The potential impact of urban (re)development on the well-being of residents has been recognized in literature (Butcher & Dickens, 2016; Brummet and Reed, 2019), underscoring the need to critically examine one’s approach to studying the so called ‘urban peripheries’. This paper proposes the practice of mapping alternative city imaginaries, together with local partners, to promote inclusive and 'a more diverse and sustainable perspective on [city] prosperity' (Arbonés Aran, Petkova and Moodey, 2023).We present a case study of the living lab ‘Cities and Visitors’ (Amsterdam School of International Business) based in Amsterdam Southeast (Zuidoost). The study employs a mixed methods to capture and map 'alternative imaginaries' of 'urban peripheries' together with local partners, students, and inter-city collaborators. As urban developments continue to comply with technocratic systems and strategies (Pries, 2022), it becomes important to deepen our understanding, engagement, exploration, and preservation of city spaces, particularly in the so called urban ‘peripheries’ that are often subjected to the dynamics of de/reconstruction and rejuvenation brought by external actors.The paper also advocates for a reflective and ethical research methodology, as the participants engage in thoughtful and (self) reflective research practices. We see this as an intervention in the business curriculum, often criticized for producing 'neoliberal agents' (Orta, 2019), whereas students must also cultivate competences in 'sustainability' (UNESCO 2014, 2017). Embracing the perspectives of affect (Thrift, 2008) and standpoint theory (Harding, 2008), as well as critical counter-mapping with digital methods (Rogers, 2013), we intend to nurture the emotional intelligence and literacy in students, facilitating transformative pedagogies (Mezirov 1990; Maiese 2017).
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Engineering students have to learn to create robust solutions in professional contexts where new technologies emerge constantly and sometimes disrupt entire industries. The question rises if universities design curricula that enable engineering students to acquire these cognitive skills. The Cynefin Framework (Kurtz & Snowden, 2003; Snowden & Boone, 2007) can be used to typify four complexity contexts a system or organisation can be found in: chaos, complex, complicated and obvious.The Cynefin framework made it possible to create the research question for a case-study: To what extend does the Business Engineering curriculum enable bachelors to find business solutions in the complexity contexts of the Cynefin framework? The results show that 80% of the methods are suitable for complicated contexts and no distinction is made between contexts. This means students are taught to approach most contexts in the same way and are not made aware of differences between the contexts. Making sense of the methods in the curriculum with the Cynefin framework was insightful and suggestions for improvement and further research could be substantiated
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Increasing students’ motivation in higher education by designing a specific curriculum has always been a challenging but very complex process. The Department of Business, Finance and Marketing (BFM) of The Hague University of Applied Sciences (THUAS) initiated a redesign of the curricula with the major goals of increasing flexibility of learning opportunities and offering students a more motivating, inspiring and richer diversity of learning experiences. In the literature of learning in higher education this has often been labeled as ‘offering extracurricular learning opportunities’. The redesign of the curriculum implies that the new one will result in an enhancement of the flexibility of the curriculum, by offering learning opportunities beyond the borders of specific programs like marketing, finance or entrepreneurship and retail management. The richness and diversity should create flexible platforms, offering students the possibility to enrich their career choices to design their own personalised career path, hopefully maximizing the possibilities for their talent development. However, very little is known about the relationship between the students’ satisfaction with extracurricular learning opportunities, aiming at the personalisation of students’ career choices, and their motivation. In this chapter we describe our research into this relationship between student motivation and learning environments. Designing a network curriculum by increasing the possibility of extracurricular learning opportunities in higher education could have a positive impact on students’ motivation when it is combined with activities to increase goal students’ commitment. This depends on teachers’ qualities to communicate the valence and instrumentality of the learning possibilities offered for the prospective work environment. This is a complex issue however. Teachers from different educational programs, even in the same domain, have a different orientation on existing learning opportunities within one specific program. Excellent coaching skills by tutors are important. These coaching skills are necessary to support students in the process of envisioning extracurricular learning opportunities when important career choices have to be made.
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Lectorate, part of NHL Stenden Hogeschool
