This dissertation describes a research project about the communication between communication vulnerable people and health care professionals in long-term care settings. Communication vulnerable people experience functional communication difficulties in particular situations, due to medical conditions. They experience difficulties expressing themselves or understanding professionals, and/or professionals experience difficulties understanding these clients. Dialogue conversations between clients and professionals in healthcare, which for example concern health-related goals, activity and participation choices, diagnostics, treatment options, and treatment evaluation, are, however, crucial for successful client-centred care and shared decision making. Dialogue conversations facilitate essential exchanges between clients and healthcare professionals, and both clients and professionals should play a significant role in the conversation. It is unknown how communication vulnerable people and their healthcare professionals experience dialogue conversations and what can be done to support successful communication in these conversations. The aim of this research is to explore how communication vulnerable clients and professionals experience their communication in dialogue conversations in long-term care and how they can best be supported in improving their communication in these conversations.
In secondary school philosophy classes students learn to reason critically about social and scientific issues. This study examined the effects of a whole-class, teacher-led philosophy classroom dialogue intervention on students’ value-loaded critical thinking. Value-loaded critical thinking is logically consistent, self-reflective reasoning focused on making moral value-judgments about what is right to believe or do. In a quasi-experimental study (N = 437 students) with a pre-test post-test design, we investigated whether engaging in classroom dialogues in which the teachers implemented five design principles for promoting value-loaded critical thinking and transfer thereof, positively affected students’ (n = 150) value-loaded critical thinking in transfer tasks. The results were compared to two comparison conditions: students (n = 149) who participated in regular teacher-led philosophy classroom dialogues and students (n = 145) who followed a regular 10th-grade curriculum without philosophy classes. Results showed that students in the intervention condition outperformed students in both comparison conditions on referring to moral values. Regarding critical reasoning, we only found significant effects compared to the students who followed the regular 10th-grade curriculum. Findings indicate that a specifically designed dialogic intervention can enhance students’ capacities in value-loaded critical thinking.
ALE organised an event with Parktheater Eindhoven and LSA-citizens (the Dutch umbrella organisation for active citizens). Five ALE students from the minor Imagineering and business/social innovation took responsibility for concept and actual organisation. On Jan 18th, they were supported by six other group members of the minor as volunteers. An IMEM-team of 5 students gathered materials for a video that can support the follow-up actions of the organisers. The students planned to deliver their final product on February 9th. The theatre will critically assess the result and compare it to the products often realised by students from different schools or even professional ones, like Veldkamp productions. Time will tell whether future opportunities will come up for IMEM. The collaboration of ALE and IMEM students is possible and adding value to the project.More than 180 visitors showed interest in the efforts of 30 national and local citizen initiatives presenting themselves on the market square in the theatre and the diverse speakers during the plenary session. The students created a great atmosphere using the qualities of the physical space and the hospitality of the theatre. Chair of the day, Roland Kleve, kicked off and invited a diverse group of people to the stage: Giel Pastoor, director of the theatre, used the opportunity to share his thoughts on the shifting role of theatre in our dynamic society. Petra Ligtenberg, senior project manager SDG NL https://www.sdgnederland.nl/sdgs/ gave insights to the objectives and progress of the Netherlands. Elly Rijnierse, city maker and entrepreneur from Den Haag, presented her intriguing efforts in her own neighbourhood in the city to create at once both practical and social impacts on SDG 11 (sustainable city; subgoal 3.2). Then the alderman Marcel Oosterveer informed the visitors about Eindhoven’s efforts on SDGs. The plenary ended with very personal interviews of representatives of two impressive citizen initiatives (Parkinson to beat; Stichting Ik Wil). In the two workshop rounds, ALE took responsibility for two workshops. Firstly the workshop: Beyond SDG cherrypicking: using the Economy for the common good’, in cooperation with citizen initiative Ware winst Brabant en Parktheater (including Social innovation-intern Jasper Box), secondly a panel dialogue on local partnerships (SDG 17) for the sustainable city (SDG 11) addressing inclusion (SDG 10) and the livability (SDG 3) with 11 representatives from local/provincial government, companies, third sector and, of course: citizen initiatives.
