Honours+ Workshops
In order to successfully conclude the programme, you need to have attended at least 2 workshops.
Choose min. 2 workshops to attend (although you are welcome to attend them all)
How to Formulate a Good Research Question
Your H+ Challenge provides a unique opportunity to collaborate with fellow students and engage in independent, interdisciplinary research. During your studies, you have already conducted research with varying subjects and scales, but the essence of your work remained the same: trying to answer a particular question.
Before you design your H+ research, collect and analyze your data, it is imperative to be explicit and clear about what you are trying to find out. Your task therefore, requires a disciplined and thoughtful transformation of your ideas into clearly formulated research questions. Developing a good research question is one of the most challenging stages of your research process.
In this workshop we will discuss the process of research and the scientific method, and focus on the first stage in research, namely identifying a problem in the real world and forming a research question to address it. We will also reflect on how to bring together your personal skills and how to make your research questions more relevant by employing an interdisciplinary perspective.
In preparation for this workshop, please read:
Trochim, W. M. K., Donnelly, J. P. & Arora, K. (2015). Research methods: The essential knowledge base. Cengage learning. Chap. 1, pp. 3-32
! If you cannot find a copy of this work in the library, know that we will send you the required chapter also via email 2 days prior to the workshop.
“Interesting and useful in coming up with a good research question.”
Your Workshop Host
Eli Sapir
Available sessions:
- Wednesday 29.11.2023, 14:30-17:30 hrs;
- Tuesday 05.12.2023, 09:30-12:30 hrs.
All “How to Formulate a Good Research Question” workshops are scheduled to take place at EDLAB’s Tapijn Building X. All attendees will receive a reminder email with the exact location two days before the session.
Finding your Way through the Methods Maze
How do you select and develop a methodology that suits your team’s research question?
The process of comparing and considering research methods can feel like entering a maze.
In this workshop, you will acquire strategies that will help you with this process. We introduce you to some key principles of research methodology, and map out the main pros and cons of a range of research methods.
Moreover, you will actively work towards choosing a methodology that fits with your research question through a set of group exercises. In short, one of the most valuable workshops this year to lift your Team Challenge to the next level.
Your Workshop Host
Tim Huijts (ROA)
In his research, Tim Huijts examines how social, national, and institutional factors influence inequalities. He focuses particularly on social inequalities in health, and on how these inequalities can be explained and diminished. In addition to his research expertise, Tim Huijts has ample experience in teaching, course development and management, and project management.
Available sessions:
- Wednesday 07.02.2024, 13:30-16:30 hrs;
- Monday 26.02.2024, 13:30-16:30 hrs.
All “Finding your Way through the Methods Maze” workshops are scheduled to take place at EDLAB’s Tapijn Building X. All attendees will receive a reminder email with the exact location two days before the session.
Creative Problem Solving
Creativity, or creative problem solving, is seen as one of the most important skills for the 21st century. A worldwide survey by IBM in 2010 under 1500 CEO’s stated that in an increasingly complex business world, creativity is a major leadership quality to embed in organisations. Next to our analytical know-how, we will need creativity to solve problems, to find opportunities and to accelerate change. Creativity is the outboard engine for innovation.
In this workshop we will give you a hands-on, introduction training in creativity skills and the creative process. You will work on a business case from the food industry and on a question/problem/case you are asked to bring along. Together we will try to find as many ‘out-of-the-box’ ideas as possible, for both cases. How to find extraordinary ideas and how to select and combine the best ideas? With the food industry case we will explore a couple of tools for divergent and convergent thinking. What is a good starting point for a creative process? We will tackle this using your own question/case.
We will wrap-up the workshop by discussing how to use creativity skills during your assignment. Furthermore, we will show you books on creativity and websites of interest.
“Very good workshop. Useful and learned some interesting techniques.”
Your Workshop Host
Marcel Stolk (Mast Creativiteit)
Available sessions:
- Tuesday 06.02.2024, 09:30-12:30 hrs;
- Wednesday 13.03.2024, 13:30-16:30 hrs.
All “Creative Problem Solving” workshops will take place at EDLAB’s Tapijn Building X. All attendees will receive a reminder email with the exact location two days before the session.
Time Management
If you want to excel it doesn’t necessarily mean that you have to do more, quantity wise. It foremost means that you deliver better quality. However, of course you really excel when you can do more and do it better.
The problem with our brain is that it needs to be able to focus on the task at hand and that’s hard when there’s so much going on. If you’re stressed, lack a good overview, or your life is just an all-around mess, it’s probably hard to excel at anything.
In order to overcome this, you should:
- know how your brain works to steer it away from procastination, “multitasking”, and distractions (e.g. a pesky social media habit);
- know how your brain processes information;
- streamline all the work that is coming at you (emails, homework, assignments, papers etc.);
- plan ahead for the large tasks so that you don’t have to do everything at the last moment;
- keep a good overview of everything on your plate and decide what to focus on.
In the Time-Management workshop we promise you one thing: we are going to cover all of these subjects (and more) in a non-boring fashion. You will be provided with ready-to-use insights and practical tips on how to stay on top of things with the use of the latest insights and technology (you may expect many useful suggestions for how various specific apps can adequately support time management).
“Since I have many problems with time management, and the anxiety that comes with it, I found this workshop very useful for my future career as well as overall wellbeing.”
