The paper summarizes two models for engineering education, as discussed in earlier papers. The first model (Corporate Curriculum) aims to bring Industry into the school, while the second model (I3) intends to bring the school into Industry. The contribution of the presented models to the Bologna Declaration and to the Renaissance Engineer idea are discussed.
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Change is endemic in modern society, and the educational systems that operate in it. In Higher Education societal trends such as globalization and economic rationalism are impacting on teachers. Changes in the student population, new educational methods derived from shifting perspectives on the role of knowledge and re-structuring of the organizations within which teachers work have also led to transformation of the professional context. At European level policy initiatives such as the Bologna Declaration (1999) have necessitated an overhaul of educational provision. This research project attempts to focus on these wideranging changes through the lens of teacher autonomy in order to establish what is changing in the working lives of teachers in a Dutch university, how they are responding to these changes and how they can be helped to respond to change effectively and discriminatingly. This is an insider research project, using case study and semi-structured interviewing to yield data that is subjected to thematic linguistic analysis. It was piloted in 2006, and interviewing was resumed in February 2007. Findings indicate the contested nature of teacher autonomy, and suggest that professional autonomy can impede as well as facilitate teachers in processes of engaging with change. The team - operating as a community of practice - is identified as the location where change agency can operate most effectively. Distributed leadership - specifically perceived in the activities of team leaders and teacher change agents - is seen as crucial to processes of embedding change in educational practice.
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Treatment guidelines difer signifcantly, not only between Europe and North America but also among European countries [1–4]. Reasons for these diferences include antimicrobial resistance patterns, accessibility to and reimbursement policies for medicines, and culturally and historically determined prescribing attitudes. The European Association of Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics’ Education Working Group has launched several initiatives to improve and harmonize European pharmacotherapy education, but international diferences have proven to be a major barrier to these eforts [5–7]. While we have taken steps to chart these diferences [6, 8], it will probably not be possible to fully resolve them. Rather than viewing these diferences as a barrier, we should perhaps see them as an opportunity for intercultural learning by providing students and teachers a valuable lesson in the context-dependent nature of prescribing medication and the diferent interpretations of evidence-based medicine. Here, we extend our experience with interprofessional student-run clinics [9, 10], to report on our first experiences with the “International and Interprofessional Student-run Clinic.” We organized three successful video meetings with medical and pharmacy students of the Amsterdam UMC, location VU University (the Netherlands), and the University of Bologna (Italy). During these meetings, one of the students presented a real-life case of a patient on polypharmacy. Then, in a 45-min session, the students split into smaller groups (break-out rooms) to review the patient’s medication, using the prescribing optimization method and STOPP/ START criteria [11, 12]. The teachers rotated between the diferent rooms and assisted the students when necessary. Teachers and students reconvened for 60 min for debriefng, with students presenting their fndings and suggestions to revise the medication list and teachers stimulating discussion and indicating how they would alter the medication list. Participation was voluntary, and the meetings were held in the evenings to accommodate students in clinical rotations. Third-to-fnal-year medical and pharmacy students participated in the three meetings (n=17, n=20, n=12, respectively). They reported learning a lot from each other, gaining an international and interprofessional perspective. Moreover, they learned to always consider the patient’s perspective, that evidence-based medicine is context-dependent, and that guidelines should be adapted to the patient’s situation.
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