New Ways of Teaching - stories about educational innovation

In New Ways of Teaching, educators talk about their innovative, creative and impactful teaching initiatives. From unusual teaching methods to new technologies - everything is covered. How did these ideas come about and what impact does it have on students?

Mastering the business world with skills tasting

How can you narrow the gap between theory and practice? Dr Aline Seepma and Dr Luca Gelsomino, both assistant professors at the Faculty of Economics and Business, are making an effort by offering ‘skills tasting’ in their innovative Master’s course unit Purchasing. Skills tasting comprises a series of workshops in which students practice and experience skills that are closely related to their field, in this case strategic procurement.

_{Published on: 13 January 2025}

For real this time: gaining practical experience through work-based learning

How can you best prepare students for a career outside academia? According to Dr Saskia Grooters, director of the Science, Business & Policy (SBP) track at the Faculty of Science and Engineering (FSE), the answer to this is work-based learning. Engaging students in real-life projects with societal impact allows them to experience a career outside of academia while applying their academic knowledge. After all, what better place to learn the trade than in practice?

^{Published on: 9 December 2024}

Inspired and connected by virtual township tourism

Instead of throwing in the towel during the COVID-19 pandemic, Dr Meghan Muldoon, assistant professor of Sustainable Tourism at Campus Fryslân, made it possible to see something of the world while being stuck at home: a virtual tour through a South African township led by a local resident. Township tourism raises so many questions that are at the heart of critical approaches to the study of tourism. What is the role of tourists in impoverished areas? Do they help the community by generating income or do they harm it by exploiting people’s vulnerabilities and fetishizing the urban poor?

^{Published on: 11 November 2024}

Stepping off the beaten track in Appingedam

What is the best way to identify and address complex regional health challenges? According to Hedwig Boer (Faculty of Medical Sciences / UMCG), Joke Fleer (Faculty of Medical Sciences / UMCG), and Katrien Colman (lecturer and researcher at the Hanze University of Applied Sciences) the answer is the innovative Minor 'Expedition the Healthy North' with a transdisciplinary approach. And all of this in Appingedam involving not only students and lecturers, but also partners from Appingedam and its residents.

_{Published on: 16 October 2024}

Less relaying and more discussion in ‘Geographies of the United States’

At the start of this year, Dr Peter Groote, associate professor of Cultural Geography, and Dr Leonieke Bolderman, assistant professor of Cultural Geography, won second place in the Best Practice Awards in Teaching & Learning for their innovative course unit ‘Geographies of the United States’. This course unit has no lectures, seminars, or standard course literature. Instead of continuously having to pay attention to their lecturers, the students actually do the majority of the work themselves.

_{Published on: 2 September 2024}

Collective quizzing to improve knowledge retention

Usually, at the end of the block, students are required to reproduce in an exam what they have learned during the course. After seven weeks of classes, it is up to them to make sure they remember everything that can be covered in the exam. Nina Mileva, Assistant Professor of Public International Law, tries to help her students by providing them with a mini recap quiz each class, called the 'Quick Review Quiz'.

_{Published on: 1 July 2024}

Students learn to manage with VR glasses

Ricus Dullaert, Marjon Fokkens-Bruinsma, and Anina Westgeest of the Teacher Education Department of the Faculty of GMW are working on a new way to practice classroom management strategies: with VR glasses. Ricus Dullaert talks about the origin of the idea and its application.

_{Published on: 28 March 2024}

Enlisting students to edit a textbook

Christopher May, associate professor at the UCG, believes that because students usually adress their work to their instructors, they lack experience in the writing process of wider publications. In May's course on Biopsychology, he wanted to engage students in a different way by enlisting their help for a project that went beyond the boundaries of the course. This is an example of what has come to be called Open Pedagogy.

_{Published on: 29 February 2024}

Religion, Diversity and Identity: exploring religion in the city yourself.

Dr Jelle Wiering talks about the course unit on Religion, Diversity and Identity, developed by Dr Marjo Buitelaar, Dr Jelle Wiering, Dr Brenda Bartelink, and Dr Brenda Mathijssen. He discusses the method used to bring religion from abstract to concrete, taking the students to Rotterdam to mingle in the residents’ everyday life to study religion.

_{Published on: 30 November 2023}

GIMMICS - Teaching Pharmacy Students with a Simulation Game

Dr Tanja Fens , Project Leader and Coordinator of the Pharmacy Game International, Prof. Katja Taxis, Professor of Pharmacotherapy and Clinical Pharmacy, and drs. Claudia Dantuma, Teacher-Pharmacist talk about the Pharmacy Game, a study course for 3rd year master students in Pharmacy. It combines innovative educational concepts such as gaming and simulation.
_{Published on: 30 October 2023}

Embracing uncertainty: Empowering students through specifications grading

Laurent Krook, Assistant Professor of Psychology, and Anastasios Sarampalis, professor of Psychology discuss their views on traditional assessment forms, which were either too reductionistic to comprehensively assess all learning outcomes or unrealistic.

_{Published on: 07 July 2023}

Interdisciplinary research internships: The X-Phi Lab Group Groningen.

Lieuwe Zijlstra, Assistant Professor at University College Groningen, talks about his interdisciplinary research internships aimed at improving students’ academic performance and combining research and teaching, which he named “Young Scientists at UCG”.

_{Published on: 2 June 2023}

How to ask and structure questions

Martin Lenz, Professor of History of Philosophy at the Faculty of Philosophy, discusses how to stimulate active learning through questions. Most steps can be achieved without requiring new information, but rather by developing an understanding of how one’s confusion arises.

_{Published on: 7 April 2023}

Getting students back to stats class: A blended and challenge-based approach to teaching research skills

This month: Stefan Berger, Assistant Professor of Organizational Behavior at the Department of HRM & OB, discusses the decrease in student attendance after Covid. Rather than simply blaming students for this trend, he argues that lecturers must take responsibility for finding ways to make classes more engaging and rewarding for students, combining virtual and in-person activities in a well-balanced manner.
_{Published on: 3 March 2023}

Working with discomfort in the classroom

This month: Sepideh Yousefzadeh , Associate Professor Intersectional Wellbeing and Decoloniality at Campus Fryslân on seeing her roles, as an educator, to understand how students react emotionally to intense topics such as health inequalities, and how they navigate in academia emotionally.
_{Published on: 3 February 2023}

Can we crack the code of effective learning at the university of Groningen?

Audrey Rousse-Malpat, Assistant Professor of language learning at the Faculty of Arts, describes the efforts of the Language Learning team and many highschool teachers in the Netherlands to improve the efficacy of foreign language teaching by aligning their teaching practices to research results in the field of applied linguistics. The approach pioneered in Groningen (among others) takes what research in applied linguistics calls “a usage-based turn”.
_{Published on: 13 January 2023}