In honours programmes, teachers face the task of designing courses in which students feel challenged and learn from accomplishing demanding assignments. The aim of this study was to investigate students’ and teachers’ perceptions of challenge and learning in an honours programme. From 2016 to 2019, students and teachers rated the learning activities during the programme and explained their ratings. The results showed that in the first two years, teachers estimated challenge and learning significantly higher than the students did. However, both students and teachers viewed the tasks as the factor with the strongest impact on challenge and learning. In the first year, students also identified group dynamics as challenging and a source for learning. Enhancing task complexity and supporting group dynamics are the main factors to adjust the level of challenge in an honours programme. Monitoring students’ and teachers’ perceptions can help to adapt the programme to improve students’ learning.
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In September 2009 the department of Engineering of Fontys University of Applied Sciences in the Netherlands has started a pilot honours program for excellent engineering students called PRogram OUstanding Development (PROUD). Aim of this program is to give those engineering students, who have the ambition, the opportunity to work on extra profession related challenges in their study. By means of this PROUD program Fontys University of Applied Sciences is responding to the wishes of students for extra curricular activities and increasing need from the industry for excellent professionals with an extra level of theoretical knowledge and practical experience. In this paper the courses offered at the Engineering department of the Fontys University of Applied Sciences are discussed. Different study possibilities/routings for students were developed depending on earlier acquainted competences, adaptation abilities to our system (special possibilities for slow starters) and tracking and tracing by intensive study coaching. This resulted in an improvement of the yield of students to 74% of students started in 2008. After working successfully on reducing the drop out rate of our engineering students the department focused on possibilities for excellent students. The department started the PROUD pilot together with engaged engineering students. In 2008 engineering students have carried out a research among their fellow students, lecturers, other institutes [1] and industry. This resulted in a quite different approach of an honours program for the department of Electronic and Electrical Engineering. In the PROUD program the student is stimulated to personally shape his educational career and to explicitly work on developing his own competences. The PROUD excellent program starts after the first year and extends to at least 3 semesters in the following years. The student, guided by a supervisor and outside the regular study time, is working on building an excellent portfolio at the university as well as in industry. During this period the PROUD student will work in industry one day a week in average. This is on top of his bachelor educational program. The students will receive an excellent honours certificate together with their bachelor's degree at the end of the study to express their honourable work. Each year about 20 students apply for a place in PROUD but thus far only about 3-4 passed the first interview round. It turns out that student, university and industry are eager to participate in this PROUD program.
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This paper presents the application of theories and experiences in the day-to-day environment of honours education in a so-called honours learning environment. In 2009, Windesheim University of Applied Sciences (UAS) started with honours education. An important question from the start was: what characterizes the honours learning environment? Based on experience, knowledge exchange and input from theory, the honours learning environment was developed, which is the fundament of honours and talent development at Windesheim UAS. The eight characteristics are illustrated by animations and explanations based on scientific studies.
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This project aims to develop a measurement tool to assess the inclusivity of experiences for people with varying challenges and capabilities on the auditory spectrum. In doing so, we performed an in-depth exploration of scientific literature and findings from previous projects by Joint Projects. Based on this, we developed an initial conceptual model that focuses on sensory perception, emotion, cognition, and e[ort in relation to hearing and fatigue. Within, this model a visitor attraction is seen as an “experienscape” with four key elements: content, medium, context, and individual. In co-creative interviews with experts by experience with varying challenges on the auditory spectrum, they provided valuable insights that led to a significant expansion of this initial model. This was a relevant step, as in the scientific and professional literature, little is known about the leisure experiences of people with troubled hearing. For example, personal factors such as a person’s attitude toward their own hearing loss and the social dynamics within their group turned out to greatly influence the experience. The revised model was then applied in a case study at Apenheul, focusing on studying differences in experience of their gorilla presentation amongst people with varying challenges on the auditory spectrum.Societal issueThe Netherlands is one of the countries in Europe with the highest density of visitor attractions. Despite this abundance, many visitor attractions are not fully accessible to everyone, particularly to visitors with disabilities who sometimes are not eligible to ride due to safety concerns, yet when eligible generally still encounter numerous barriers. Accessibility of visitor attractions can be approached in various ways. However, because the focus often lies on operational and technical aspects (e.g., reducing stimuli at certain times of the day by turning o[ music, o[ering alternative wheelchair entrances), strategic and community-focused approaches are often overlooked. More importantly, there is also a lack of attention to the experience of visitors with disabilities. This becomes apparent from several studies from Joint Projects, where visitor attractions are being visited together with experts by experience with various disabilities. Nevertheless, experience is often being regarded as the 'core product' of the leisure sector. The right to meet, discover, develop, relax and thus enjoy this core product is hindered for many people with disabilities due to a lack of knowledge, inaccessibility (physical, digital, social, communicative as well as financial) and discrimination in society. Additionally, recreation entrepreneurs still face a significant gap in reaching the potential market of guests with disabilities and their networks. Thus, despite the numerous initiatives in the leisure sector aimed at improving accessibility on technical and operational fronts, often people with disabilities are still not being able to experience the same kind of enjoyment as those without. These observations form the pressing impetus for initiating the current research project, tapping into the numerous opportunities for learning, development and growth on making leisure offer more inclusive.Benefit to societyIn total, the current project approach comes with a number of enrichments in terms of both knowledge and methodology: a mixed-methods approach that allows for comparing data from different sources to obtain a more complete picture of the experience; a methodological co-design process that honours the 'nothing about us without us' principle; and benchmarking for a group (i.e., people with challenges on the auditory spectrum) that despite the size of its population has thus far mostly been overlooked.
Van Honours onderwijs wordt verondersteld dat het een proeftuin is voor onderwijsvernieuwing die daarna een weg vindt naar het reguliere onderwijs. Op deze wijze draagt honours bij aan een cultuur van excellentie in het hoger onderwijs. Hoe dit proces van transfer verloopt en hoe dit versterkt kan worden weten we nog niet. Daarom doen we hier onderzoek naar.
Met deze extra gelden zetten we een brede stap in doorwerking, waarbij de focus ligt op onderwijs en de beroepspraktijk. In het kader van Top-up zetten we de contouren neer van de Virtuele Innovatieschool Oost Nederland. Dit is een leervorm waarin ondernemers, studenten en docenten gezamenlijk geschoold worden in state-of-the-art innovatiemethodes. Dit zal worden uitgevoerd door docenten van Saxion en HAN, passend binnen de lopende minors en honoursprogramma’s op het onderwerp innovatie. Het lesprogramma voor de Virtuele Innovatieschool zal ook gebruikt gaan worden in de lesprogramma’s van bijvoorbeeld de specialisatie Innovatie van de academie SBRM binnen Saxion. Hiermee geven we een impuls aan het onderwerp Innovatie binnen het reguliere onderwijs. De innovatiehub wordt daarmee verankerd in het curriculum. Tevens versterkt dit de onderlinge samenhang en samenwerking tussen de hubs, vanuit de onderwijskern.
