Leiden Learning & Innovation Centre
Professional Development Exchange Hub
Develop your teaching skills together with lecturers from other Dutch universities.
Keen to find out more about the latest educational developments while learning from colleagues from other Dutch universities? If so, this is your opportunity through the Professional Development Exchange Hub!
From Rotterdam to Maastricht, Amsterdam to Groningen, there will be a wide variety of face-to-face meetings, online courses, webinars, and hybrid events, allowing you to deepen your teaching skills in topics such as innovative technology, diversity and inclusion, assessment, sustainable development goals, and interdisciplinary teaching.
If you are employed by and have formal teaching duties at one of the participating universities, you are very welcome to sign up:
- Erasmus University Rotterdam (EUR)
- Leiden University (LU)
- Open Universiteit (OU)
- Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen (RU)
- Rijksuniversiteit Groningen (RUG)
- Tilburg University (TiU)
- Technische Universiteit Delft (TU Delft)
- Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e)
- Maastricht University (UM)
- Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (VU)
- Wageningen University & Research (WUR)
In most cases, the courses are of added value if you have already obtained the University Teaching Qualification (UTQ/BKO).
*Please note that certain activities are only available in Dutch or English. To participate in these, you require sufficient proficiency in the language offered.
To register for any of the courses below, please fill in this form. All registrations are processed via this single form.
Designing Education with Innovative Technology (ICT)
Institution: Erasmus Universiteit
Do you see your students collaborating with those from another country within your subject area? Would you like to offer them a learning experience with students and teachers from a different environment/culture? To achieve this without students going on a physical exchange, Virtual Exchange (VE) can be used. Via VE, students work together on tasks online, thus developping competences including collaboration, intercultural communication, and professional knowledge.
Through VE, ALL students have the opportunity for an international experience and are not hindered by mobility challenges. Moreover, such exchanges offer students an interesting and different perspective on the content of the course. Examples include exploring healthcare in both countries or discovering perspectives on behavioral problems or mental disorders.
In this MicroLab you will work on the integration of VE in your course. This MicroLab has been developed in close collaboration with UNIC - a European alliance of eight universities in post-industrial cities in Europe which are committed to stimulating mobility and inclusion with a view to social impact.
Location: Online Microlab
Dates & times: On request
Language: English
Costs: Free
Institution: Open Universiteit
In this workshop, we will dive into the world of educational videos together and explore what really makes these videos of high quality. We start by exploring participants' views on what defines a good educational video. Using examples, we identify criteria of quality. We then introduce a theoretical framework in which these criteria are conveniently grouped into five dimensions. The participants use this to do further assessment of their own videos using a checklist that includes these five dimensions.
During the joint discussion of the videos, the presenters will add an extra layer to the theoretical framework which may answer the question why people sometimes judge the same product very differently in terms of quality.
We will conclude the workshop with provocative questions that you will take home with you, so that afterwards you can reflect further on how to continue improving the quality of educational videos.
Location: Online self-study / On campus workshop
Dates & times: Workshop duration: 90 minutes. On request. Starting from 6 registrations, we will contact participants to schedule a moment.
Participants should bring their own laptop.
Language: Available in Dutch and English
Costs: Free
Institution: Leiden University
How do you see yourself during a supervision process: are you a delegator, expert, coach or perhaps critical friend? Are you looking for tools to better guide your students in the challenging thesis process?
As a supervisor, you play a key role in student success. This course will provide you with the tools and strategies to improve your supervision skills and provide effective mentoring. Learn about different supervision roles, common challenges, and how to provide valuable feedback to your student. Start now and learn how to take your supervision skills to the next level in this short module.
Location: Online
Dates & times: Start any time (self-paced)
Language: Available in Dutch and English
Costs: Free
Diversity and Inclusion
Institution: Rijksuniversiteit Groningen
Join us for one or more of the five modules of the EQUiiP Continuing Professional Development programme. The modules are organised in an interactive workshop format in which participants are invited to bring and share their teaching practices. You can either register for one or more modules, which can be taken in any order. There is an option to obtain a Proof of Competence certification if more modules are taken.
The target audience for these sessions are teachers and educational developers interested in building on their inclusive (teaching) practices in diverse classrooms (e.g. ethnicity, first generation student, neurodiversity, etc.).
