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How do you build your message? What do you really want to achieve with your communication? How do you make sure your visual strategy supports your story and effectively conveys your message to your audience?
In a world where information is consumed more and more quickly and visually, the ability to communicate complex ideas clearly and powerfully is more important than ever. In science, we are often so focused on content that we give less thought to how we effectively share our findings with colleagues or a wider audience. Understanding how visual aids can clarify complexity and increase the impact of your message is crucial.
This workshop provides exercises for enhancing scientific communication by developing a powerful visual that makes your content more accessible, opens up conversations and increases the impact of your message. Participants go through a practical step-by-step process where they learn how to clearly formulate their goal, understand their audience, and choose the right visual medium-whether it is a talking picture or visual abstract. It is an interactive session where there is room for practice and creativity, from building your storyline to making your first sketches.
Interested in a session where science and creativity come together? Let this workshop inspire you to really make a difference with visual storytelling.
By: Simone Kersten (Amsterdam UMC)
Location: Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam
Language: English
First-year students in the Physics Teacher Training Programme at Rotterdam University of Applied Sciences experience and learn to apply educational innovations. In the subject "Heat and Gases", a flipped-classroom approach is used: students learn theory independently, the teacher guides them in their learning process. Despite the autonomy provided, students often lack purpose and motivation. Self-regulated learning (ZRL) by students is essential here: planning, monitoring, evaluating are central.
To promote first-year students' ZRL, we developed a gamification strategy inspired by the popular role-playing game "Dungeons and Dragons". Students earn "gold coins" for completed homework assignments, which they can use to purchase game components that enhance their characters in the game. This system lets them "buy" two multiple-choice questions that are returned in the test. It is still unclear whether this approach actually helps boost their ZRL.
With this research, we deliver an optimised and researched game for the subject "Heat and Gases", aimed at increasing ZRL skills of first-year students. In addition, we create design guidelines for gamification that can be used more broadly within other courses of the programme, with the aim of enhancing ZRL skills.
The research will take place in the year 2024-2025, with expected results in summer 2025. We expect our gamification to have a positive effect on the development of ZRL skills in students. By using gamification, students will direct their efforts more purposefully to achieve specific academic goals. They thus increase their own academic success, AND they can also model these skills for their future students.
During this interactive workshop, participants are invited to play the game.
By: Gabriele Panarelli, Jelle Jagtenberg, Jaimy Sulkers & Patrick Sins (Rotterdam University of Applied Sciences)
Location: Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam
Language: English
Starting a Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) project can raise challenging questions for teachers new to academic research. Created to address these challenges, the Utrecht Roadmap for SoTL (UR-SoTL; Meijerman, Wijsman, & Kirschner, 2024) provides a structured, step-by-step guide that supports teachers in building an evidence-based approach to research-based teaching. Based on SoTL principles (Felten, 2013) and guided by the CIMO logic model (Denyer et al., 2008) - which emphasises Context, Intervention, Mechanisms and Outcomes - the roadmap helps teachers anchor their projects in theory and existing literature, ensuring a scientific approach.
In this workshop, we address the first three steps of UR-SoTL: refining a broad idea into a specific, researchable question, considering what is already known in the literature on their topic. We will give participants practical tips and common pitfalls and hope to inspire them to use UR-SoTL in their future SoTL projects. We welcome a diverse audience: teachers and academic developers without and with experience of SoTL projects, as well as those who want to support others in doing SoTL projects.
By: Femke Kirschner, Esther van Dijk & Irma Meijerman (Utrecht University)
Location: Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam
Language: English
In this workshop, you will discover what nature as a learning environment can mean for (learning team) learning in HBO education. Listen to and experience for yourself the first results of Nanda Vrielink's research on this, based on literature study and interviews with teachers.
By: Nanda Vrielink (Utrecht University of Applied Sciences)
Location: Free University Amsterdam
Language: English
English is increasingly used for academic research worldwide, which places huge demands on the academic second language (L2) reading skills of higher education students. Reading interventions can help, but students in higher education are not sufficiently exposed to L2 reading to improve skills sufficiently. However, a reading intervention based on digital game-based learning (DGBL) can increase reading skills, as DGBL motivates learning new skills in addition to flow. Poor readers would benefit from DGBL because video gamers seem to have exceptional L2 reading skills compared to non-gamers. DGBL might even be preferable to traditional classroom instruction for learning skills, as flow is known to increase autonomy and motivation to learn (Nadeem et al., 2023).
A review of DGBL studies in higher education by Quan & Clark (2016) indicated significantly higher levels of student improvement compared to traditional classroom instruction. Although DGBL has been successfully applied to subjects such as mathematics within primary education (Azita et. al., 2015), there has been little research on its application in L2 reading within higher education contexts (Gentry et. al., 2019). The main research question guiding this study is: To what extent can an explicitly designed digital game-based learning L2 reading intervention improve students' L2 academic reading skills in higher education? This project will develop a DGBL reading intervention, which will be implemented and tested with the aim of improving students' L2 reading skills in higher education.
