Education for the City We Need

SPS Teaching & Learning

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The section has a leading role in the master’s programme Urbanism, the European Post-master in Urbanism (EMU), and the Planning and Design with Water summer school.

But SPS is also intensively involved in the Faculty’s bachelor, the master elective programs, the MSc MADE programme (AMS), and the development of several massive open online courses (MOOCs), such as Rethink the City (which won the AESOP Excellence in Teaching Award in 2017), Urban Design for the Public Good, and others. SPS has a strong community of education developers and researchers on education innovation, evaluating, and publishing on pedagogies for the planning of fair, sustainable, and inclusive regions, cities, and communities. SPS education focuses on planning theories, methods, and cultures, evidence-based vision, and strategy making, resolving spatial conflicts, and issues of spatial justice, territorial governance and decision making, regional design, and planning. Given the range of our activities, SPS is necessarily inter- and multi-disciplinary. Additionally, SPS education promotes several academic skills for urbanists. Finally, SPS explicitly advocates and stimulates an international perspective on questions of urbanisation and metropolisation, urban growth and transformation, sustainability and fairness.

“EMU has a unique international component, in which students experience alternative approaches to urban development. This is highly valued by the panel. The panel is impressed by the setup of the curriculum. EMU refresh-es the academic skills students have already acquired at the master’s level, and is focused on deepening their knowledge with an international outlook, which the panel deems fitting for a post-master’s programme. The panel sees a challenging, clear and coherent programme in the given courses and in the complementary setup of its explicitly international approach.” (QANU, 2018: p.14)

Several staff members of the section have managerial responsibilities in the faculty’s education organisation.

Course and studio coordination responsibilities in all programmes mentioned:

  • BSc Architecture, Urbanism & Building Sciences (in Dutch: Bouwkunde) programme leader
  • Chairing the Faculty’s Board of Studies
  • Faculty’s honours programme committee membership – MSc Urbanism departmental portfolio assessment committee membership – Chairing the Faculty’s Internationalisation committee
  • Leading the Faculty-wide to research programme on education innovation

Text written by Remon Rooij