Speak Up!

Project introduction and background information

Speak Up! aims to help you in your role as educator to explore what skills, societal and professional values and methods you actually employ or should employ when developing, designing and delivering challenge-based and inter- and transdisciplinary education. It supports your dialogue with colleagues or peers about which choices could be relevant and coherent. It is based on the experience and knowledge of a group of researchers from different faculties from Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands that brought their knowledge together this project in 2024 and 2025, financed by the 4TU Centre of Engineering Education.

Recommendations

This research was a first step in exploring and surveying the landscape of challenge-based and inter- and transdisciplinary education at Delft University of Technology. While this method may be useful in furthering the conversation on what CBE and inter- and transdisciplinary education is or should be, we are also mindful of the fact that our sample of interviewees is limited. Our hopes are therefore that through the wider usage of the method and the reflective conversations that follow, we will be able to gather more insights on all the nuance that feeds into the praxis of CBE and inter- and transdisciplinary across higher (engineering) education.

Additionally, the method has been designed with education staff in mind. However, it would be equally interesting to apply the method with students and talk through different scenarios to see how they experience the courses. Are their observations and positions similar to those of their teachers? How would they prioritize specific skills or values? Exploring the potential of the method in meaningfully involving students in course design, particularly when it comes to CBE and inter- and transdisciplinary education, would therefore be a relevant avenue for future research.

Practical outcomes

We have created a canvas & written a booklet that will guide you through an in-depth dialogue and reflection on education design choices. It also offers some course descriptions, if participants prefer to discuss an existing case together. Though it might be of interest to employ it in conversation with students as well, please note Speak Up! was intended for use by educators and as such relies solely on the experiences and perspectives of educators.

Please use the canvas to make your choices and write down your definitions, to shape your own work of reference.