This workshop begins with a brief summary of the intended outcome of this project and is followed by a short presentation of the results we have achieved so far. In the next part, we will demonstrate the game, which is still at an early stage of development, and invite delegates to participate by playing the game themselves. For this, delegates should bring their own laptop. We also demonstrate the game on the big screen so that participants can understand and appreciate the game's many features and levels. We conclude our presentation by presenting the final stages of the game's development on the big screen, and we end our presentation by giving some insights and suggestions on how participants could use a game-based learning intervention within their own educational context.
By: Deborah Yapp & Mike Preuss (Leiden University of Applied Sciences)
Location: Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam
Language: English
The polder model is a consensus-based approach to decision-making in the Netherlands. It is rooted in the history of water management in the Netherlands, where different stakeholders had to work together to maintain polders. Some core principles of the model - balancing interests, promoting inclusion and ensuring that all voices are heard - can also be applied to the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL). The aim of the workshop is for participants to explore how a polder model could benefit their SoTL project.
The workshop starts with a brief theoretical introduction on different participation models, followed by a presentation of some empirical research findings on how teachers actually engage their networks during SoTL projects. These insights come from semi-structured interviews with 14 university lecturers who participated in a Dutch SoTL programme. The study examined both the composition of their networks (i.e. with whom participants had relevant interactions related to their SoTL project) and how they engaged their networks.
Based on these insights, we will hold a plenary discussion on the benefits and challenges of applying the principles of the polder model to SoTL projects. Afterwards, participants will think individually or in small groups about their own SoTL network, identify key stakeholders and decide when and how to involve them. By the end of the session, participants will have developed a network strategy tailored to their own SoTL project so that they can make more informed and inclusive decisions during their SoTL journey.
By: Svenne Groeneweg (University of Amsterdam)
Location: Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam
Language: English
Experiences are central to learning. In geography, this means that outdoor experiences can affect students' learning and the underlying domains: cognitive (knowledge and skills), affective (emotional values) and conative (motivational) (Scott, Humphries & Henri 2019). Especially for first-year students, motivational aspects can be crucial for their study behaviour and later study progress. Extracurricular activities can be applied either deductively or inductively - theory prior to experience or evidence, respectively, or vice versa (Shemwell, Chase & Schwartz 2014). In this contribution, we examine whether the sequence of an experiential learning activity and plenary lecture(s) on geographical disciplines matters for the type and depth of first-year geography students' reflections on this learning activity. In a randomised-control trial setting with interventions in the form of assignments at different stages of the course, we examine the reflections of students discussing in small groups their interpretations of short audio recordings at five fixed locations during a walking tour in the Utrecht Science Park.
These audio recordings describe geographical and spatial planning issues from four different disciplinary perspectives: from urban geography, spatial planning, economic geography and cultural geography. In walking groups of four students, each student listens to one particular 'voice' and is asked to discuss and evaluate it within their group. Afterwards, student groups and individual students write a short reflection on this learning activity.
This interactive presentation reviews the literature, explains the course design, setting and audio recordings, and discusses initial findings and results of students' reflection analyses.
By: Veronique Schutjens & Martijn Smit (Utrecht University)
Location: Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam
Language: English
The shortage of healthcare professionals in the Netherlands is significant, and the demand for qualified nurses continues to grow. Every year, 250-300 nursing students graduate from Leiden University of Applied Sciences, committed to the future of Dutch healthcare. Much of the nursing competencies students develop in practice. These students are supported, monitored and managed by their practice supervisors and lecturers.
An assessment takes place at the end of the internship period. The practice supervisors give an advisory assessment, and an examiner records the final assessment based on a followable rationale for the advisory assessment. This process is designed to combine the expertise of training and practice: practice supervisors have the best view of the student's learning process, but are not authorised to give a final assessment. The programme's examiner, however, is, but does not stand next to students in practice and therefore does not have a direct view of how students develop their competences in practice. An important condition of this process, therefore, is that: the advice assessment must be traceably substantiated by practice.
Since the academic year 2024/2025, the higher vocational nursing programme at Leiden University of Applied Sciences has started a study on improving the followability of assessments. The researchers are working with various stakeholders, including practice supervisors, examiners, students and committees, to identify challenges and develop possible solutions. This is done using interviews, exploratory talks and previous assessments, among other methods. This also involves looking at successful examples from other programmes and colleges to ultimately develop a pratical toolbox. The results of this study are not only relevant to nursing education, but can be applied more broadly to other vocational programmes, where internship is a part of graduation.
This interactive presentation provides an overview of the research.
By: Lu Wang (Leiden University of Applied Sciences)
Location: Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam
Language: English
The UN's Principles for Responsible Management Education (PRME) aim to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals through responsible management education. However, recent reports show that many SDGs are not being met and even some key goals are being overshot. To ensure bottom-up commitment to the SDGs, there is a clear need for an evidence-based performative education toolkit.
