In recent years, a novel teaching method has become popular in the education world: project-based learning.
This is a student-centered teaching method. Different from other learning methods, project-based learning emphasizes cultivating students' abilities in all aspects in the process of practice, so that students can master subject knowledge more efficiently. This teaching method is also very popular in Dutch universities.
Different from traditional university classrooms, Dutch universities pay special attention to students' practical ability and encourage students to go out of the classroom. The project-based learning method can fully combine knowledge learning with social practice, which coincides with the teaching philosophy of Dutch universities.
So what is project-based learning? And how is this style of learning practiced in the Netherlands?
Project-based learning at Dutch universities
Speaking of "project-based learning", it originated from the "learning by doing" advocated by American educator John Dewey more than 100 years ago.
After the continuous attempts and efforts of educators such as Kerber Qu, Paul Freire, etc. in the last century, school education has shifted from the traditional standardized collective knowledge transfer to the more personalized practical skills training and potential development.
In the early 2000s, a number of educational studies proved that students who received project-based learning performed significantly better than students in traditional classrooms.
From 2007 to 2013, the European Union specially allocated 7 billion euros to fund research on lifelong learning projects, including the application of project-based teaching in vocational education.
The Hollywood documentary "Most Likely to Succeed" released in 2015 made project-based learning a hot topic in the education circle.
Although some educational researchers still have doubts about the applicability of project-based learning, since the end of the last century, this kind of teaching has been widely recognized by the Dutch higher education community, presumably because this teaching method is more in line with the innovative and Pragmatic cultural features.
If you use the Dutch or English terms of "Dutch university" and "project-based learning" to search on the Internet search engine, you can see that many universities put project-based teaching in a prominent position, and "unique" and "interdisciplinary". "Efficiency is optimal", "practice learning", "future-oriented" and other words are put together.
In and out of the classroom, integration
The University of Groningen in the Netherlands was the first to require undergraduate students to complete their studies through participation in an interdisciplinary project. The University of Twente also encourages students to spend about 40% of their study time on practical projects with students from different majors.
University of Twente teachers Miles MacLeoda and Jan T. van der Veen believe that well-constructed interdisciplinary project-based learning can promote cooperation and interaction between teachers and students in different disciplines, and improve students' learning efficiency.
In practice, most Dutch universities are not as radical as the High Tech High school in the film "Most Likely to Succeed", but more pragmatically adopt a combination of project-based teaching and curriculum teaching.
For example, the University of Wittenberg adopts an eclectic approach of adding project weeks and graduation projects to course teaching. Principal Peter Birdshall said, "Pure project-based learning is not suitable for all students. School education in some countries and regions focuses more on knowledge accumulation, while project-based learning focuses more on cultivating practical ability."
Andreas Ooijer, a project instructor, and his colleagues explored how to combine course learning and practical activities in student projects: "We have planned in the study guide the competency development goals that students need to achieve each project week. , according to these goals, we will look for suitable companies to cooperate with.”
Students will be assigned to projects in the first teaching week of each semester, and they can participate in different thematic groups according to their interests and expertise, and complete the project within the week Project and report presentations to clients and instructors, and submit summary reports during exam week.
The project is not only incompatible with the course teaching, but also enables students to learn with the problems in the project, find solutions to problems through project practice, and then deeply reflect and understand knowledge; at the same time, students also exercise teamwork and project management. , leadership, cross-cultural communication and negotiation and other practical skills.
Nafisa, from Iran, had never been exposed to a student project before. After watching the presentations by the students, she was particularly inspired and said: "The theme of this project is marketing. Some of the students presented market analysis reports, some introduced new customer development plans, and some displayed creative advertising videos and The website...through their presentation, I know what to do with what I just learned in class."
School-enterprise cooperation to help multiple parties benefit
Project-based learning can not only benefit students, but also enable the cooperation between schools and enterprises to achieve win-win results. A start-up founded by Dr. Aleksandra Volkanovska and Dr. Melody Janssen is an off-campus partner of the Dutch University Project Week.
The two founders were impressed with the performance of the students: "Their ideas are very creative and based on a framework of expertise and a careful analysis of the company's market, we are very inspired."
Founder of a fashion start-up in the Netherlands In her feedback to the school, Ms Regine
Kamerling said: "International students from different cultures forced me to rethink our branding strategy. We have benefited a lot from this collaboration." Learning can improve students' confidence in solving complex problems. "They don't need to know all the relevant knowledge, but they learn in practice how to search for the knowledge they need and how to find solutions to problems."
Andreas said, “Students not only learn how to apply their knowledge from the project, but also how to form a team, learn from each other, communicate and coordinate, and finally successfully demonstrate the team’s results and satisfy the client. The real project taught them. Really kung fu.”
Wu Xing from China once studied at a university of applied sciences in the Netherlands, and he feels that the most rewarding thing in school is the opportunity to have face-to-face communication with local entrepreneurs.
"By working with them to complete the project, I learned about various market expansion methods and business models, which is particularly important for me to find my own career starting point in the Netherlands." Wu Xing is currently intern at O'Neill, a well-known international sportswear brand. Knowing enough "outside the window", he is full of confidence in his future.
Project-based learning takes practical work and problems as the starting point of learning, and is a fun, flexible and autonomous learning method.
It not only tests the ability of the tutors to design projects according to the characteristics of the students, but also enables the students to find their own strengths and development directions in the process of project practice, break the boundaries of disciplines to actively explore the required knowledge, and exercise their practical ability; The enterprise-school cooperation parties can also draw effective feedback and inspiration from the students' projects, and even achieve unexpected results.
We usually find that foreign family education attaches great importance to children's hands-on ability. Children have been working with their parents to repair lawns, tidy up yards, and do community services and other activities since childhood.
The cultivation of hands-on ability plays a very important catalytic role in a person's independent development in the actual work environment, which also makes project-based learning more and more widely respected in the education field.
