Pierre van Eijl, Albert Pilot (Utrecht University, The Netherlands) and Stan van Ginkel (HU Utrecht University of Applied Sciences, The Netherlands).

This article “Seven strategies for implementing an honours community” is by the article “Developing talent together in an honours community” on this website. Contact: Pierre van Eijl (eijl0000@wxs.nl).

Figure 1: Building an Honours Community

Seven strategies for implementing an honours community

• • Match students for the honours programme based on willingness and capabilities to cooperate

• • Shared experiences are the key issue in honouring communities.

• • Facilitating student initiatives can be a powerful way to strengthen student ownership of an honours community.

• • Create an intense period of interaction to deepen and enhance bonding within an honours community.

• • Organize a series of interactive activities during the whole programme to stimulate the community.

• • Highlight the performance of a teacher/coach as a role model.

• • Involve community activities in feedback procedures and student evaluations.

Design principles

The concept of the design principle is introduced to present a description of the research results that the teachers can use to design their courses. The reason is that the formulation of the research results in the scientific articles is not meant to be used by the teacher in their practical activities. The essential quality of a design principle is that it should be appealing, understandable and valuable for university teachers in general and that the teachers should be able to translate these design principles into ideas for their courses.

Examples

In a set of 5 to 12 design principles, the pedagogical qualities which should be realised in the design of a course are described ( Cremers et al., 2017),  DPs about Oral presentation (Ginkel, Gulikers, Mulder, & Biemans, 2015), Project-based learning (Guo et al., 2020), Sixteen design principles (Visscher-Voerman, 1999), the principles of authentic eLearning (Reilly & Reeves, 2022), Teacher design teams (Post et al., 2022), and Chickering and Gamson (1987) who have made one of the first descriptions of design principles. Other sets of design principles are described by Theelen and van Breukelen (2021), Parker and Hankins (2002), Reilly and Reeves (2022), Wals, Wesselink, and Mulder (2017) and Picciano (2017).

 

My version of the design principles for Modern Higher Education

Based on the pedagogical analyses I performed over the last 30 years, I have formulated eight design principles which can characterise Modern Higher  Education. The eight DPs summarise the multitude of teaching and learning research results. For each design principle, I have formulated 6-9 possible pedagogical options for applying the principle in a course in HE. The results are assessed and updated with the help of recent books about Higher Education: Neelen and Kirschner (2020), Luckin (2018), Kirschner and Hendrick (2020), Shand and Farrelly (2016), Picciano (2019), Stein and Graham (2020), Last and Jongen (2021), Bates (2015) and also the two books of Romiszowski (1984 and 1995). The following websites are also consulted: 3-Star learning experiences, lde-studentsuccess.com, (T)E-Learning Blog Rubens (Dutch) and Blended and online learning (bl.curriculumdesignhe.eu).

 

In practice, you see other summaries with different formulations. However, the similarities predominate. These differences can mainly be found in the pedagogical options. Different words or specific pedagogical options are seen as more important than my set of DP’s in the different learning theories. Another reason not to stick strictly to my eight DP’s is that it might be necessary to use more recognisable words for the teachers and managers in a specific context to describe the chosen design principle. However, the design principles should always be based on scientific evidence.

You should check whether these characteristics are adequately addressed for each course or curriculum. Sometimes, one or two DPs dominate your design and the others play their role in the background. This does not mean those ‘other’ DPs can be forgotten.

How to use design principles

The design principles can effectively support teacher designers in designing their courses. Because of the messiness of DP’s, Hanghoj, Handel, Visgaard and Gundersen (2022) stress the importance of discussing design principles with teachers or in a project group. This discussion about DP’s could be combined with teacher training activities on using these design principles. The participants discuss how to interpret and apply them with a researcher. An interesting side product might be a more helpful description of the design principles when applying the teachers’ experiences.

 An example of neglecting a DP is that in the first MOOCs, learning from each other received little attention. The students had to assess each other, but the assessment criteria were too general and did not stimulate the participants to give serious feedback. A summary of the judgments made by an experienced teacher was also missing or too vague. In later MOOCs, more opportunities were sought to give group learning a place. This can promote the learning and motivation of the participants.

