Inspiring educational practices
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Why we chose inspiring practices over good practices.
It is no longer about convincing or getting the recipient to emulate the 'good' or 'best' practice from the example.
...This essential shift is reflected in the seemingly trivial but actually fundamental difference between the terms example of good practice on the one hand and good practice on the other
(Kelchtermans & Ballet (2009))
Why invest time and effort in identifying and disseminating inspiring practices?
- We want to show appreciation for those who do clever, inspiring work.
- Inspiring practices are a powerful tool for professionalization for:
- Teachers (reflect, dare to experiment)
- Educational support ('practice what you preach')
- Virtual network of peers (peer learning)
- not reinvent the wheel
- representativeness of the VUB community (not always the same usual suspects)
- culture of exchange
What does that mean to us
"an inspiring practice"?
An inspiring educational practice at VUB
- Something the listener can relate to
- That promts conversation
- Describes practice in an in-depth and rich way and systematically unravels "why" this practice runs the way it does
What have we learned?
- Alignment pays off!
- A (new) conversation with the teacher is often necessary.
- Guidelines on keeping up-to-date
- Provide more direction, based on the existing examples (writing guide and/or worked examples)
- Writing for our target audience (not for ourselves).
- Enthusing from the first sentence
Next steps
- Ownership at a teamlevel
- alignment,
- keeping up-to-date depending on context,
- is the example still relevant?,
- decision of which examples deserve extra time
- final 'Go' at department level?