Liberal Arts and Sciences education aims to develop critical thinkers who are able to put complex information into perspective. Research conducted by ECLAS either directly targets educational innovation, or feeds into it. The latter can be done either during the education or research process by actively involving students (e.g. within problem-based learning or student research projects) or by studying societal relevant topics that feed into the curriculum or can be linked to EUC in a broader sense (e.g. student life or recruitment and outreach programs).
Here are some examples of projects which focus on education innovation.
RASL Minor
The Rotterdam Arts and Sciences Lab (RASL) offers the minor 'Re-Imagining Tomorrow through Arts & Sciences' - an innovative educational programme across disciplines that disrupts existing structures, approaches and ways of thinking. Students work in transdisciplinary teams across arts and sciences to re-imagine a self-selected complex societal problem, framed by notions of collaboration, equality of knowledge and engagement.
Learn more about our partners and the RASL minor by visiting the website.
Critical Worls Citizen - Middle East Study Exchange (Iran)
This project is a course organised as a digital exchange programme between EUC and the School of International Relations (SIR) in Tehran (Iran) open to students from all majors at EUC.
This course is a field-based learning experience that puts critical world citizenship into practice together with students from Iran.
Throughout the programme a wide range of topics is covered, which concerns the governance, society, culture, geopolitics and economics of Iran. Examples include: the role of the Islamic Republic Revolutionary Guard (IRGC), how ethnic minority votes have shaped the Iranian electoral system, and the role of economic sanctions in developing sustainable energy alternatives.
During the digital exchange students use their own background and experiences to familiarize their Iranian peers with what they consider relevant in Dutch and European society, making this a genuine two-way exchange likely to boost cross-cultural communication skills.
You can download the summary of the pilot project below.
Community-oriented Action-based Real-world Education (CARE) Programme
In line with ECLAS’ mission of engaging with society, so that educational programmes are directly influenced by real-world issues, EUC is proud to present the CARE programme. This is a joint venture between EUC, ESPhil, Erasmus X, the Diversity & Inclusion Office and the Erasmus Trust Fund. The programme is coordinated by Dr. Ginie Servant-Miklos and Prof. Liesbeth Noordegraaf-Eelens.
CARE stands for Community-oriented Action-based Real-world Education. CARE consists of two parallel and intersecting streams: an education stream and a research stream. The education stream consists in a sixteen-week interdisciplinary, cross-faculty extra-curricular programme on experimental pedagogics, open to all EUR undergraduate students. The research stream of the project applies Structured Education Action Research, a research approach for designing education interventions for social impact through a build-up of a) interpretive phenomenological analysis b) phenomenography and c) critical ethnography. The CARE team is trying to shed light on the following issues
- What are the determinants of the education choices that VMBO students and families make?
- What conceptions of academic work do VMBO students hold?
- How do VMBO students experience schooling?
- How do we build effective educational interventions to remedy socio-economic inequalities in access to university education?
Eventually, the CARE research aims to engage EUR students in designing educational interventions that can help to bridge the divide between VMBO students and university education.
Want to find out more about the course in experimental pedagogics? You can find the landing page here: https://my.eur.nl/en/euc/care-programme