Thelma Stobbelaar, UT-alumni and owner and founder of Didactus an educational development consultancy, opened the stage by taking the audience through a neurological journey of how our brain functions across different ages. She highlighted how the understanding of our brain and the way we interact with our environment in the form of experiences and emotions can help us enhance our learning experiences and capacity.
‘Creating a new neurological pathway is similar to paving a new pathway on fresh grass’, she says. ‘You have to walk that path a couple of times to pave a very evident path to recognize later on so repetition is the key to effective learning and knowledge retention.’
Stobbelaar shared her idea of using emotions and multiple senses during learning a new knowledge with the students. She also introduced the role and effect of praise on enhancing one's learning capabilities and self-concept as a learner.
Alieke van Dijk, UT researcher, introduced her study on iSelf, a concept on Independent Learning. She believes teachers and curriculum builders should address and make the 'why' behind the learning very clear to students from the start. She added on Stobbelaar`s approach of using praise for motivations and contributed how constructive and complete feedback is essential for effective learning and understanding of the students.
'Education has the ability to empower.'
Jeroen Brands, the Chairman to be of Komma, explained what drove him to organize this event for students: ‘Education has the ability to empower. It`s not just learning of new information to make a career but a transfer of knowledge from one generation to another. I'd like to see the new generations like my own being able to take away as much knowledge as possible from our previous generations to integrate with the new knowledge. The empire of the new world should be built on the foundation of old wisdom. So helping students enhance the ability to learn and carry knowledge is a cause that is not only important to me but it`s also our motto at Komma.’