Team Value Creators wins third prize at Dutch Higher Education awards 2021

On March 1^st, The Dutch Minister of Education announced the first Dutch Higher Education Awards 2021 during the national Comenius Festival that celebrates innovative education. Our educational concept Value Creators was laureated with bronze (500.000 euros prize) in the category of University of Applied Sciences. 

The Dutch Higher Education Award is set up to recognize excellence in Lecturers Teams developing innovative education. Value Creators educates students to work on complex societal issues to prepare them for an international career as change agents. Coordinator María Garcia Alvarez represented the team in the ceremony. The award, a “bronze eye” designed by a student from TU Delft, was given away by the Minister of Education, Ingrid van Engelshoven. The jury highlighted the way in how Value Creators students are being given freedom to take responsibility of their own learning journey, and the ground-breaking character of the Value Creators concept: “this could be the education model in the future”. Also, the enthusiasm of the team received a lot of praise. Garcia Alvarez: ‘Today we are all winners, not only us here, but this is a recognition to all teachers in the Netherlands’. The money will be spent on the development of new tools; a digital platform and gaining extra valuable time for developing further the educational concept and its scalability.

The Jury rapport:

Team Value Creators prepares students for an international career as change agents, contributing to a sustainable world. The assessment committee is enthusiastic about this ground-breaking initiative, in which responsibility for the learning process is assigned - in a structured manner - to the student. Participating students decide for themselves which large and complex issues they will work on in relation to the Sustainable Development Goals. Students are taught to learn and participate meaningfully in networks, where learning to ask the right questions is more important than giving the right answers. The committee observed that the students are very enthusiastic, have high ambitions and set the bar high. The connection between activities and self-regulated learning and assessment is well developed. The committee finds this an interesting initiative for the future of higher education. The committee was particularly impressed by the enthusiasm of the lecturers' team and the motivation of the individual members to make this initiative work. The committee does recommend, however, that further (didactic) research be carried out into the various components of the learning process, particularly with regard to students who need more structure.

Read more about the second prize of the bachelor Open-ICT of the 'Hogeschool Utrecht(opens in new tab)

Pictures: Inge Hoogland ©