With the urgency to respond to the rapid changes undergoing in the world, it is becoming more pivotal than ever for universities to connect and actively engage with society in order to tackle our current global challenges. In the Netherlands, this shift towards contributing to a positive societal impact has permeated across higher education institutions. Numerous projects have emerged with an explicit focus on bringing real-life problems into the classroom to foster multidisciplinary collaboration and interactions across different stakeholders and the community at large. The literature presents multiple conceptualizations to describe the societal impact of universities, ranging from the social responsibility of universities to university-community partnerships. Nevertheless, little is still known about the impacts that such projects might have on the students, the teachers, and the community. Therefore, this research aims at exploring the effects of an education innovation, called HefHouse, at the Erasmus University Rotterdam. We conducted interviews and focus groups with students, teachers, and the local partners across three different cases happening within this project. We discovered many different changes that the HefHouse is stimulating, changes in terms of knowledge acquired, skills developed, attitudes and values shifted, and new relationships forged. We also learned about potential causes of such changes. They ranged from developing experiential learning experiences and combining different institutions and disciplines to co-creating with the different actors involved and reflecting together throughout the whole process. Implications on the relevance and value of (evaluating) such education innovations will be explored in more depth.

Authors:
Lorenzo Duchi, Erasmus University Rotterdam, Netherlands
Canan Mesutoglu, Erasmus University Rotterdam, Netherlands

About the Presenter(s)
Mr Lorenzo Duchi is currently an education designer and researcher at the Erasmus University Rotterdam, The Netherlands.

See this presentation on the full schedule – Monday Schedule

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