Location: On-site (Groningen City Center)
Dates & times:
• Module 'Dynamics in Group Work': 17 October 2025, 09:00 - 12:00
• Module 'The Role of Language in the Classroom': 11 November 2025, 09:00 - 12:00
• Module 'Inclusive Assessment': 15 December 2025, 09:00 - 12:00
Language: English
Costs: Free
Institution: Rijksuniversiteit Groningen
The Inclusive Teacher e-learning course offers a range of tools and tips to make student diversity a valuable asset, leading to more effective teaching and greater student success. Most teachers already do a lot to promote inclusion. Sometimes, however, it is unclear how you can add to your skills set, or why certain teaching strategies could benefit (groups of) learners. As this course shows, inclusive teaching is often about making small, practical adjustments that lead to sustainable improvement. Topics include inclusive course design, pedagogy, group work, and assessment.
The e-learning is both accessible and interactive and offers a choice of activities. Through discussion boards, you share best practices with other course participants. Each course unit takes 2-3 hours to complete. If you do the Introduction and at least one other unit, you can get a Certificate of Participation. If you do all units and a reflective assignment at the end, you can gain a Proof of Competence.
Location: Online
Dates & times: Start, learn and finish any time (self-paced)
Language: English
Costs: Free
Institution: Rijksuniversiteit Groningen
The course will take place over the course of three weeks, helping you to:
• Introduce yourself and connect with fellow learners.
• Talk about your family, friends, work, and study.
• Experience life in the Netherlands.
Overall, you will speak, write, and understand useful Dutch.
During the course, you will learn Dutch phrases, greetings, vocabulary, numbers, spelling, and grammar. By the end of the course, you will be able to recognise familiar words and phrases about yourself and your family. You will be taught to use simple sentences to describe where you live and about the people you know. Finally, you will be able to write short texts such as an email or fill in forms with personal details.
The focus will be on receptive skills such as reading and listening. This course has been ranked as one of the best online courses by online course aggregator, Class Central.
Location: Online
Dates & times: You can start anytime (self-paced)
Language: English
Costs: Free of charge (completion within three weeks, no certificate) or €75 for participants who want a certificate or want to study longer than three weeks.
Institution: Open Universiteit
The aim of this course is to give you an understanding of how the world works for someone who is autistic and the effects this can have on education. In doing so, you will develop the ability to empathise with autistic students. The course provides guidelines for making education autism-inclusive with concrete examples of how to apply those guidelines. The guidelines become understandable as you have first gained an understanding of autism.
Location: Online
Dates & times: Start at any time (self-paced)
Language: Dutch
Costs: Free
Institution: Tilburg University
Stanislas Dehaene (Collège de France, Paris) stated: “Teachers need to have a good mental model of the child's brain - it's amazing that they often know more about how their car works than how the brain works”.
This workshop will first examine learning and how it occurs in our brains. We will then discuss some commonly held misunderstandings about our brains and learning, the so-called neuromyths. Next, we will focus on the three major neurocognitive learning processes (Howard-Jones et al., 2018, 2020) and how to scaffold them with instructional principles during your course.
Location: Online (via Microsoft Teams, we will share the link a few days before the session)
Dates & times: Monday 20 October 2025, 15:30 - 16:30
Language: English
Costs: While we are delighted to offer this workshop free of charge, we kindly ask that if you sign up, please commit yourself to attending.
Institution: Leiden University
Would you like to update an existing lecture or design a completely new one? Would you like to know what all your students need to understand lecture materials? Please attend the online module "Accessible lectures in three steps" and find out how to tailor your lecture to the neurodiverse group of students in your course.
Location: Online
Dates & times: Start at any time (self-paced)
Language: Available in Dutch and English
Costs: Free
Institution: Leiden University
This online course offers scaffolding in developing inclusive pedagogies in higher education. It provides learning material that will raise awareness of inclusive teaching especially related to the design of student-centred learning. This course will empower you to make teaching practices more inclusive, disseminating your insights into a broader community of practices.
Several topics are included, such as design of inclusive lessons, Assessment for learning, Lesson planning, Multimodal representation of content, Peer observation of teaching, and Educational action research.
