Communities should be carefully designed before you can implement them in your universities and academies. In the workshop Design Your Own Community, Klaas Jan Huizing introduces four dimensions on which to decide to design the perfect community. After a thorough explanation, Huizing lets you design and discuss your future community.
EFYE2024 – CopenhagenWorkshop | Social integration/belonging
| Design Your Own Community First-year learning communities are designed to help students connect to peers with common interests, to lecturers and professionals in the field of work to share learning from both successful and unsuccessful experiences and to have an easier transition from secondary school to college. Cooperation with diverse stakeholders deepens the learning experience from which not only the students benefit, but all stakeholders. Designing the appropriate community for the right course is important. Some courses might want to focus on transferring knowledge, others to improve professional skills or apply complex procedures. Therefore, it is important to decide beforehand what the ideal community should look like. First-year learning communities can be designed on four dimensions. Dimension 1: mono-disciplinary vs. multi-disciplinary Mono-disciplinary assignments refers to a single body of specialized knowledge (e.g. written versus visual expertise). Multidisciplinary assignments refer to assignments that needs to apply to multiple disciplines (e.g. both written and visual expertise). Students look at an issue from various perspectives. Constructive cooperation between various parties and disciplines is needed to invent solutions to complex challenges. Dimension 2: intern vs extern A community can have a physical form, e.g. a room, or a group of rooms on the university’s campus. It can also be off campus in citizen community, offering a real-life experience. It might also have a blended element, using digital means of communication. Dimension 3: simple vs complex assignments Real life is quite complex, each professional assignment involves many different point of views. Learning communities could start with real life issues and professional products, to immerse students in the field of work or start with easier assignments gradually building up to complex assignments. Dimension 4: student oriented vs. knowledge oriented Students can create communities either with peers, with their peers and lecturers, with their peers, lecturers and researchers of even involving stakeholders in civil society. Knowledge development can be student oriented, but can also contribute to the body of knowledge in the practice domain, the educational domain, the scientific domain or to society. Communities can develop during a course, increasing the complexity of assignments and increasing personal autonomy. Designing first-year learning communities on four dimensions helps to create a powerful learning environment. Students are competent, open to other perspectives and work with other parties and disciplines, thus being prepared for a professional career after their graduation. |
What do participants experience or learn?