Redesigning bachelor honours programme with innovative pedagogy on sustainability
Since 2020 we annually (re)design the bachelor honours programme “Grand Challenges” at Erasmus University Rotterdam together with the coordination and teaching staff. This program is open for fourty 2nd year students from all faculties at EUR. As this honours programmes aims to continuously innovate in the field sustainability education, we experiment with pedagogical approaches that fit the development of sustainability competences and content that reflects the challenges of our current society.
Foundation
The programme is built on three foundational elements: community-building, competence development and sustainability content. Each year we revisit and experiment with assignments, assessment, programme flow, workshops, themes and technology to learn about the types of learning that fit the purpose of a progressive university. The programme ends with a festival in which students showcase their work and reflect on their progress. Besides designing we also facilitate a series of workshops to guide the students throughout their process.
For the 2023 edition, we focused on the development of these four competences:
Transformative Designing
Responsible Futuring
Compassionate Reflexivity
Collaborative Caring
Programme design
The program combines practice-led workshops with lectures on topics such as degrowth, superdiversity, eco-philosophy, public health, and societal impact.We developed a research/design track in which students from different backgrounds collaborate on a sustainability-related topic they feel passionate about. We call this track “Studio Teach-In" and functions like a living lab for higher education.
Students are tasked with the assignment to design and host an experiment in which they immerse their participants in the workings of a relevant societal issue in an original, innovative way. In other words: they are asked to design a learning experience for others. By doing this they also have to critically reflect on the grand challenge of higher education.
We developed a 5-month structure and pedagogical framework to guide students through an immersive and transformative learning journey of research, design and evaluation. We do this through 8 experiential workshops, each focusing on crucial themes such as futures literacy, learning design, purposes of education, flow management, and collaboration. We also have coaching moments throughout the programme and assess their progress with them.
Beyond the immediate impact, these sessions also serve as a catalyst for educational innovation within the system, as we integrate some of their experiments into the program the year after. We call this: circular educational innovation.
Annual Learning Festival: Erasmus CTRL+N
Each year, the students end the programme with organising a public event: Erasmus CTRL+N. During this event, the student teams facilitate their experiments and immerse participants in exciting workshops around themes such as eco-feminism, decolonisation of education, degrowth and any other topic that is related to sustainability. The workshops are characterised by their innovative format. Each year has a different theme to respond to to events that are happening in society (such as digitalisation and place-based learning). Explore the past editions by clicking on the year:
Erasmus CTRL+N 2021: Brace for Impact
Erasmus CTRL+N 2021 Winter Edition: Glitch
Erasmus CTRL+N 2022: Hard Reset
Erasmus CTRL+N 2023: Tools of Transformation