OriënterenInternational studentsMinor Humanities

Minor Humanities

During the Humanities programme, attention will be spent on increasing the specific didactic skills, linked to a further deepening of the professional knowledge where citizenship is concerned.

This theoretic deepening is illustrated and processed based on practical experiences, inside and outside. This will enable students to adequately and adaptively teach children, from within the scope of the renewed social and scientific education. They will conduct a zero measurement on citizenship at a primary school and will do research on the implementation of citizenship in primary education. As will become evident during the execution of the minor, citizenship can be linked to a number of subjects and contents in primary schools. At the end of the programme students will be able to see these links and act on them as they have become citizenship experts.

Before the aforementioned points, the programme has an international character: the minor won’t just be offered in English, but students will also learn to communicate in a different language together with foreign students. They will thereby get acquainted with different educational visions, education systems and (professional) didactic concepts, which will enable them to give form and content to their own education in a more differentiated and responsible manner.

Plus this international aspect will also automatically link into specific teaching competencies, as the students will be informing themselves of relevant social phenomena, including Europeanisation, globalisation and multi-culturism. Partly based on these aspects they will form an educational vision and practically convert these to primary education.

Assessment and exams

Vision: an evaluation on the argumentation of the vision of an individual student
Action research: the assessment of an individual research, in which a student examines literature and translates these theoretical results into practice.
Group research: a group of four students is critically assessed on a didactical, as well as content based assignment.
Transfer: the way a student is able to transfer the thing he has learned, to his situation home.

Semester Program minor Humanities

When?

Autumn or Spring semester

Autumn semester: You will have to study at the Marnix Academie in Utrecht during the autumn/winter semester until the Christmas Holiday. In January you will have the possibility to attend consulting meetings with the lecturer online.

Spring semester: You will have to study at the Marnix Academie in Utrecht during the Spring semester until 20th of June. From the 21st of June until the end of June you will have the possibility to attend consulting meetings with the lecturer online.

First and second semester: deadlines May 1st, November 1st.

Who?

This exchange programme is open to you if you meet the following requirements:

You are in your second or higher year of a teacher training college.
Your English language skills are at CEFR-level B2 or higher.

Humanities Research / educational design (15 EC)

This programme focusses on citizenship. The students learn about all aspects of citizenship in society and perform a research and educational design of the topic ‘citizenship’ in the Dutch primary education system. Citizenship has been a compulsory part of Dutch school curricula since 2005. Since then, schools have been obliged to pay explicit attention to this theme in their curriculum. How they do that, is up to the schools. In the light of current social developments, there is still work to be done here. Politicians underline that more than ten years after the embedding of citizenship in legislation, the social urgency to strengthen citizenship education is greater than ever.

Objectives are:
-The student can carry out a practical research based on theoretical sources and findings from practice to contribute to or improve citizenship education.
-The student can carry out an educational design in which you show that you can contribute to citizenship education in an inspired way.
-The student can make use of citizenship-related didactics in your educational design and explain your choices.
-The student can develop a vision on citizenship education and show how you act accordingly.

During the classes at the Marnix Academie the student will experience topics that are related to the theme citizenship. With this baggage, the student conducts a research related to citizenship education in your primary school practice, using theory as well as practice as a source.
In short, based on a proper theoretical framework, the student will develop a method to figure out the answer to a research question in practice. This includes an educational design to be carried out in the primary school class. Parallel to this research the students will develop /reshape their vision on citizenship in primary education.

The minor takes 14 education weeks, alternated by internship weeks and holidays. Classes are two or three times a week, with a total of 5 to 6 hours a week. Besides classes students have time to work on their research and educational design. Students make a digital assessment-file of several parts of the Humanities minor assignment.

Internship (6 EC)

The students will go to a Dutch primary school for their internship. They will go there at least one day a week. This depends on the possibilities in the school. The students are able to see the Dutch education system in practice and teach children about citizenship, but also f.e. English language, arts and crafts, geography or other subjects. The educational design is closely related to the internship and the students perform their educational design at the internship school. The execution of the educational design takes up to 6 hours. Students make a report on their internship and have an assessment conversation with the teacher and the coordinator of teacher training in the school of internship.

Dutch Language and culture (6 EC)

The students are encouraged to investigate aspects of Dutch culture and share information with fellow students. Discussion about these aspects is an important part of the Dutch Culture classes. Students are stimulated to visit places of interest in the Netherlands. During the course, we visit for instance the Rietveld-Schröder House and the governmental city of The Hague. Also, students are challenged to discover Utrecht and its surroundings in their free time. The students will take Dutch lessons. In this small course (14 education weeks, one hour a week) students will learn to introduce themselves in Dutch and understand and participate in a small conversation in internship. Reading aloud a children’s book is trained in class and performed in the school of internship. Part of the language course is self-study with DuoLingo. (Students may propose alternative apps, please contact the teacher about this.)

Students make a digital assessment-file of several parts of the Dutch Language and Culture assignment.

Study Coaching (3 EC)

In the coaching sessions we will discuss the progress of minor activities and internship. The expectations of studying in the Netherlands and the well-being of the students is often a conversation topic. Together we reflect on experiences in internship. Students make a digital assessment-file of several parts of the Study coaching assignment.