Set-up and planning

November 4 marks the start of STEP 2024-2025. During the starting session, you get to know the international team members with whom you will work together and take the steps of the digital course in the next eight weeks. We make sure that after the session, you're all set to make this work. On this page, you find the details of the set-up and general planning of the course. This will help you and your team to get (and stay!) on track.

A description of the course's theme and learning outcomes can be found here.

The overall course consists of four components: 

• A digital course with a sequence of steps, that you take with your team members and manage yourself

• A physical exchange week in Nijmegen with all participants 

• An online session at the beginning and end of the course with all participants

• At least two physical meetings on campus with the students from your own university
  
  

The digital course consists of the following steps: 

• Collaboration

Working together as well as communicating in an intercultural setting can be challenging. In the steps Collaboration (1) and (2), you will reflect on your intercultural competenties and teamwork, partly in the digital course, and partly in one of the physical meetings on campus. 

• The basics

In this step, you become familiar with the relevant terminology, facts and principles of the central topic of the course, (the promotion of) learner autonomy. 

• The case studies
  The case studies are the core of the digital course. We have developed three case studies that each futher your knowledge and understanding of the central topic (case study 1, 2, and 3). Each team chooses one case study to focus on. You need to register for the case studies in week 2 (for instructions and more information, go to the case study page). 

• Presentation
  In the exchange week, you and your team will present your case study research at the Montessori College. In this step, you prepare for the presentation. On Monday in the exchange week, there's time to finish the presentation together. 

• Goals and preparations

At the end of the digital course, you set and discuss a few goals for the exchange week: one or two personal goals, and at least two goals for your team. In this step, we also listed some final preparations for the exchange week. 

NEW Assessment: for students to pass the course, they need to 

1. Take the steps of the digital course;  

2. Hand in the goals they set for the exchange week; 

3. Give a group presentation on their case study research during the exchange week; 

4. Share a reflection on their goals at the end of the exchange week; 

5. Show active attendance throughout the course.  

Additional information:

• In addition to the website, we will make use of a folder in Google Drive to which only participants of the course have access. In this folder, you are able to work together in shared documents and to exchange further information.   

• In the starting session, you will hear to which team you are assigned and meet your team members. A document with the team details will be uploaded to the Drive after November 4. 

• Are any of the links to the course materials unavailable to you? Downloads of all course materials are also available in our Google Drive. 

• Are you in need of help during the course? At each step, you find help options at the bottom of the page. 

In the coming months, you and your team are responsible for managing your own course work. To support you in this, we estimated the amount of hours that you will spend on each step in the course. You find this indicated below as well as at the top of every next section ("this step will take you about <...> hours"). In need of extra time? We did not plan anything new in week 8 (6-10 January) to allow you some space to finish your work and prepare for the exchange week. 

NB For the time and place of the physical meetings on your own campus, please consult your university time table or teacher trainer. For the live online session, you will receive a Zoom link.