Marike Lammers  - Program Director ‘Top Talent’ at Saxion University, The Netherlands, Nitie Mardjan - Education designer, trainer and coach and Inge van der Kolk - Master’s Student educational science

Approaching regular students from day one as if they were honors students is a real challenge. We will explore the honors approach with you and its value for students and faculty. From our own experience we will provide you with an honest insight in our learning journey regarding the application of honors principles to regular students, including students at risk. You will meet with our euphoric moments and our frustrations from three perspectives!

Marike Lammers is program director Top Talent at Saxion since 2010. With her background as an Industrial Design Engineer and years of experience in the industry, she started to work in higher education. In co-creation with students, faculty and the working field, she started experimenting in honours programs. This lead to a shared vision on talent development and the Honors Approach. Community learning, experience based learning in interdisciplinairy teams, critical reflection, personal development and professional development are ingredients of the Honors Approach.

Nitie Mardjan has practiced physical therapy for several years in The Netherlands and abroad before devoting his career to education. He has developed several (international) curricula in higher education and is still active in educational innovation. He is an experienced education designer, trainer and coach. Nitie received the Saxion Top Talent faculty award 2019 for his achievements in the designing of and experimenting with honors programs, faculty development programs, and the development of learning communities.

 

		Honors Approach applied to the regular student population: a collective learning journey from three different perspectives (student - faculty - management).

Inge is an alumnus of the Radboud University in Nijmegen. After she finished her bachelor in social work and followed the honors programme ‘Health Care and Social Work’ at Saxion she started the master educational science. During the master, Inge has been part of the Comenius team and she did her internship at Saxion Top Talent where she focused on community learning. Inge is a young professional with a critical and passionate view about the current educational system where we only focus on grades instead of our professional identity! 

The Top Talent team challenges itself to implement the honors approach for regular bachelor student including students at risk. In 2018 the Top Talent team was awarded with a Comenius Leadership Fellow scholarship.