Are you a teacher with lots of ideas on how to improve the education* you offer, but find you can’t get to it due to the demands of your day-to-day schedule? Then this 24-hour education design retreat is for you! During this retreat you will work on improving or renewing an educational design, at an external location for 24 hours, bouncing ideas with colleagues from across all faculties. The retreat aims to innovate the design of your teaching.

* Education in this context means a subject or a (part of the) curriculum, such as a minor. It is important that the nominated teachers have a mandate to adapt their teaching/education and are in possession of or working towards a UTQ certificate, for the retreat will be based on the UTQ competencies. 

Programme details

The programme consists of three phases.

Phase 1 – Analysis and your design question

Thursday afternoon is devoted to analyzing your specific teaching situation and focusing on your design question. You are invited to formulate your wish list for improvement and think about which solution fits. For this you’ll take into account the target group, learning goals and contextual factors.

Phase 2 – Design

Thursday evening and Friday are all about the design. During this phase you work on a conceptual structure of your educational design. You then devise concrete educational activities to support your concept.

Phase 3 – Implementation

While you won’t have time to implement your new plan during the retreat, Friday afternoon you will be working on a strategy to put these improvements in place, ensuring you are being specific about what needs to happen after the retreat to realize your design.

Good to know

Target audience		UvA teachers and course coordinators who want to uplift their own education. It is important that participants have the mandate to make changes in their education and have obtained (or are in the process of obtaining) the UTQ (BKO) certificate as the retreat will be building on the foundational concepts of educational design.
Preparation		You are asked to complete an intake form in advance. In this form you are asked what course or curriculum you’ll be working on and what your goals are for the retreat. The trainers will read your input. In this way you can start the retreat focused and you learning and development needs can be addressed during the retreat
Requested time investment		The retreat starts on Thursday, May 15 at 13:00 and will end on Friday, May 16 at 16:30. Hotel lodging, one dinner, breakfast and lunch are included. The intake process requires a few hours of work.
Location		A remote location. After registration, you will receive confirmation with location.
Dates		Dates for spring 2026 to be announced
Organised by		TLC Central

Coaching by TLC trainers network

During the retreat, experienced TLC trainers offer you the tools and methods needed/are helpful in transforming your ideas into a structure that meets relevant design principles. We also provide opportunities to give and receive feedback with your colleagues that is supportive and provides a source of innovation and inspiration. You will leave the session with a new educational design that can be implemented in your teaching practice.

On location

For this session we welcome you to a beautiful external location, where you will leave your daily practice behind for 24 hours to focus on (re)designing your education. We take care of the program of activities, an overnight stay, and food and drinks; you make sure that after these 24 hours you have gained inspiration and created a revitalised educational design.

What do you obtain from this retreat?

After the 24 hour session you have:

Identified and analysed the problem(s) you want to solve;
Designed a new structure for your chosen education;
Designed teaching and learning activities that fit the learning objectives and assessment of your education;
Developed a clear roadmap for the implementation of the designed education.