Cross-Re-Tour supports European tourism SME while implementing digital and circular economy innovations. The three year project promotes uptake and replication by tourism SMEs of tools and solutions developed in other sectors, to mainstream green and circular tourism business operations.At the start of the project existing knowledge-gaps of tourism SMEs will be researched through online dialogues. This will be followed by a market scan, an overview of existing state of the art solutions to digital and green constraints in other economic sectors, which may be applied to tourism SME business operations: water, energy, food, plastic, transport and furniture /equipment. The scan identifies best practices from other sectors related to nudging of clients towards sustainable behaviour and nudging of staff on how to best engage with new tourism market segments.The next stage of the project relates to two design processes: an online diagnostic tool that allows for measuring and assessing (160) SME’s potential to adapt existing solutions in digital and green challenges, developed in other economic sectors. Next to this, a knowledge hub, addresses knowledge constraints and proposes solutions, business advisory services, training activities to SMEs participating. The hub acts as a matchmaker, bringing together 160 tourism SMEs searching for solutions, with suppliers of existing solutions developed in other sectors. The next key activity is a cross-domain open innovation programme, that will provide 80 tourism SMEs with financial support (up to EUR 30K). Examples of partnerships could be: a hotel and a supplier of refurbished matrasses for hospitals; a restaurant and a supplier of food rejected by supermarkets, a dance event organiser and a supplier of refurbished water bottles operating in the cruise industry, etc.The 80 cross-domain partnerships will be supported through the knowledge hub and their business innovation advisors. The goal is to develop a variety of innovative partnerships to assure that examples in all operational levels of tourism SMEs.The innovation projects shall be presented during a show-and-share event, combined with an investors’ pitch. The diagnostic tool, market scan, knowledge hub, as well as the show and share offer excellent opportunities to communicate results and possible impact of open innovation processes to a wider international audience of destination stakeholders and non-tourism partners. Societal issueSupporting the implementation of digital and circular economy solutions in tourism SMEs is key for its transition towards sustainable low-impact industry and society. Benefit for societySolutions are already developed in other sectors but the cross-over towards tourism is not happening. The project bridges this gap.
De Nederlandse arbeidsmarkt heeft dringend behoefte aan meer instroom in technische mbo-opleidingen en beroepen, maar het imago van techniek spreekt nog onvoldoende aan bij scholieren in po en vmbo. De uitdaging is om leerlingen al op jonge leeftijd te laten kennismaken met een rijker (beroeps)beeld van de techniek waarin ook 21ste-eeuwse vaardigheden als creativiteit, communiceren, probleemoplossen en ondernemen een prominente plaats hebben. Een veelbelovend aanknopingspunt om het techniekonderwijs breder en aantrekkelijker te maken is het ontwerpproces. Met name de bespreking van voorlopige ideeën met de klant, met behulp van taal, beelden, schetsen en objecten, vormt een interessant gebied, dat sterk beroep doet op creatieve en communicatieve vaardigheden, waarover echter vanuit didactisch oogpunt nog te weinig bekend is om dit goed naar po- en vo-onderwijs te vertalen. Om dit onderwijs goed en aansprekend vorm te geven is het gewenst dat po- en v(mb)o-docenten, die zelf geen ontwerpers zijn, meer inzicht verwerven in de authentieke communicatiepraktijken van technische ontwerpers in interactie met gebruikers en klanten, en dat zij kunnen beschikken over geschikte (video)-voorbeelden die kunnen dienen als model om met hun leerlingen te bespreken. Het doel van dit project is om zulke authentieke praktijken te verzamelen in mbo- en TU-ontwerpersopleidingen en deze voor docenten en leerlingen te ontsluiten in de vorm van good-practices met uitleg en voorbeeldmatige instructies. Dit project levert als eindproduct een catalogus van good-practices van ontwerpcommunicatie (presentaties en dialoog) in het onderwijs met bijbehorende genre-kenmerken, feedbacksuggesties en beoordelingscriteria. Na dit project volgt de stap om samen met po- en vmbo-docenten te onderzoeken hoe deze good-practices gebruikt kunnen worden om hun technische ontwerponderwijs te verrijken.