Location: Online
Dates & times: Start at any time (self-paced)
Language: English
Costs: Free
Institution: TU Delft
Empathy in teaching is about more than understanding emotions. It involves seeing the classroom through your students’ eyes and recognising how different experiences and backgrounds shape the way they learn. As part of TU Delft’s Duty of Care framework, the Empathy Training Series offers lecturers a unique opportunity to develop this perspective. The Empathy Training consists of four standalone VR-based trainings. Each training immerses you in a specific student experience, followed by structured peer reflection. You can follow the sessions individually or as a complete series. The topics include:
• Cultural Differences
• Autism
• ADHD
• Gender Imbalance
These sessions offer a deeper understanding of how students may perceive your classroom and how you can adapt your teaching to better support their diverse needs. Check out Teaching Support for more information on the Empathy Training Series and the individual topics.
Location: TU Delft Teaching Lab
Dates & times:
• Cultural Differences: 11 September 2025, 09:30 - 12:30
• Autism: 07 October 2025, 09:30 - 12:30
• ADHD: 04 November 2025, 09:30 - 12:30
• Gender Imbalance: 02 December 2025, 09:30 - 12:30
Language: English
Costs: Free
Institution: TU Delft
Teaching at a university means working in a diverse environment with people from various cultural backgrounds. Effective communication in this setting requires an understanding of different cultural norms, communication styles and perspectives. This course is specifically designed to equip you with the essential skills and strategies to navigate cultural diversity in the classroom and improve student engagement, collaboration, and learning outcomes.
The course consists of three interactive in person sessions, each lasting three hours. Participants are expected to attend all three sessions in full.
Location: TU Delft Teaching Lab
Dates & times:
• 26 January 2026, 13:30 - 16:30
• 02 February 2026, 13:30 - 16:30
• 09 February 2026, 13:30 - 16:30
Language: English
Costs: Free
AI
Institution: Erasmus University Rotterdam
During this interactive session, you will learn the basics of AI and how to apply this innovative technology in your teaching. Topics that will be covered include the use of AI working methods and the use of AI in assessment. In addition, we will pay attention to prompt engineering; an essential skill for effective use of AI.
The workshop is designed to provide you with practical knowledge and tools. Together, we explore the possibilities of AI in education. Afterwards, you will have some tools to further implement AI into your educational practice. This workshop is part of a larger range of teacher professional development activities regarding AI.
Location: Campus Woudestein
Dates & times:
• Tuesday 11 November 2025, 09:30 - 12:30
• Monday 1 December 2025, 13:00 - 16:00
• Tuesday 10 February 2026, 13:00 - 16:00
• Tuesday 9 June 2026, 13:00 - 16:00
Language: English
Costs: Free
Institution: Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam
Generative AI, like AI chatbots, has a significant impact on how students learn and the future of their professions. How do you navigate this? In this workshop for teachers, programme directors, and programme coordinators, discover VU Amsterdam policies and VU-CTL recommendations on deploying generative AI in teaching and learning. Gain valuable ideas on integrating it effectively and responsibly into your programme or course.
Location: Hybrid
Dates & times: 25 September 2025
Language: Dutch, unless someone cannot speak Dutch - in which case English.
Costs: Free
Assessment and Feedback
Institution: TU Delft
Rubrics can become time-consuming or lose their value as tools for learning, sometimes turning into little more than a checklist for students. In this training, you will discuss and exchange ideas to improve your rubrics to ensure valid and transparent assessment and explore how rubrics can be used to support student learning. Additionally, you will learn how to align your grading approach with that of your colleagues to ensure consistency in evaluating assignments and projects.
Location: TU Delft Teaching Lab
Dates & times:
• 07 November 2025, 09:30 - 12:00
• 08 December 2025, 12:30 - 16:00
Language: English
Costs: Free
Institution: Eindhoven University of Technology
In today’s educational landscape, incorporating peer feedback offers a dynamic approach to assessment that fosters a culture of collaboration, empowers students to take ownership of their learning journey, and promotes deeper learning in your classroom. In this workshop, you’ll engage in hands-on activities and peer discussions to explore practical strategies for implementing peer feedback. You’ll learn a framework for designing peer feedback and apply it in a sample course. Participants will also gain access to a list of curated resources, examples, and rubrics that will help with the design and implementation of peer feedback in their own courses.
Location: TU Eindhoven
Dates & times: 28 October 2025, 09:00 - 12:30
Language: English
Costs: Free
Sustainable Development
Institution: Erasmus University Rotterdam
Are you looking for ways to create impact with your course? Our world is complex and full of wicked problems, through our education we can prepare students to be able to contribute to solving these challenges. But where to start? Join this webinar to explore principles of impact-driven education and identify opportunities for your course. This webinar is an introduction to the MicroLab ‘How to design impact driven education?’. This webinar is also open for non-teaching staff.
