FGw Education Award 2022 goes to course The Climate Emergency

The course The Climate Emergency of Peter van Dam, taught in the bachelor's programme History, is the winner of the FGw Education Award 2022. The course Anglo-Saxon England: Language and Society of Robert Cloutier (bachelor English Language and Culture) earned the Innovation Award. The Audience Award has been awarded to Taalvaardigheid Duits 1-4, of Roswitha Dickens and Britta Bendieck (German Studies). All winners received a cheque for €1000.

The Education Award was awarded to Peter van Dam for the course The Climate Emergency (bachelor History). ‘This course had a solid story on all fronts. It's effective in handling current affairs, but also has a good link with academic research’, says jury chair Carlos Reijnen.

‘We saw the climate crisis developing around us and I saw how students in my study halls were worrying. They wanted to have a more concrete understanding of the situation’, Van Dam explains about his inspiration to establish this course. 'That's how you find out: we as historians can really contribute by talking about this.’ A student of the course explains how she always thought you could only study the climate crisis through exact science. ‘I had never before considered that you could do this using humanities as well’, she said.

Innovation Award

Robert Cloutier has chosen to apply the concept of 'ungrading' for his course Anglo-Saxon England: Language and Society: he gives the students feedback, but he doesn't give them grades. In the end, they decide what grade they deserve themselves. The jury deemed this course the most "out of the box" concerning didactics and therefore decided to award Cloutier the Innovation Award. 'The individual responsibility and critical ability of the student are a central aspect of this course. This was a crucial element in our decision for this course', Reijnen said. 

'We as teachers often get the question: do we need to know this for the exam? This showed me that they were focusing on the grades too much', Cloutier said. 'I think it’s more important for them to learn how to selfreflect and to really focus on the content of the course.' 

Audience Award

The Audience Award was handed out based on votes on videos presented by the nominees. Roswitha Dickens and Britta Bendieck earned 28% of the votes with their course Taalvaardigheid Duits 1-4 and were rewarded with the Audience Award. In the winning video, not only the teachers got to speak: the students have a role as well. Enthusiastically, they tell about how the course uses interesting material, how they discuss the content of the literature and movies they watch too and how they organised a film festival with the students of the course.

Runner-ups for this award were Peter van Dam with the course The Climate Emergency (21%) and Robert Cloutier with Anglo-Saxon England: Language and Society (20%).

The nominees

The following courses had been nominated for the prize:

• Anglo-Saxon England: Language and Society (bachelor English Language and Culture) - Robert Cloutier
• The Climate Emergency. The History of a Crisis (bachelor History) - Peter van Dam
• European Politics Simulation Exercise (bachelor European Studies) - Andrew Telford
• Hoe genocide begint. Vervolging, massamoord, genocide in vergelijkend perspectief (bachelor Geschiedenis) –  Uğur Ümit Üngör
• Taalvaardigheid Duits 1-4 (bachelor German Studies) -  Roswitha Dickens en Britta Bendieck

The 2022 jury consisted of:

• Carlos Reijnen - director College of Humanities (chair)
• Imogen Cohen - winner of the Education Award 2021
• Wilma Maljaars - coordinator diagnostic test academic writing
• Froukje Vroom - student member of the Faculty Board