We aim to help you put theory into practice as quickly as possible and we do this through Design-Based Education. It’s a concept that applies to the whole of your programme’s curriculum, a way of looking at what and how you learn. And it’s practical – on both a personal and professional level. 

Design-Based Education 

Studying at NHL Stenden means using our unique educational concept, Design-Based Education (DBE). We want to make sure our students have a challenging and inspiring learning environment with contemporary facilities. To make this happen, a number of principles are important to us:  

Learning from practical experience 

We believe it's important that you are exposed to the practical problems in your chosen fields right from the start of your degree and that you work on current, real-life issues. You work on these issues in Ateliers, groups that bring together students, sometimes from different programmes, and industry. You also get to learn directly from the industry through internships or workplace learning. And if you're studying part-time, you can use your workplace as a learning environment.  

Learning from and with each other 

Students differ from each other in terms of their qualities, experiences and cultural background. By working together to find solutions for current issues, you can make use of these differences and learn from each other, drawing from each other’s interpretation and perception of a situation. You form a learning community in ateliers that bring together students, lecturers and the professional field. The ateliers can also be interdisciplinary so not only is a problem then seen from different perspectives but the solution is more complete.   

Attention to your personal and professional development 

Together we want to create a learning environment in which you develop as a person and a professional. An environment in which you are known and your achievements recognized. Our lecturers are professionally competent, and trained to also pay attention to your learning process, to coach you and give you frequent feedback. And we limit the number of assessments you have to do.  

Our educational concept has five interrelated facets: 

Student experience: Eva Kollmannsberger 

To get an idea of what studying is like using our educational concept Design-Based Education (DBE), check out this video. Our Creative Business bachelor student Eva Kollmannsberger from Germany explains in this video how DBE is implemented in her study programme. 

These are the benefits of DBE: 

  • You get to work with current issues from the professional field right from the very beginning of your course 
  • You work in ateliers with students, lecturers and clients from your chosen field 
  • There's room for experimentation, prototyping and creativity 
  • You get to discover where your talents lie and strengthen your own learning process 
  • You get to expand your horizons through our extensive international network of partners 
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atelierboekje nhl stenden marc otto

Atelier Book

On 14 November, the new Atelier Book was presented to Marc Otto, member of the Executive Board of NHL Stenden University of Applied Sciences. In this book, we use more than 30 portraits of ateliers to show which issues are being worked on within NHL Stenden and how we cooperate with the field of work and researchers.