Location: Online
Dates & times: This webinar is organised on demand for a minimum of 4 participants.
Language: The course is in English, unless all participants speak Dutch.
Costs: Free
Institution: Radboud University Nijmegen
While many colleagues think of the environment and reusable cups in the canteen when they hear about sustainable development, they almost never realise that sustainability is a more holistic concept which relates to their own teaching duties and everyone's professional responsibilities. This course will give you the pointers on how to make your teaching more impactful by considering the principles of sustainable development.
Location: On campus in Nijmegen (2 meetings)
Dates & times:
BSC1: 29 September 2025, 10:00 - 13:00 and 27 October 2025, 10:00 - 12:00
or
BSC2: 3 March 2026, 10:00 - 13:00 and 31 March 2026, 10:00 - 12:00
Language: English
Costs: Free
Student Engagement
Institution: Maastricht University
In this workshop you will receive guidance on how to enhance your teaching by using storytelling, videos, interviews, and other techniques from the TV industry. Whether being taught online or face-to-face, students learn better in a stimulating environment. It is the responsibility of the lecturer to create that environment with their performance, the course content, and the positive energy they engender from their audience.
All this can be achieved by using easy to learn techniques from the TV industry. Teaching and being taught can be much more fun, if you know how to! TV producer and media skills trainer Julian Dismore will introduce you to different ways to make your lectures and materials more engaging while maintaining the academic standard. Exercises, discussions, and role play will help you improve your approach.
There are numerous ways you can bring your lectures to life. And presenting skills like passion, body language and pacing can all be improved quickly and effectively. Julian’s career has been built on making even the driest subject matter compelling for a prime-time TV audience, so he’s confident he can help make any academic content compelling, with the right approach.
Location: Online via Zoom
Dates & times: 23 October 2025, 13:30 - 16:00, Trainer: Julian Dismore
Language: English
Costs: Free
Institution: Open Universiteit
The focus of this workshop is the successful supervision of (individual) students. A special aspect here is the role of the online tutor. After all, many teachers maintain contact with students remotely: through phone calls, e-mail and zoom or during virtual classes.
During this workshop we will cover some theoretical aspects and practice fundamental interaction and conversation techniques, like feedback rules in role play and discussions based on sources and videoclips. We try as much as possible to connect to situations in your own teaching practice. The focus is always on optimising each person's strengths as effectively as possible for (online) individual coaching.
Location: Online and/or Face2Face
Dates & times: On demand. Starting at 5 registrations. Participants will be contacted to schedule a moment.
Language: Dutch and English are both available.
Costs: Free
Institution: Leiden University
Have you ever considered building an online (learning) community for students, teachers, or coworkers? Creating a thriving community requires thoughtful planning and a few key considerations. This course provides the foundational tools you need to not only establish an online community but also transform it into a lively and engaging hub for collaboration and sharing.
Throughout the course, you'll explore essential aspects of community building, including important design principles, behavioural management strategies, and the key factors to consider when setting up a successful community.
Location: Online
Dates & times: Start any time (self-paced)
Language: English
Costs: Free
Miscellaneous
Institution: Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam
Student groups are growing larger every year, making it challenging to actively engage students in their learning.
In this short session, you’ll learn effective active teaching methods for large groups and practical strategies to save time when providing feedback and grading assignments.
Location: Hybrid
Dates & times: 8 April 2025, 11:00 - 12:30
24 June 2025, 11:00 - 12:30
Language: Dutch, unless someone cannot speak Dutch - in which case English.
Costs: Free
Institution: Rijksuniversiteit Groningen
This course aims primarily to support both aspiring and more experienced PhD supervisors in their important and challenging role. The course may also be relevant for policymakers and trainers within scientific institutions.
Location: Online
Dates & times: You can start anytime (self-paced)
Language: English
Costs: Free
Institution: Maastricht University
Maastricht University pioneered the cognitive revolution in education psychology in the 1970s with PBL and education research. Fifty years on, and according to our invited speaker, Dr. Ginie Servant-Miklos, the world is on fire and PBL has run out of steam as an educational response to the times we’re living through.
