PRIMECH Builds the Mechanics Teachers Social Club to Enhance Education at TU Delft
At TU Delft, teaching bachelor-level mechanics just got a whole lot more social, thanks to PRIMECH's innovative approach to building a community of practice (CoP).
As a quick recap, last year PRIMECH, which stands for PRogramme of Innovation in MECHanics education, published an article outlining the project's goals and objectives. Since then, the PRIMECH team has made significant strides in achieving those goals by building a CoP known as the Mechanics Teachers Social Club. This initiative has created opportunities for teachers to collaborate and share innovative teaching materials, ultimately leading to enhanced professional development.
After conducting a series of co-design workshops with TU Delft statics teachers, the PRIMECH community of practice was officially launched in June 2022. All TU Delft Mechanics teachers now have access to a dedicated platform in MS Teams, to ask questions, discuss teaching strategies, and collaborate with each other. In the current academic year, the PRIMECH team has already organised four successful community events, which focused on networking and gathering insights about teachers' needs and preferences. The events covered a range of topics, including concept mapping with the Course Graph Editor tool, mechanics classroom demonstrations, and formative assessment in ANS. The team has three more events scheduled before the summer holidays. The PRIMECH community events are usually open not only to mechanics teachers, but also to other educators who are interested in these topics. If you would like to join, you can find PRIMECH events listed on the teaching academy agenda. The project team has also made available the PRIMECH 2023 calendar, which provides interesting facts and insights about mechanics and mechanics education.
Teachers say: “PRIMECH has allowed me to connect with fellow teachers to share and inspire each other’s educational design”. “The events and workshops provide a great source of inspiration for the continued improvement of our education”.
The PRIMECH team aims to reach all TU Delft mechanics teachers and share the community's gains with the wider educational community. To achieve this goal, they have planned several communication activities. The PRIMECH team has created a webpage with information about the project, including what their goals are, what they've achieved so far and how to get in touch. They also send out a newsletter every month that goes into more detail about the ideas and themes that come up during their events with mechanics teachers. You can check out old issues on their webpage and sign up for the newsletter if you're interested. Plus, the team keeps an active LinkedIn page where they share updates and info about the project, and they like to start conversations about mechanics education topics. Through these communication activities and virtual resources, the team hopes to promote the importance of building communities of practice in education and inspire others to adopt similar initiatives.
