Inspiring visit: 4TU.CEE Learning Space Tour@UT
In their strategic plans all 4 TUs emphasise the need for change in the engineering programmes to prepare the students for the challenges of tomorrow, in a context that is only partly known yet. New skills are needed. New teaching methods have been developed, mostly based on group learning, with Challenge Based Learning as the new kid on the block. These developments have led to renewed interest in the role of learning spaces and how these spaces can contribute to and influence group learning and the development of new skills. Against this background the 4TU have organised an innovative learning spaces tour: visits to AMS and the four TU’s to see examples of innovative learning spaces and get inspired by what is done by colleagues and at other universities. On 4 February 35 lecturers, education scientists, education managers and support staff from the 4TU visited the University of Twente.
DesignLab
The tour started in the DesignLab with a presentation and a tour. DesignLab offers a platform for education, research and businesses to develop design skills, to cooperate and to work on design-based questions in spaces that are well equipped for creativity and design. Alma Schaafstal, programme director of the bachelor programme Creative Technology, explained how she uses the DesignLab. She emphasized the added value of the DesignLab that stimulates a systematic design approach in a supporting environment that leads to creative solutions. She also made a critical remark: she misses ownership in the DesignLab, her students are only guests. The programme Creative Technology has a much smaller and less well-equipped lab in its own building which is only used by her students. However, for them it is their lab, their home, which is of great value. After Alma, a student of one of the many student teams of the UT gave a presentation. He also mentioned the importance of ownership and having a home base. For the students teams the DesignLab is their home. He explained that his team basically has grown up in the DesignLab: the team would not have existed without the DesignLab and its facilities.
TechMed centre
The tour was continued with a visit to the brand new TechMed centre, located in a huge three-story high, glass building that used to be home to the mechanical engineering labs in the early years of the UT. The building has lecture halls, smaller rooms for working groups, labs, individual study places, coffee corners, recreation spaces, rooms for study associations, a cafeteria and an extensive technical medical simulation centre, all arranged around an open space in the centre of the building. The simulation centre contains a.o. hybrid operating rooms, a fully furnished apartment, human patient simulators and robots. It is here where staff carries out research and where technical-medicine and health science students are educated. It is also the place where they can experiment without risks for real patients and clients. The TechMed centre collaborates with industry, hospitals, governments and insurance agencies on the development of new solutions in healthcare.
VRSI lab
After lunch there was a presentation by Roy Damgrave about the Virtual Reality & Smart Industry (VRSI) lab, equipped with the newest technology for visualization, interaction, collaboration and communication. The VR equipment helps to identify and analyse aspects that are difficult to study with the naked eye in the physical world. Roy explained how the lab allows students (but also researchers and external industrial companies) to improve their designs and prototypes. He also presented his research on the relation between the physical environment and learning outcomes of the students.
The day ended with a workshop in the DesignLab to let the participants experience how a learning space in combination with an appropriate didactical approach evokes specific behaviour and learning results. In a regular environment these would be more difficult to accomplish.
Inspiration
Participants were positive to very positive about the day and the new ideas and inspiration they were taking home. The visit to the TechMed Centre and the presentations by Alma Schaafstal and Roy Damgrave were seen as the highlights of the day. They regretted that it had not been possible to visit the VRSI lab. The programme was less packed than previous Learning Space Tour visits but was still a bit too full, more time for exchange with other participants would be appreciated. The day was well summarised by one of the participants: “For study tours we usually go abroad, while we have as nice and sometimes even better examples next door, in this case at the UT.”