That’s why she developed the Experimental Pedagogics (XP) framework, a holistic education design approach that can support educators in building transformative learning experiences for students without overwhelming them.
In this webinar, you will learn the basic principles of XP and get access to a host of free resources to experiment with it in your classroom.
Location: Online
Dates & times: 2 October 2025, 09:00 - 11:00
Language: English
Costs: Free
Institution: Eindhoven University of Technology
The course is organised in three pillars:
1. A brief intro to level the teachers on CBL knowledge and methodologies, and expose them to the education tools related to it.
2. A hands-on approach to share how is executed a CBL course from the students/teachers perspective.
3. Teachers’ reflection on their insights, input or questions, with the proper course in mind.
Additional information can be offered to teachers interested in CBL entrepreneurship related courses.
The program begins with introductions, a quick overview of the CBL methodology, and how to find and manage challenge owners. It then focuses on selecting and developing challenges through interdisciplinary teamwork, problem exploration, validation, and leveraging networks. Finally, attention is given to feasibility, prototyping, co-creation, and next steps after the course.
Location: TU Eindhoven
Dates & times: Dates will be planned when enough people are interested. The total time investment is 8 hours
Language: English
Costs: Free
Institution: Eindhoven University of Technology
This two-and-a-half-hour workshop is designed to help you start up your CBL design process. It can be seen as the kick-off for your process. We will give you an overview of the full process of designing challenge-based learning. During the workshop, we will also practice with the first part. After the workshop, you will continue with the design process together with your teacher support officer or innovation Space.
This workshop is about:
• Understanding the CBL design process
• Getting you up to speed to start the design process
• Practicing with the analysis phase tools
During this workshop, we also refer to the CBL Teaching Toolkit. Feel free to explore the CBL Building kit: A step-by-step roadmap with easy-to-use tools and guides for creating a CBL course or project.
Location: TU Eindhoven
Dates & times: Dates will be planned when enough people are interested. The total time investment is 3.5 hours. One meeting of 2.5 hours and 1 hour of independent study load.
Language: English
Costs: Free
Institution: Rijksuniversiteit Groningen
Reflection is an essential skill for all university students and plays a crucial role in their academic development. But how do you get students to reflect and what is your role as a teacher in this process? Learning your students to reflect is not something done ‘just like that’. It requires specific knowledge, skills and teaching methods which will be addressed in this training. This course is designed for lecturers who want to delve deeper into the art of teaching reflection. It complements the University Teaching Qualification (UTQ/BKO) and is ideal for educators looking to enhance their ability to encourage and teach reflective skills.
In this course, you’ll gain a solid foundation in educational theories and models of reflection. You will practice designing learning activities and using strategies which invite and encourage meaningful student reflection. At the same time, the course supports your own professional growth as a reflective practitioner, enhancing your effectiveness in the classroom.
Location: On-site in Groningen
Dates & times:
• Workshop 1: 30 September 2025, 09:00 - 13:00
• Workshop 2: 14 October 2025, 09:00 - 13:00
• Workshop 3: 04 November 2025, 09:00 - 13:00
• Workshop 4: 18 November 2025, 09:00 - 13:00
You need to be present during at least 3 workshops.
Language: English
Costs: Free
Institution: Tilburg University
Tilburg University has its own unique educational profile, the Tilburg Education Profile (TEP), which is characterised by Knowledge - Skills - Character. Those who study at Tilburg University are formed into knowledgeable, self-confident and committed academics. In education, we work on scientific and social responsibility, entrepreneurship, and a critical mindset towards societal challenges.
For teachers and educational support staff, the educational profile is an inspiring instrument to design and continually recalibrate education. The fact that there is an educational profile and that it is constantly used in making policy decisions regarding education, in the UTQ training and in SUTQ projects, makes TEP a dynamic profile that contributes to developing, improving and innovating education.
In this online session, Martin Hoondert (Academic Lead TEP) presents the education profile, the impact of TEP on designing and organizing education, and the role of TEP in teacher training (UTQ and SUTQ). He will show some concrete examples of skills training and assignments that focus on character building.
Location: Online (via Microsoft Teams, we will share the link a few days before the session)
Dates & times: Wednesday 12 November 2025, 15:30 - 16:30
Language: Dutch or English, depending on the participants
Costs: While we are delighted to offer this workshop free of charge, we kindly ask that if you sign up, please commit yourself to attending.
