Empowering Educational Developers to Train University Teachers

For several years, the university of Groningen has been active in projects related to improving university teaching as well as 'train the trainer' programmes for educational development. We are now partnering with AFELT to bring this program to the community of educational developers in East Africa.

This program aims to bring together those who partner with university teachers in improving their teaching effectiveness. The primary focus will be on 1) conversations and learning between educational developers, 2) designing new, or re-design existing, university teacher training programmes in participants’ own institutions and 3) receiving feedback on your training methods. During the week, participants can expect to create a new (re)design of current work they do in university teaching development. Professional trainers will prompt and guide the process but in the end, hope not to be a ‘trainer’ of the group but rather a facilitator of the group’s learning/sharing.

The emphasis is on the community of educational developers learning from and with each other. We aim for a group that includes those with varying experience levels to further enhance the perspectives in this community. In the end, we hope your own professional development programme will be designed or improved through the tips, tricks, and advice you learn from this community of practitioners.

Why a School of Educational Developers?

In our work both domestically and internationally, we have often asked the question ‘’Who develops the developers?” and our answer has always been—from and with each other. We further recognize a need for this to be an international network where communities of educational trainers and developers can build upon each other’s work and can learn from each other's cultural and contextual background. In this way, we can collectively progress rather than doing this ‘on our own’.

So please join us and come ready to both improve your own initiatives but also share your expertise with others. We look forward to seeing you in Nairobi!

Practical information

Dates	10 - 14 November 2025
Location	Nairobi, Kenya
Level	Practitioners, educational developers or other staff/academics with a role related to professional development of university teachers
Fees	KES 48000, which includes lunches and refreshments. The fee above does not include hotel/accommodation and dinners.
Academic coordinators	Rick Huizinga, Irene Douwes-Van Ark & Jan Folkert Deinum
Contact	ESI Summer & Winterschools, ESISummerWinterSchools@rug.nl Dr. Winfred Kithinji, winfred.kithinji aku.edu

Requirements

Course Schedule

Monday: Academic development – focusing on the professional development of university teachers
Tuesday: Need analysis of university teachers and design with impact
Wednesday: Evaluate, analyze and select effective training skills.
Thursday: Practice your teaching skills. Analyze different cases of professional development
Friday: Framework for professional development: develop guidelines for effective professional development activities

Throughout the week you will work on your own ‘micro-training’ session in order to receive feedback from participants and work on a professional development activity that you choose yourself.

Working methods will be group discussions, individual reflection, presentations and design activities. This culminates into a final design product/assignment of your development activity.

Course schedule

Full course schedule as download, or list op topics

Learning outcomes

After this course you will be able to:

1. Describe how academic teachers develop.

2. Select professional development activities based on the needs of teachers in your institution.

3. (Re)design a professional development activity specifically for your own institution

4. Apply effective training skills for your own context.

5. Evaluate a professional development activity

During the week, new learning outcomes might appear, based on participants’ input.

Workload

Preparation: 10 hours
Contact hours (discussions, reflections, design activities, lectures): 36 hours
Presentation: 4 hours
Final design/assignment after the course: 8 hours (only necessary for microcredentials)

Upon successful completion of the programme, the Program offers a Certificate of Attendance. Participants who successfully complete the Program (including the assessments) have the possibility to obtain a Proof of Competence (digital credential) to acknowledge participation and engagement with the content that mentions the workload of 58 hours (28 hours corresponds to 1 ECTS so in this case, 2 ECTS). Participants who qualify for a Proof of Competence can obtain a digital badge via the EduBadges platform managed by SURF— the Dutch cooperation of universities. The digital badge is stored on this platform and contains metadata, making the content, learning outcomes, study load hours and language of instruction of the educational activity clear and transparent. The digital badge is therefore verifiable and can be shared on, for example, a CV or LinkedIn.

Application procedure

To apply, kindly fill out the online application form. Please note that you will be asked to upload the following documents:

Curriculum Vitae (max. 2 pages)
Motivation letter, clearly stating why you want to join this programme, what you will bring to the Program and what you hope to learn (max. half a page)

Apply now!

The application deadline is 15 September 2025. We will review all applications on a rolling basis and participants will hear back within three weeks of submitting their application.

Last modified:

31 July 2025 4.45 p.m.