Based on an analysis of the 29 completed vouchers from the start in 2021 to 2024 and interviews with voucher project holders, Melle listed findings and recommendations. The aim was to study the main findings of the different projects, group them together and explore what exactly the projects have delivered for teachers, students and education in general.
Some findings:
- Vouchers are proven to be an effective way to start educational innovation. It provides space to develop and try innovation in education.
- The vouchers can be successfully used to evaluate and research an existing approach in education, for example in the research on motivation in the Honours Programme (Maarten de Boer) and use of AI software in historical research (Tim Riswick).
- The vouchers can be a push to eventually work out bigger changes in teaching. For example, Karen Geertsema and Tesseltje de Lange developed a serious game on migration law and were then able to further scale up their Migration Game project with a Comenius Teaching Fellowship. Dylan Henssen and Lucas Boer started a voucher project on 3D visualisation of anatomical structures and then successfully applied for a Comenius Teaching Fellowship to further expand their project.
- In some cases, the voucher projects were also the subject of a scientific publication. For example, 4 voucher holders reported that their teaching innovation and research had led to a scientific article.
The voucher project holders also give TLC some recommendations, which the voucher committee will take up immediately. For instance, the voucher project holders indicate that they would like to create more visibility for their projects and share the results from their projects with colleagues. The survey also shows that the structure of the voucher programme needs some improvements. For example, by now bringing together several applicants of a project idea and having them pitch their idea, exchange and inspiration between different project ideas is created at an early stage.
Start an innovation or research project
Want to start your own educational research, educational innovation or scale up an existing innovation? Then apply for a TLC voucher.