Covid challenge
"Open a window, done in no time"
The City of Utrecht was looking for creative non-restrictive ways to minimise the negative impact of Covid-19 on the lives of residents. By bringing this issue to the alliance, the City of Utrecht was given the opportunity to have student teams seek solutions with different perspectives. This gave solutions with sociological, psychological as well as medical aspects.
What did the collaboration entail?
Students worked within a course on ideas to increase the quality of life of the inhabitants of the City of Utrecht despite the corona measures. The course ran from 19th of April 2021 to 11th of June 2021, with the students spending 12 hours a week on the challenge. They worked in teams to find a solution, under the guidance of a coach. The course was open to all third-year bachelor and all master students from all different disciplines and backgrounds at TU/e, WUR, UU and UMC Utrecht.
Purpose of collaboration in education
They worked in multi-disciplinary teams, in order to search for solutions together across the boundaries of disciplines. The student teams are guided by experts in the field, such as epidemologists, policy makers, sociologists and economists, and by coaches who support the process. Through challenge-based learning, students work on authentic complex social problems. Students learn life skills and create impact.
For me, it was also an enormously instructive process, particularly by reflecting on it myself and taking the students with me. I would like to wish everyone the opportunity to participate as a student or client in an EWUU challenge. It is truly a rich learning environment.
(Intended) result
At the end of the course the student teams presented their ideas and solutions. The City of Utrecht assessed the concepts in relation to the policy and the vision of the municipality on the Covid measures. With the winning team (slogan "open a window, done in no time"), the municipality started discussions after the challenge about possible elaboration of the proposal. In April 2022, students of Hogeschool Utrecht (HU) will start a further elaboration of the winning team's suggestion.