Marjolein Camphuijsen is an assistant professor in Sociology of Education at the Department of Educational and Family Studies (FGB). Who is Marjolein, and what motivates her?
What is your role at FGB? To what extent are you involved in teaching?
My teaching responsibilities include the following: I am the track coordinator for Education & Innovation, coordinate the M-thesis tracks within two master’s programs, and teach the course “Society, Upbringing, and Education” (bachelor’s) and the course “Diversity and Good Education” (master’s).
This year, you have carried out an SKO project focusing on final-year projects. What is this project about?
In my project Senior Qualification in Education (SKO), I investigated the extent to which the academic thesis is still an appropriate and valid final project within our degree programmes. The reason for this was, on the one hand, the rise of generative AI, and on the other, indications that this type of final project is not equally meaningful for all students (particularly those who do not aspire to an academic career). I wondered whether alternative final projects are conceivable and desirable: ones that enable students to demonstrate their academic qualifications, whilst at the same time better reflecting the diversity of students and their varied future prospects.
What are you most proud of? How did you accomplish that?
It was a major project, and I’m glad we were able to formulate recommendations along various lines. These include what we can do to increase the motivation and professional relevance of final projects, how we can ensure student ownership in the age of AI, and how we can keep the workload manageable for instructors so that the pedagogical value of one-on-one guidance is preserved.
Do you have a specific vision for the future? Where would you like to see the program go?
The rise of AI brings key issues in higher education into sharp focus: what are we working toward, what skills and attitudes do we want to cultivate, and what does this require of our education system? These are questions that were already being asked before the rise of AI, but did not always receive sufficient attention. I hope that current developments will encourage us to engage in more in-depth discussions and exchanges on these topics.
