Designing for atmospheres of learning
By Anna Harris, Shanti Sumartojo and Sally Wyatt On 22 October 2019, about 30 people gathered together in the FASoS attic for a sensory and design ethnography workshop in order to explore the places in which we learn and teach,…
Why and how FASoS should stay on top of attendance in PBL
By Patrick Bijsmans (Maastricht University) and Arjan Schakel (University of Bergen) The abolishment of minimum attendance requirements at FASoS just over two years ago has been a recurring topic of discussion. Literature on students’ persistence and results often highlights attendance…
PBL – People Based Learning?
By Kirstin Herbst and Sarah Goosens As second-year students in the Bachelor European Studies, we can look back on two years of experience with Problem Based Learning (PBL). PBL has both fostered our knowledge and taught us many skills. We…
Grading known students: An (unacknowledged) challenge for PBL assessment
By Nora Vaage Before I came to Maastricht in 2016 I worked in the Norwegian university system. There, exams at the BA and MA level (preceding the MA thesis) were graded blindly by two examiners. Coming to Maastricht University, where…
Young and female? A recipe for poorer teaching evaluations
By Constance Sommerey & Afke Groen Teaching evaluations. After a course has ended, we await these sensitive comments in at times anxious, at times happy anticipation. We are interested to find out whether the changes we made to a course…
The Expert Lecture in Problem-Based Learning
By Michael Shackleton In Problem-Based Learning environments such as the one in Maastricht, lectures by “experts” or “practitioners” are often considered to be of great added value. But what can the practitioner actually offer to students in a university environment?…
Four underestimated ways to become a better academic writer
By Patrick Bijsmans “Learning how to do research is one of the most important tasks at the university. It is also one of the most challenging.” (Murtonen & Lehtinen, ‘Learning to be a researcher’, in Academic research and researchers) Academic…
The erosion of PBL at FASoS?
By Patrick Bijsmans & Mirko Reithler Problem-based learning (PBL) is at the heart of teaching at Maastricht University and at the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences (FASoS). It is a student-centred approach to learning: students encounter problems that contextualise a…
To use or not to use the whiteboard? Is that the question?
By Sven Schaepkens & Patrick Bijsmans FASoS teaching staff sometimes informally meet to share experience. One such event took place on 7 November 2017. A group of new and experienced staff watched the UM DVD Problem based learning: Tips from…
The thesis supervisor as coach
By Esther Versluis After some 13 years of supervising theses in the Bachelor in European Studies (BA ES), I think I would best describe this part of my job as being some sort of motivational coach. I feel the most…
