Education for Social Change

Please note this minor will end 12 November 2023.

Do you want to research social educational challenges from primary school to university? And build educational interventions to address these challenges?

In Education for Social Change, student teams research social educational challenges from primary school to university, then build educational interventions to address this. To support the projects, an Education Track provides a broad philosophical educational training, and a Reflection Track grounds students’ learning through journaling, peer-reflection and workshops.
In Education for Social Change, student teams research social educational challenges from primary school to university, then build educational interventions to address this. To support the projects, an Education Track provides broad philosophical educational training and a Reflection Track grounds students’ learning through journaling, peer-reflection and workshops. Education for Social Change premises that education is transdisciplinary: multiple disciplines constitute its contents, interdisciplinary angles feed its processes, while education gives meaning to undisciplined experiences of the world. Education for Social Change provides a five-level structure for understanding this transdisciplinary whole.

In the Education Track , students encounter problem-based learning, embodied learning, jigsawing, object-based learning, and design-based learning. The track also offers lectures as a safe space for students to discover new philosophical approaches with experts.
The** Project Track** forms the backbone of Education for Social Change. Under the guidance of a project supervisor, student teams analyse a real-world education problem in a primary, secondary or tertiary education with a methodology of their choosing, then devise a relevant educational intervention that follows appropriate education design principles, offers answers to their research problem, and can lead to implementation.
The Reflection Track accompanies the Project and Education Tracks in a step-by-step build-up, consisting in:

• Intake and exit interviews with students
• Three guided reflection diaries
• Two workshops: one focused on cognitive and individual reflection, the other on group and societal reflection.
• An Articulated Learning Reflection, drawing a learning arc based on student diaries.

Knowledge goals:

• Students will demonstrate understanding of key thinkers upon whose work the biggest educational innovations of the 20th & 21st century were based.

• Students will analyse classroom experiments from around the world as inspiration for their own project design.

• Students will identify the rationale behind and practice learning with problem-based learning, embodied learning, jigsawing, case-based learning, closed reading, object-based learning and design-based learning.

Practical skills:

• Students will make personal learning goals and measure progress on those goals throughout their learning journey.
• Students will reflect on their own learning and practice through a comprehensive reflection track.
• Students will apply their theoretical knowledge to an educational case study.
• Students will practice working in a problem-oriented project work environment, including group collaboration skills.
• Students will design an educational innovation in response to a social problem in primary, secondary or tertiary education that intervenes appropriately at the cognitive, individual, group, society and global levels.

Teaching methods:
Project Track: Problem-oriented project work
Education Track: Problem-based learning, embodied learning, jigsawing, object-based learning, and design-based learning, Lectures, workshops.
Reflection Track: journaling, interviews, workshops

Teaching materials:

• Book chapters
• Journal articles
• Explanatory videos
• Fieldwork visits

Method of examination and composition of final grade:
The assessment for this minor comprises:

• Case studies (20%)
• Students present in pairs a contemporary best-practice example of education innovation.
• Project Report (40%)
• Students write a 5000 word report on their innovation design in their groups. There is one mark for the whole group.
• Project presentation (10%)
• Students prepare a 15-minute presentation as a group, followed by 15 minutes of individual questions & answers. They get an individual mark for this.
• ALR (20%)
• Adapted from Ash and Clayton (2014), students write a meta-reflection on their learning journey throughout the Minor, using their learning diaries as “key moments” to analyse and draw a learning arc across all levels of reflection.
• Participation, including learning diaries (10%)

Location of education Erasmus Campus Woudestein, Erasmus University College and namely Codarts, Giovanni van Brockhorst Foundation, Hef House .