BKO+ Track – Mastery in Course Design
– New strategies for achieving higher levels of thinking in students –
Do you want to lift your course and the thinking levels of your students to a higher level? Do you believe that they can reach this with a small amount of information of great quality? Become a master in designing high-quality courses by participating in this track.
Track details
To get students to higher levels of thinking, as an experienced lecturer you’ll have encountered misconceptions of students. Possibly you have already tried different approaches without leading to success for the student. Why is that?
In this track you will integrate, inspired by design-bases research (DBR), insights from research on subject-oriented education directly into your course. You will develop strategies with which students will be able to understand the most complicated concepts in your course. Thinking can be taught.
By developing a prototype you test your new material to reduce potential thinking problems in students. You will develop, on a higher level than just content knowledge, the needed pedagogical knowledge and skills to tackle these challenging educational situations.
– Meaningful generalizations are formed by working deeply with information –
Intended learning outcome
As a participant you
- incorporate insights of discipline-based teaching and learning research to fit their instructional contexts and student needs;
- use self-report, peer review, student learning, and student feedback to document teaching and inform philosophy;
- implement and disseminate innovative, effective approaches to reflective practice.;
- facilitate discussions about assumptions that underlie curricular decisions at department, school, or discipline levels;
- design and/or direct processes that analyze and document teaching;
- improve goals and outcomes through intentional study and experimentation;
- make discipline-specific inquiry a central part of all aspects of a course;
- foster an appreciation of inquiry as a valuable practice;
- share effective approaches to teaching with colleagues.
Good to know
| Target audience | UvA teachers with UTQ (BKO) | |
| Time investment | 80 hours (24 hours for sessions, 36 hours for preparation and 20 hours for workplace learning), over 7-9 months | |
| Trainers | René Glastra van Loon and Quincy Elvira | |
| Participants | Minimum 6 – maximum 14 participants | |
| Dates | 14 November, 12 December 2025, 13 February, 6 March, 17 April, 22 May 2026 (9.15 AM – 1 PM) | |
| Language | English | |
| Addendum | After successfully completing the track, you will receive an UvA addendum to your UTQ certificate. |
Registration
- Registration button for employees with an @UvA.nl email address:
- For AUC, ACTA or FdG (AMC) employees: please send an email with your name and faculty to tlc@uva.nl
After registering, you will receive an automated invitation for your Outlook calendar for each of the sessions (please don’t forget to accept). If the location is not yet known at the time of registration, an update (for each date) will follow later.
More information
Participants enter the track with students’ learning difficulties on the subject matter, for example outcomes from old exams, conversations between and with students and subject related teaching literature about learning difficulties. Outside of the meetings, participants will collaborate with their faculty colleagues, the other participants of the track and their students’ voice to realize the intended quality criteria.
This track also focuses on cultivating a Community of Practice (CoP). Within the CoP participants work on a shared issue about the track’s topic at a generic level. Insights may be applied in one’s own prototype. This track is interdisciplinary.
In 6 meetings of 3 hours each, every 4 to 5 weeks, you design course material that will eliminate difficulties that students have with certain concepts, theories, principles, discipline-based skills. The sessions use design-based research (DBR), quality criteria for education and pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) as a capstone.
Didactic principles
- Interdisciplinary;
- Hands-on;
- Working solution-oriented;
- Evidence-based;
- Practical.
To successfully complete the track, participants must meet the following conditions:
- They must have completed all assignments in the portfolio;
- They must have contributed to the group project;
- They must have received a passing grade for the final presentation.
In the last meeting you will present your (nearly) implemented design (prototype) to the rest of the participants and the trainers. You also invite another colleague to attend this presentation.
The final presentation will be assessed by both an internal assessor and an external assessor.
More informatioon?