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Martijn Wackers

TPM Faculty | IDEE Community

It would be wonderful if with IDEE, we could come up with a general framework and some good practices that, as shown by the educational research done, really improve retention and progression. In this way, we could show faculties new ways in which to integrate knowledge in curricula.

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Background

Martijn Wackers is the coordinator of the section academic communication skills at the Centre for Languages and Academic Skills of the faculty of Technology, Policy and Management. Martijn has a background in rhetoric and argumentation studies, with a strong interest in the topic of information retention and what techniques can be used to improve this. In fact, in 2021 Martijn defended his PhD dissertation titled Making messages memorable: the influence of rhetorical techniques on information retention. One important finding of Martijn’s research is that the ending of a speech – or lecture – is quite important. If it is properly announced and provides an informative and essential overview of the most important points made, then it will significantly help an audience to retrieve this information at a later moment. 

Towards IDEE

So when Martijn first heard about the IDEE theme Retention of knowledge and skills, he was eager to join the project. The theme beautifully brings together Martijn’s own field of interest, expertise and experience. What Martijn likes in particular about IDEE, is that it offers an opportunity to reconsider the way in which we think about and approach retention in engineering education. Currently, academic communication skills are mostly emphasized in courses on presenting and writing, which can create the sense amongst students that they are less important in the remainder of their engineering programme. 

As part of IDEE

Through IDEE, Martijn hopes to see a more integrated approach to skills education in curricula, as skills can contribute to retention of knowledge and progression. He is looking forward to the results of the impact of such an approach to retention. 

Did you know that ...?

  • At the Education Day of 2022, Martijn gave a workshop on the retention of knowledge.

  • Martijn gave a mini-lecture for the Universiteit van Nederland on the most important findings of his PhD research.

  • Martijn published several articles on the topic of retention techniques. You can find an overview of Martijn’s research output here.