A new column on keeping you up-to-date on the changes in education. We will inform you in this column on the improvements made in education. We are selectively breeding the best forms of education for you!
In this column I, Lisa Kiel, the commissioner education, will inform you on all the relevant topics being discussed in the StudCie (study committee of Semper Florens) and the OpCie (program committee for the studies of Plant Sciences).
The money that previously went to the scholarship (studie beurs) has now been divided over all universities to improve our education. The WUR has decided to put extra attention to four different parts.
1. Small scale education: the university has grown a lot in the last couple of years. This will continue to happen, so the WUR has decided to take some extra action to make sure that the small scale education that the WUR is known for stays good. This means that the WUR will hire more staff members, so that the education can become more intensive. Because of these extra staff members, there will also be more intensification of thesis supervisors.
2. More and better study guidance: the WUR will do more about stress prevention by giving more study advice and mental support. For these points the WUR will hire more ‘studie begeleiders’ and hire more student psychiatrists. There has also been funded a foundation to fund projects of students for students, so that students can help each other (e.g. integration by starting a garden).
3. Education differentiation: the WUR will expand the options for extracurricular activities, personal development coaching, more skills education and the student challenge. Examples for educational skills are writing and groupwork stuff (no soft skills).
4. Professionalization: staff members will follow workshops on how to give better lectures, etc. There will also be more PhD students that give lectures or help as student assistants, so the lecturers will have more time to be professional.
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Resit period after period 6
As said in the previous Breeding Education, the resits are moving. There are still a lot of kinks the WUR has to iron out before they can be a success. The current plan for moving the resits brings a lot of stress with it for the teachers. They would only get five days to grade the tests taken in period 6. Immediately afterwards they would have resist they have to grade. The university proposed that extra help could be hired to help with all the grading. The problem with this is that you have to be an expert in the field to correct open exam questions. Another problem that arises is that many chair groups have high season for conferences. They would have to skip the conferences every year to be present at the resits. Currently, they had fifteen days t grade all the tests from period 6. This was enough time to attend the conferences and be on time with grading.
There are also problems for the students. If you have an exam on Friday, you only get two days to study for resits from period one through five. This is not enough time to learn all the subject matter. There is also not yet a solution for when a teacher is too late with grading the tests of period six. A student will then know too late if they passed the test and whether they should study for the resit.
The positive part of moving the resits, is the consecutive summer break possible for students and teachers. This would also help people to know if they passed their BSA and the university would have more time to do the re-enrolments of the following year.
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HPP-21306 Crop Ecology
The BSc course Crop Ecology in the 2nd year fifth period will change its exam setup. Right now, the exam of the course is at the end of the period in the exam week. This means that the workload at the end of the period is currently very high. Therefore, the teaching staff of HPP has decided to change the exam setup by splitting the exam into several smaller exams. The separation of the exams will hopefully lighten the workload for the students.
Students said that the workload of the course in itself wasn’t too much, but the material was difficult to study all at once in the exam period. With this new exam schedule, the course will hopefully become more enjoyable for students and staff.
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