Stories of Five TU Delft Education Teams | Ending the Journey

Provided by Teaching Academy, written by Christa Laurens

Here at TU Delft, there are many wonderful education teams that, each in their own innovative way, collectively contribute to the improvement of the education at our university. The Education Team Award was created to celebrate and reward these efforts. Last year, five education teams were nominated for the Education Team Award 2023: 

  • The Architectural Recovery Team (ART) [1]
  • The Modelling, Uncertainty and Data for Engineers Team (MUDE)[2]
  • The Pre-University Chemistry MOOC Team (PUCH MOOC)[3]
  • The Computer Science Engineering Teaching Team (CSETT) )[4]
  • The Modelling Courses Team of the Bachelor of TPM )[5]

The series set off with an article that spotlighted the strengths of these education teams.[6] The series then continued with articles on the stories of each of the nominated education teams, including both the challenges they faced and the achievements they are proud of. With this concluding article, it is the end of this year’s journey. Each education team had a unique story to share. Each team was created under different circumstances, and with quite different goals to achieve. Each team encountered different challenges along the way. And yet, despite these differences, there were also some interesting commonalities.

What makes an education team? 

As the various stories illustrate, education teams can be quite different from each other. But what all education teams have in common is their goal to have a positive impact on education, interpreted in a broad sense. This could take the form of a positive impact on the development of students, or lecturers, and sometimes on the organisation as a whole, or even society, as the example of the ART team shows most clearly. Of course, in this article series a closer look was taken at education teams nominated by their faculties. These teams not only strive for a positive impact, they also continuously look for new ways to improve their educational work. They do so by working together in a diverse and highly motivated team, thus turning their teamwork into a lasting impact on the TU Delft quality of education. 

Common challenge: resistance to change 

In each and every case, the education teams wanted to effect change. Most of the time, a top-down decision was made for this change, as for example in the case of the PUCH MOOC and the MUDE teams. Their faculty managements respectively decided for the need for the MOOC and the MSc redesign. In other cases, such as ART illustrates, the initiative for change was taken and a team formed completely bottom-up. In each case, however, these teams went off the beaten track. They were pioneering and experimenting with new ways of organizing, giving and participating in education. Which is why it isn’t strange that they also often encountered difficulties and resistance whilst working on their respective projects and to get others to see the value in what they were trying to achieve.  

A nice takeaway from their stories in this respect is the importance of clear communication to others in the department or faculty about what the team is trying to accomplish. Resistance is not always the result of unwillingness, but sometimes springs from not yet fully understanding what the new initiative will bring. Think of the experiences of the CSE-TT members in co-teaching courses with scientific staff; those who initially were not a fan, became more enthusiastic about the concept once they saw that co-teaching brought many advantages (e.g. more time for the scientific staff to update the content of a course in collaboration with the teaching team member coming up with creative, practical ways of how to teach this content). Another good example is that of the MUDE team, that experienced how sharing their interactive textbook with colleagues helped the latter understand what the team was trying to accomplish.  

The importance of teamwork 

All the team members whole-heartedly agreed that they couldn’t have done it alone; they needed each other to make it a success. Let’s look at some of the key ingredients of their teamwork. First of all, it is clear that the commitment and dedication to their respective teams was high for all core team members. An important reason for this being that the team members shared a passion for education and were intrinsically motivated to contribute to the team. Second, all teams had a clear division of roles and responsibilities. Although this might take a while to figure out – an important element of the stories of ART and MUDE – this is part of the process and essential for a healthy, well-functioning team. Another related aspect is leadership. If you remember for instance the story of the PUCH MOOC team, you saw how a team leader has a pivotal role to play within a team. In this respect, all education teams had dedicated team leaders who, with passion and enthusiasm, fulfilled this function. Lastly, the team members thoroughly enjoyed working on their educational projects together with their fellow team members. Working within a team of like-minded and hard-working people, it is clear from their stories that the team members enthusiastically shared ideas, relied on each other whenever necessary and tackled difficult situations as a team. All of this contributes to the unique chemistry within a team and is part of the reason that the teams managed to get this far.  

Turning a challenge into an opportunity 

All education teams had clear goals. These goals were as diverse as creating an online MOOC (PUCH MOOC), dealing with increased student numbers (CSE-TT), creating a new MSc module (MUDE), improving the modelling line (Modelling Courses Team of TPM) and to help people in need (ART). In the process of pursuing their goals, the teams discovered that working on their projects in fact created a space within departments and faculties to develop one’s views on what it means to be an educator and have a real impact on education according to these views. As Robert Lanzafame phrased it, working on the MUDE module gave the team the creative freedom to express themselves as teachers. Meaning that the teams turned the challenges they had to overcome into an opportunity, namely the opportunity to leave a unique mark on the education of TU Delft. As their stories illustrate, they have seized this opportunity with clear success.  

[1] Want to know more about ART? Read the story of ART here.

[2] Want to know more about MUDE? Read the story of MUDE here. 

[3] Want to know more about PUCH MOOC? Read the story of PUCH MOOC here. 

[4] Want to know more about CSE-TT? Read the story of CSE-TT here.

[5] Unfortunately, it was not possible to write an article on the story of the Modelling Courses Team of TPM. We will have to save this for some later time!

[6] The article referred to here is “The Strength of TU Delft Education Teams”. Interested in the article? You can find it here.

 

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