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Blended Learning FSS

Last updated on 17 September 2024
Campus and online learning will meet this year at FSS! Not because it is trendy, but because a well thought-out balance of online learning and on campus education supports students to study regularly. Blended learning truly improves students’ learning processes. Let’s not throw out our experiences and the lessons learned from last year.

The FSS blended learning team is there to help you. How can you blend on-campus and online learning to get the best of both worlds? What are effective tools to incite students to dive into the literature, synthesize ideas of different sources, combine academic skills with the elaboration of their theoretical knowledge? The team consists of highly skilled teachers in blended learning of the 5 departments, two educational advisors of the Centre for Teaching & Learning (CTL), a specialist in digital learning, an assessment expert and a student. A team that is ready to support you. A team that enjoys exploring the frontiers of innovative teaching and learning. A team that will share best practices in workshops and online.

May we present our FSS blended learning team?

  • Eva Koemar of Social and Cultural Anthropology: as a junior teacher helps students to focus on studying in this increasingly competitive attention economy. She is continuously looking for digital tools and alternative learning activities that her colleagues and she can implement in their bachelor curriculum. 
  • Hilde Remmers & Bo Janssen of CTL: already our well-known educational advisors. Are there to challenge you to think out of the box from the viewpoint of effective educational design. They explore new ways of teaching with you that make courses more intense for students and less teacher-intensive. 
  • Jolanda van Meringen as a Jr. Educational Developer, proficient with systems such as Canvas and TestVision, she enhances course and lesson development, assists with assessments, supports educational apps, and designs instructional materials.
  • Estefani Montenegro, Digital Learning Developer, has been developing and studying digital material for education. From crafting interactive curriculum to seamlessly integrating diverse digital tools, she is dedicated to fostering active blended learning environments."
  • Karya Odabasi of Organisation Sciences: teacher and research assistant, loves exploring creative solutions for annoyances in education. How can we streamline the thesis projects? Are there any possibilities to use serious games in education? Karya supervises a team of student-assistants that is ready to help you.
  • Esther Schagen of Communication Science introduced Team-Based Learning at Communication Science and used innovative applications of TestVision. Esther is able to overview courses and to help you to design a learning path through a course that truly activates students.
  • Kevin Lam student-assistant who organize and supervise workshops, helps teachers with their questions about Canvas and other digital tools. He is a very good example of how important it is, to involve students when developing innovations!
  • And Sylvia Vink will help the team to thrive and excel.

Always wanted to explore new ways to get the best out of your students? Struggling with blended learning issues you definitely want to know, but never dared to ask? Please, contact the blended learning expert of your department.

Team Canvas support
You can reach out to us through a Teams chat. When clicking here, a chat with you and the Canvas Team will pop up. Furthermore, we stay available through the Canvas mailbox. Just send an email to canvas.fsw@vu.nl and we will get back to you. 

Optimizing your course environment
Whether you're a seasoned Canvas user or just getting started, it's always helpful to see ways you can use your online learning environment even more efficiently in your profession. Read our tips here

Examples of Blended Learning
You can find examples of blended learning below. Do you have methods for activating students in online or blended learning and would you like to share them with colleagues? Please fill in this form and send it to Communications Officer Communication & Marketing Department.

Your course and the role of Generative AI
Have you already thought through the impact of AI on your own course? In this document you can find an overview of important background information about AI, such as academic integrity and AI, and steps to design your course keeping generative AI in mind. You’ll quickly find answers on questions such as ‘To what extent can I use AI in my course?’, ‘Am I aware of the influence of AI in my course? And ‘Which steps can I take to organize the influence of AI in my course?’. Don’t forget to ask the policy advisors on the use of AI: Estefani Montenegro ( e.y.montenegro.munoz@vu.nl) and Jolanda van Meringen (j.van.meringen@vu.nl).

Examples of blended learning

  • International Security Studies

    This academic year, the course International Security Studies (period 2), part of the master programmes Political Science and Law & Politics of International Security, was taught online. I used this opportunity to implement more active learning methods in my course, and I am happy to share my experience here with you.

    Read more

  • How to assess students’ performance – online?

    When designing a course, it can be quite a challenge to decide on the assessment: how to assess, when to assess, how often to assess? And most importantly, how to achieve “constructive alignment”, i.e. making the learning goals, the teaching, and the assessment fit together optimally. In the following, I will shortly describe why and how I designed the assessments for my Master elective course “Strategy and innovation in networks”. The students liked this way of assessment, and we as teachers were equally happy!

    Read more

  • Individual and team tests to prepare for study group sessions

    The Bachelor of Communication Science programme added study group sessions to intensify interaction. Since a good understanding of the literature is needed in order to engage in high-quality discussions in these study groups, in multiple courses of the bachelor, students now take preparatory tests prior to each session.

    Read more

  • Using knowledge clips to make a course more active

    Duco Bannink and Gerben Wagenaar, in cooperation with Gabriel Peralta Alvarez (Learn Academy), looked at the course Policy and Decision-Making from a blended learning perspective.

    We started with the question: how do we activate the students without giving the lecturers more work? With a bit of brainstorming, we saw the need to use knowledge clips by students. 

    Read more

  • Academic Citizenship Program

    Academic Citizenship is a program which decenters teaching and learning across our curricula. The academic citizenship project seeks to answer both needs and perspectives. The project consists of workshops for Bachelorstudents at the beginning and end of each academic year.

    Read more

  • Sociology students become policy experts

    Within the cultural policy of the municipality of Amsterdam, an important aim is to make cultural activities in the city more inclusive. But what can be done to realize this aim? To find an answer to that question, the municipality asked the first-year students of the bachelor Sociology for advice.

    Read more

  • Students solve real-life issues with the Peace Game

    The Peace Game brings students of different programmes together with practitioners from various organisations to solve complex dilemmas that these practitioners experience in their field. Lecturer in Political Science Nour Gjaltema tells us more about this active learning experience.

    Read more

  • How to learn about the Anthropological Monograph?

    In the first year Bachelor course Ethnographic Monographs, students in Anthropology used to read one or two monographs in full. Over the years, we felt that the context of these – often dated – monographs was missing, says lecturer Herbert Ploegman. "Therefore, we decided to dedicate the available reading time to an analytical exercise: to trace the conditions of existence of the traditional anthropological ethnographic monograph."

    Read more

  • Knowledge clips: examples of active learning

    Watch the knowledge clips with examples of active learning. How do you keep students active during a lecture and how do you get them to collaborate and take responsibility during lectures?

    Read more

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