Another example is online learning. During the COVID pandemic, teachers and students soon lost contact. After the strict lockdown, a few institutions sought a blended learning approach to emphasise online environments. For example, by making it possible for teachers and students to speak to each other at a distance of 1.5 metres. There were plenty of suitable spaces in those days because many cultural and sports activities were prohibited. Another option to promote ‘learning from each other’ was to work on an assignment in small groups outside the institute. This option was supplemented by ensuring digital contact.

 Figure 2: Circle of Talent Development (source picture: Van Eijl & Pilot, 2016)

 

Honours communities foster productive interaction among students, teachers, and other professionals during their affiliation with the honours programme and beyond. This article describes seven strategies for implementing an honours community.

 

Stages for the development of a community

The structure and dynamics of learning communities vary, depending on the characteristics of the persons involved (students, professionals, teachers), the programme, and the context.

 

Wenger (1998) distinguishes five phases in the life cycle of a “community of practice” of professionals: potential, coalescing, active, dispersed and memorable. These are the (1. potential) phase in which people need knowledge sharing; (2. coalescing) the phase in which people find each other and discover the possibilities of knowledge sharing; (3. active) the phase in which the community is active, (4. dispersed) the phase in which the intensity becomes lower but the community is still a centre of knowledge, and (5. memorable) a final phase in which participants still remember the community’s interest in their development, but the community as such has ceased to function.
Tuckman (1965) developed a sequence of phases based on the development of collaboration in groups: “forming’, “storming”, “norming”, “performing’ and ‘adjourning’. For the success of a community, many factors are mentioned, such as: “Does participation in a community give participants something?” And “Is the group adequately heterogeneously assembled?”

 

Ludwig-Hardman (In Wilson, Ludwig-Hardman, Thornam and Dunlap, 2004) observed that bounded learning communities have a developmental life cycle. Bounded learning communities mean a community of students within the boundaries of a course or a programme. Three stages were identified in this life cycle: initiation, participation, and closure. They explain these stages as follows. In (1) the initiation phase, the development of safe and supportive conditions and the forming of a community identity are central. During (2) the participation phase, the focus is on shared goals, cooperation and respectful integration. Then, the student focuses on constructive discourse, mutual benefit in support and knowledge development. In (3) the closing phase, the community identity is reviewed and reflected in the intensive activities of the participation phase. Students build up their knowledge in this final phase and consolidate their learning experience to better align themselves with expectations at the end of the course. If students are involved in the learning community of a course, the completion phase can lead to further activities outside the course, with the students staying in touch with each other. While such a thing is not familiar with a learning community in a short-term period, one can promote this by creating the right conditions for long-term relationships.

 

Within such a community, not every member is equally active, and layers of participation can develop: the core group, active and passive members (Hanraets, Potters & Jansen, 2006). Another characteristic of the community structure is the existence of significant networks (Roxå & Mårtensson, 2008) between some students in both formal and informal situations. Students rely on a few noteworthy others for conversations characterized by their privacy, mutual trust and intellectual intrigue. Discussions in these “significant networks” provide a basis for conceptual development and learning.

 

Seven strategies for the implementation of a vibrant honours community

In a study by Van Ginkel, Van Eijl, Pilot and Zubizarreta (2012), seven strategies were identified for implementing a vibrant honours community. Both teachers and students can use these strategies; the teachers are often in the best position to initiate communities even though the ultimate goal is that students own their community and develop the initiative themselves further. As an honours student says (Van Eijl & Pilot, 2016, p.69 ): ‘The honours students themselves have to show initiative, for example, jointly go to a special lecture or set up a committee together and organize things.’ The seven strategies are listed in Table 1 and reflect the “life cycle of an honours community” for a group of students. The three stages Wilson et al. (2004) mentioned in the life cycle of a bounded community can be more or less distinguished. Strategies 1, 2, 3, and 4 refer to the initiation stage. Strategy 3 and 4 (overlap with initiation!), 5 and 6 are with the participation stage, and seven are with the closure stage. Feedback on Strategy 7 is also essential in the participation stage.