Word of Welcome by Dr. Marca Wolfensberger

Join an international discussion on talent development and honors education, practice and research in Groningen, the Netherlands.

Dr. Marca Wolfensberger Professor of Talent Development in Higher Education and Society

The 8th International Honors Conference brings together researchers, educators, students, policy makers and other stakeholders who are eager to share both practical and theoretical insights on talent development, and who are dedicated to the practice and scholarship of teaching and learning in honors in higher education and beyond.

Honors Education started some hundred years ago in Swarthmore USA and has now gone viral (JNCHC 2012). Our International Conference on Talent Development and Honors Education 2020 – Featuring CoTalent, welcomes people from all over the world to exchange new ideas and insights to benefit teaching and learning in honors education.

Honors education plays a central role in preparing future excellent professionals and personal leaders for a world in flux. Therefore, we want to link research, education as well as professional practice and offer a holistic conference program.

We invite contributions to the conference to share what you, your program or research group have learned. We welcome contributions that share results of research on honors education aiming at change. Contributions that demonstrate practical, creative and transformative teaching and learning techniques that are grounded in literature and based on research are welcomed as well as contributions on relevant best practices that will appeal to colleagues in different disciplines.

The conference offers a forum to collectively grapple with the grand challenges of our society and higher education, and the place of honors education in helping to meet those challenges. Invited speakers explore those issues and the correlations between creating committed communities, offering bounded freedom, engaging academic competences and sharing powerful honors experiences. We aim to offer interactive, scholarly sessions for the benefit of education and empowerment of honors education.

To structure the conversation, we have identified four main tracks:

1) Innovations in Curriculum, Pedagogy and Assessment in Honors

2) Honors and talent development experiences

3) Trends in talent development and Honors

4) Honors, talent development and Society

Keeping in line with the innovative spirit of honors education, we also offer the opportunity to use the ‘wild card’ option and send in contributions that do not fall under one of these tracks.

Be very welcome!

 

Prof. Dr. M.V.C. Wolfensberger