Teaching excellence takes the next step

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25 juni 2012 | Harvard’s teaching experts conclude their seminar at Roosevelt Academy. What are lessons learned? How can this be brought into the international debate? Dutch education minister Marja van Bijsterveldt connects the dots with an eye on the 'Obama Summit' in Amsterdam 2013.

Last week, Roosevelt Academy and Harvard’s Derek Bok Centerconcluded their second workshop on excellent teaching. Two expertsfrom Harvard, Terry Aladjem and Ellen Sarkisian trainedsenior instructors from Dutch university colleges and universitiesof applied sciences in innovative techniques like microteaching. Explicit goal of this initiativeis to teach workshop participants how to take lessons learned andimplement them back at their institutes.

Teachers as mentors

Dutch education minister Marja van Bijsterveldt opened the eventwith a speech emphasizing the important role teachershave as learning facilitators. To her, “excellence is more thangetting straight A’s on all your exams.”

“Much more, it does ask for a motivation, curiosity and a broadinterest. To foster this, we need to guide young students withmentors who discover their talents and encourage to develop themfurther. This is where teachers come into play by giving space fororiginality and rewarding effort by learners.”

Lesson learned for Summit 2013

With an eye on the teaching summit in 2013, van Bijsterveldtalso urged the audience to bring lessons learned from this workshopinto the international debate on education. “In March next year,Amsterdam will host the International Summit on the TeachingProfession. Originally an initiative by U.S. President Obamawho is a Harvard alumnus himself, the summit will give a platformto the 20 best performing countries in education to discuss bestpractices. And I believe that this workshop offers a greatopportunity to explore what our contribution to this debate maybe.”

For the full speech by Marja van Bijsterveldt (in Dutch),click here.

If you would like to stay up to date to all news surroundingnext year’s summit, follow our news section “Teaching Summit 2013″via www.ScienceGuide.eu