback in a safe, controlled environment.  

The interactive session will cover the development and implementation of this tool, offering best practices for integrating it into your curriculum. Educators will also learn how to use the accompanying support toolbox, which provides guidelines for designing, guiding, and assessing team assignments.  

This workshop will be given by the students who helped research, develop and implement the tools and their unique perspective will show you how students experience working in teams and how you can help them develop their collaboration skills. 

By: Filippos Pratziotis, third year Bachelor student Communication Science (international track) & Pratischa Koirala, third year Bachelor student Communication Science (dutch track), under guidance of Esther Schagen, senior teacher Communication Science and educational advisor CTL 
Location: t.b.a.
Language: English

Mind the Body – on multisensory imagination and why we need all our senses for aesthetic experiences
Can you imagine smells? Or movements? We will begin this interactive lecture with a meditation based on Diderot's ideas on multisensory imagination. We'll smell the scent of Monet's gardens, listen to the music that inspired Mondrian and one can even attempt a (historical) dance pose. 

Dr. Caro Verbeek is an assistant professor and curator specialized in sensory history, with a focus on smell, touch and synaesthesia. She is known for her out-of-the-box methods, using embodiment and the senses as (overlooked) academic tools and as means to inclusion and well-being. She founded and teaches the course ‘Knowing by Sensing’.

By: Dr. Caro Verbeek, assistant professor and curator specialized in sensory history
Location: t.b.a.
Language: English

More information will follow soon.

Use AI to (re)design your course
Discover how to leverage AI and Copilot to transform your teaching. Learn how to effortlessly create rubrics, make your course more interactive and blended, and turn exams into practice exams. Get inspired and experience how AI can enhance your creativity and efficiency.  

Whether you're looking for fresh ideas or practical tools, this session offers everything you need. Join us and use your imagination to shape the education of tomorrow. Dream big, inspire your students, and make a difference! 

By: Nienke Stumpel
Location: t.b.a.
Language: English

More information will follow soon.

What will your course look like if you make more use of formative dialogue?
By comparing your own course with four other model courses, that extensively make use of formative dialogue, you can assess whether you'd like to participate in a project designed to help you make adjustments in your course and experiment with formative dialogue in your course. Will this help you save time and reduce stress during your course? Come and find it out for yourself! 

By: Sjirk Zijlstra, CTL expert in Self-Regulated Learning, Students as Partners and Formative Dialogue & Lucho Rubio Repáraz, CTL expert in Mixed Classroom, Inclusive Education and Formative Dialogue 
Location: t.b.a.
Language: English

Make your own AI tutor bot
In this session you will first play with an existing tutor bot designed for a specific topic to see how such bots could function, by posing questions and giving stars to users for example. Then we'll take a look behind the scenes to see how such a bot is programmed to behave the way it does. We finish off with a topic of your choice and testing it to see if it works. 

By: Dr. ir. Silvester Draaijer, programme manager VU Education Lab & Amelia Kalecińska, student-colleague at the VU Education Lab, BSc Computer Science student & Isabella Ivory, student-colleauge at the VU Education Lab, student at the Master programme Cognitive Neuropsychology, with a BSc in Artificial Intelligence 
Location: t.b.a.
Language: English

More information will follow soon.

More information will follow soon.