Using games to activate students in PBL: Reflections from a CPD workshop
By Patrick Bijsmans & Anna Harris One of the key characteristics of Problem-Based Learning (PBL) is its emphasis – or even dependence – on active student engagement. One way of activating students in such a context is the use of…
How to make peer feedback a constructive group effort
By Yf Reykers Peer feedback is often included in courses as a tool for collaborative learning. Yet, is it always so collaborative and constructive? In theory, providing comments on another student’s assignment and engaging with the comments from peers is…
Taking students virtually to Brussels
By Paul Stephenson How do you organise a student trip to the EU institutions in the middle of a global pandemic? What do you when you can’t cross the border to Belgium? How do you cope when the Commission and…
Attendance matters!
By Merijn Chamon As course coordinator and tutor for the only mandatory law course in the Bachelor in European Studies, I typically start the course with a clear message to students: Law as a discipline has its own language and…
Three lessons learned on how to use online components in a (post-)pandemic teaching environment
By Clara Weinhardt As another academic year shaped by online teaching is coming to an end, everybody is longing to bringing education back to our campuses. While we may not like it, we currently do not know with certainty in…
Pre-lecture surveys: Activating students before class
By Yf Reykers Kahoot, Mentimeter, Wooclap, Gosoapbox. Does this sound familiar? These digital platforms are nowadays part of our standard teaching toolbox, perhaps even more so after a year of online teaching. But no matter how interactive, much of students’…
Tutorials in times of pandemic: Active participation and interaction in online education
By Swantje Falcke and Marie Labussière Last Spring, the courses taught in period 5 had to be moved online within a matter of days. Although challenging under these circumstances, adapting to online teaching has led to a great range of…
Zooming into online teaching and learning: An interview with Marisa Mori and Mirko Reithler
By Patrick Bijsmans After weeks of online teaching and learning, you may be totally Zoompt and perhaps you have even developed a case of Zoomophobia. Inversely, you may have become a Zoomophile who looks back at the pre-Zoom age with…
Ten tips for FASoS BA students as we move to online education
Prepared by BA Programme Directors, Coordinator for Continuing Professional Development, and FASoS Student Representatives, 18 March 2020 FASoS students already know a lot about independent learning and self-directed study. You can do this! Here are some tips to help…
Performing PBL: the importance of creating atmosphere
By Maud Oostindie & Robin Schormans The PBL-classroom is not only a site of learning, but also a site of performance; a metaphorical stage, in which individuals perform certain roles. The student, scribe, chair and tutor play their respective parts…
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,…
On a mission: helping students to make better use of the pre-discussion
By Jasmijn van der Most When I was a student in the Bachelor in European Studies (BA ES), I thought that a PBL pre-discussion worked as follows: you read the assignment text, scan it for difficult words, and you put…
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…
Using word association to assess learning in the BA ES
By Paul Stephenson My experience of teaching Area Studies in the BA European Studies is that, once you move beyond the initial tour de table that maps what we know based on basic assumptions and personal experiences, the group has little idea…
Peeking into the classroom – PBL Movie Night at FASoS
By Vincent Bijman In Dutch secondary education, one effective tool to facilitate reflection on pedagogical and didactical strategies is the use of classroom video footage to support discussions between teaching staff. Video footage is also a useful tool for PBL…
Using writing in PBL: Less talking – more ideas
By John Harbord The typical PBL session: some students talk, some are silent – are the silent ones not contributing because they didn’t do the reading, because they are shy, or why? It’s often hard to tell. Some show off…
Engaging students in PBL tutorials
By Philip Post Engaging students is important in any educational context, but is crucial to a proper working of Problem-Based Learning. In our system, students are in control of the learning process and the participation of the students therefore largely…
