License to Skill

Project introduction and background information

In the Bachelor Environmental Sciences (BES) at WUR, skills need to be integrated in the curriculum. As a first step, core skills were chosen (see above) and an overview was made via the fingerprints to see how these skills were integrated in the curriculum. This led to the conclusion that some core skills were not fully presented in the courses and that some core skills need more attention to develop over time. Therefore, we started the BES skills academy as a pilot project, in which seven students participated. The project was planned for a year from January 2024 till December 2025. The main aim of the project was to see how students monitor and evaluate their skills learning through programmatic assessment. This pilot project is used to see if programmatic assessment could be a good way to follow and assess skills learning in BES.

Objective and expected outcomes

The BES skills academy was designed (modelled based on the Bachelor Food Technology (BFT) design), and students were asked to voluntarily participate. We planned the five meetings in the students' schedules, now in their free time, but in the future, this should be an integrated part of the curriculum. During the meetings, students used the process of formative assessment, which includes gathering evidence about their learning in an online portfolio in Brightspace (Portflow), creating learning goals, filling in rubrics and providing peer feedback to assess their and each other's learning (see Figure 1). At the end of the project, the students had an assessment dialogue with an assessment committee. The assessment committee consisted of two people, one assessment expert and one study advisor of BES. During the dialogue, the student discusses their progress in skills development and the committee members provide feedback and evaluate with the student where they are in their skills development. This is based on the students’ own reflection and the skills rubrics for the attainment levels.

Results and learnings

The project delivered useful insights in how to set up a skills academy, to work with an online portfolio in brightspace, to involve students in this process and to gather ideas for skills assessment. Students were interviewed to reflect on this project. The redesigned BES curriculum includes a (de facto) ribbon course called 'skills academy' as a result of this project.

Recommendations

Our main recommendations are:

• Make sure that skills learning is integrated into courses and that skills that are of importance to the programme who are not are part of an extra skills course.
• Try to relate the skills course as much as possible to the content of the other courses on the programme.
• Make it obligatory for students and part of the curriculum.
• Get course coordinators involved in implementing skills learning and making it more transparent in their courses.