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Jos Zwanikken

AS Faculty | IDEE Community 

I am very curious to see what we will be able to achieve with IDEE on a university-wide level. But in the first place, I really hope that my own education will improve from participating in IDEE. I especially hope that I will learn more about the educational science side of things. It would be nice to be able to voice my intuitions and observations in the words and terminology of this scientific field.

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Background 

Jos Zwanikken is assistant professor with a focus on education at the department of Bionanoscience at the faculty of Applied Sciences, with a background in theoretical physics and a special interest in education. Central to Jos’ personal vision on education, is the idea that the way in which we teach, is just as – or arguably even more – important, than what we teach. That is to say, the methods of teaching we use matter. In his own education, Jos has been experimenting with offering students different trajectories towards the same learning goals and, as an Education Fellow, he is researching the effects that this has on students. The fundamental question that drives Jos’ interest and activities in education is how to enable freshly graduated high-school students to become independent thinkers and researchers through the course of their studies.  

Towards IDEE 

Unsurprisingly, when Jos heard about the IDEE theme Students taking responsibility for their learning process, he was eager to join the project. Not only is the IDEE theme closely related to his own interests in education, Jos appreciates the opportunity IDEE offers to be able to work with colleagues from all TU Delft faculties on educational research and innovation.  

As part of IDEE 

“I am very curious to see what we will be able to achieve with IDEE on a university-wide level. But in the first place, I really hope that my own education will improve from participating in IDEE. I especially hope that I will learn more about the educational science side of things. It would be nice to be able to voice my intuitions and observations in the words and terminology of this scientific field.”   

Did you know that ...?

  • Jos is looking forward to the piloting phase of IDEE, and is curious to see what the IDEE innovations will bring to his courses.  
  • Jos gave an inspiring and highly interactive Meet&Eat lecture where he explains the set-up of and the first preliminary results of his Education Fellowship project. You can find the recording here.  

Building the tracks for a diverse student population 

This project will focus on creating multiple tracks within single courses that lead to the same learning goals, with the aim of catering a diverse student population (in many aspects), and nurturing an environment that could support and promote transdisciplinarity. The project expands on a successful experiment in Q2 of the past academic year, with the intention to implement multiple tracks within the physics courses of the Nanobiology curriculum, based on level of independence/responsibility and focus on skill. This would offer the students a choice between two levels of responsibility, and supply them with a much broader scope of course materials, which are only partly summative. In particular, a selection of the summative assessments could be chosen, including assignments which put emphasis on computation, mathematical rigour, or practical relevance. These developments will be heavily informed and reviewed by educational experts and collaborators.