In a collaboration between Rotterdam School of Management (RSM) and Tilburg University, we have developed an evidence-based teaching package to increase students' engagement with the SDGs, resulting in concrete educational artefacts. Specifically, the performative package, based on theories from positive psychology, focuses on inducing intentions and actual behavioural change, using self-transcendent goals. The educational package consists of the induction of (1) the overview effect (OE) using virtual reality simulations, (2) a letter to the future (LF, i.e. writing about the ideal world, contrasting it with the world that will emerge if we don't change anything; both writing and talking about concrete goals to contribute to this ideal world) and (3) an SDG poster assignment to encourage positive (strategic) change for wicked problems. Based on insights from positive psychology, we propose that this educational package offers ways to increase a self-transcendent action repertoire, and potentially trigger social change. The package can be part of a pedagogical toolkit to strengthen human agency and promote building good intentions for sustainable behaviour change.
During this interactive presentation, we will give examples of how this educational package can be integrated into the curriculum. With participants, we will interactively explore whether and how education professionals can integrate this into the curriculum and/or their lessons.
By: Michaéla C. Schippers, Rob van Tulder, Max Louwerse & Desiderio Cano Porras (Erasmus University Rotterdam)
Location: Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam
Language: English
In higher education, the current dominant pedagogical approach is heavily based on cognitive knowledge and the body is only seen as a secondary tool for learning (Hegna and Ørbæk, 2024). However, we believe that we need to start (re)engaging with the body because embodied learning promotes deeper, potentially transformative learning experiences for both teachers and learners. The challenge is how to bring embodied knowledge and body awareness into our teaching practice. How can we do this properly and how can embodied learning be used as a pedagogical method to create a better connection between body and mind? These questions are the starting point of a VU SoTL research project we are currently conducting.
In this interactive workshop, we will get physical! We will introduce you to embodied learning practices using a technique called Social Presencing Theatre. Together, we will think about how these learning practices can be applied in your own educational context. We briefly explain our research project and the underlying theory and then move on to experiential exercises involving the body. We conclude with a short reflection at the end to both debrief our experiences and how we can translate what we have experienced to your practice.
By: Jaro Pichel, Karya Odabasi & Frederique Demeijer (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam)
Location: Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam
Language: English
Longechography (LUS) has become an essential skill in healthcare and is likely to replace the stethoscope in the future. Currently, there is no hands-on training on LUS in the medical curriculum at Amsterdam UMC due to a lack of teaching resources, such as trainers and time. Peer-to-peer training with student teachers (STs) is a possible solution. The aim of this study is to assess the effectiveness of a LUS training programme led by STs. Our hypothesis was that after training, 75% of subjects would be competent in both acquiring and interpreting LUS.
The preliminary results show that a two-hour peer-to-peer training programme provides a solid foundation for acquiring competence in LUS. This may address the lack of educational resources. Future studies should explore the sustainability and optimisation of the training programme. The goal is effective use of LUS by students during clinical rotations.
In this workshop, we will first introduce the concept of SpringLab, along with our research aim, methods and preliminary results. Second, we will give a short and simple plenary demonstration of the theoretical and practical aspects of lung ultrasound by student teachers. A volunteer will then be asked to perform lung ultrasound while receiving feedback from a student teacher. After this practical interlude, we will summarise our preliminary findings, strengths and limitations. For the discussion, we will ask attendees to review the study design and preliminary results and identify possible other strengths and limitations of our study. Furthermore, we will ask for their opinions on how to further improve ultrasound education.
By: Coen Plantinga (Amsterdam UMC)
Location: Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam
Language: English
At the Community for Learning and Innovation at Erasmus University Rotterdam (EUR), lecturers can apply for a scholarship. This fellowship gives them the opportunity to work on a teaching innovation. More importantly, it allows them to conduct research on the effects of the innovation, with the aim of sharing the insights within the university community. This helps us to create better-informed education. This fellowship programme is successful, with enthusiastic fellows conducting valuable research. However, the focus now is often on the quality of the research - ensuring that each research is conducted to the best of its ability. While this is a prerequisite for successful evaluation, creating real impact in the organisation depends heavily on how well the innovation is subsequently implemented and how well it can be sustained over time. This requires a different, more management-oriented way of thinking that researchers often do not have in mind when they start the project. To help fellows take this facet into account when designing the research, conducting it and sharing the results, we have designed an impact plan in the form of a fillable worksheet that novice CLI fellows can use to think about the impact of their research in advance. This document is used during regular contact moments with Fellows to discuss progress. In this way, we hope to contribute as much as possible to making a lasting impact in the organisation with the research results.
In this workshop, we want to share the worksheet and create an open discussion to share how other Teaching and Learning centres in the Netherlands deal with this topic and how we can further strengthen the implementation and sustainability of the research carried out in the centres - both at their own university, and hopefully between institutes.
By: Marloes Nederhand, Romy van Leeuwen & Mandy Hollander (Erasmus University Rotterdam)
Location: Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam
Language: English
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