Your Workshop Host
Patrick Stastra (TijdWinst)
I encourage organizations and their workers, entrepreneurs & students to work, collaborate, communicate and learn smarter. All done by workshops, inspiring talks & e-learning programs.
“My 3 hour workshops and 1 hour talks are full of practical exercises, ideas and tricks, always served with a hint of theory (e.g. Getting Things Done), scientific foundation and a lot of enthusiasm. All my efforts are focused on changing your behavior to work, collaborate, communicate or learn smarter from the next day on.”
Available sessions:
- Tuesday 12.03.2024, 13:30-16:30 hrs;
- Wednesday 24.04.2024, 09:30-12:30 hrs.
All “Time Management” workshops will take place at EDLAB’s Tapijn Building X. All attendees will receive a reminder email with the exact location two days before the session.
Science of Well-being
During this workshop we will dive into the Science of Well-being.
By teaching you how the brain works and providing you with recent findings on how to boost optimal functioning, this workshop will help you capitalize on positivity and improve your productivity, performance and well-being.
This workshop will be brought to you by drs. Barbara Kuiters. She is a skilled psychologist with an expertise in positive psychology and neuroscience. She runs a successful company as a psychologist, therapist and teacher to educate other (mental) health professionals on the power of positive psychology.
“I very much enjoyed it. It gave a lot of new insights and I found it very helpful.”
Your Workshop Host
Barbara Kuiters
In addition to scientific substantiation and theory, Barbara’s offer has a great focus on actual practice. Just fully understanding the theory is not the same as experiencing the content. The translation from theory to behavior is where sustainable behavioral change takes place. That is why the effects of her education, training and coaching trajectories reach further than usual.
Available sessions:
- Friday 23.02.2024, 09:30-12:30 hrs;
- Wednesday 28.02.2024, 09:30-12:30 hrs.
All “Science of Wellbeing” workshops will take place at EDLAB’s Tapijn Building X. All attendees will receive a reminder email with the exact location two days before the session.
Debating Skills
How do you ensure you make a convincing argument? Which techniques strengthen your argument and how can you best respond to questions? This debating workshop addresses these issues and provides you with useful knowledge and skills which you will apply directly in a debate about current issues in university education and society at large. During this inspiring and varied programme, you will be provided with insight into rhetorical skills and techniques that are of great value in your (future) work. Afterwards, you will be able to present your ideas and recommendations more convincingly, leading to greater impact.
Het Debatbureau (The Debating Bureau) is specialized in debating and presenting. Based in The Hague, the agency supports professionals and students with training and workshops, and team members serve as moderator for a wide range of events. Trainings focus on improved debating, presenting and persuasion skills.
“Examples that were to the point, and the debate exercises were really stimulating.”
Your Workshop Host
Leon van der Deure (Het DebatBureau)
Available sessions:
- Wednesday 28.02.2024, 13:30-16:30 hrs;
- Tuesday 19.03.2024, 13:30-16:30 hrs.
All “Debating Skills” workshops will take place at EDLAB’s Tapijn Building X. All attendees will receive a reminder email with the exact location two days before the session.
Stress Management
We all find ourselves in stressful situations from time to time. Whether at work, during our studies, or when life throws nasty surprises at you. This is normal. But, when does it become problematic? When are you in danger of stress becoming a danger to your health and what do you need to do to avoid this? This workshop will give you basic insights into what stress is, where it comes from, and its effects. You will also get to identify your stress sources and tips on how to better manage these stressors and how to ensure you have enough resources.
“It was by far the most helpful and interesting workshop! It really helps to self-reflect and understand what I need to be aware of and identify potential problems.”
Your Workshop Host
Karolin Biewald (Key2Advance)
Moreover, Karolin’s proficiency as a professional singer and musical actress has greatly influenced her work. Her education has equipped her with exceptional public speaking, presentation, and phonetic skills. By merging her analytical and creative strengths, Karolin helps individuals discover their unique voice and employ it as a potent tool for self-expression.
Furthermore, Karolin recognizes the interconnection between voice and body and works with her clients on integrating body language and movement into their communication. With her broad range of expertise and multidisciplinary approach, Karolin is an engaging trainer and consultant, enabling individuals to unlock their full potential.
Available sessions:
- Thursday 29.02.2024, 14:00-17:00 hrs;
- Monday 11.03.2024, 18:00-21:00 hrs;
- Tuesday 12.03.2024, 09:30-12:30 hrs.
All “Stress Management” workshops will take place at EDLAB’s Tapijn Building X. All attendees will receive a reminder email with the exact location two days before the session.
The Ultimate Presentation Skills Masterclass
Presentations and pitching styles can be as versatile as the subjects that are being presented. What makes a good presentation be memorable? How can you deliver the main message of your project in a professional way? From content to delivery, a strong presentation and the skills that are deployed during effective pitching can create bigger impact with the audience, and deliver the message they need to hear.
In this hands-on workshop, you will develop the draft of your final Honours+ presentation with Adina Petre, a High Performance Coach and Clinical Psychologist who’ll help discover and develop your ultimate presenter skills.
Together with Adina who is a former TED speaker coach, you’ll learn how to structure your content and deliver it in an engaging way, so that you give a sound academic presentation in an entertaining fashion that will increase your chances of winning the pitch competition at the end of your Honours+ experience.
As a jury member of several pitch competitions throughout her career, Adina knows the ins and outs of what makes a compelling pitch, and will be sharing them with you in this dynamic workshop.
“The workshop provided us with the right balance of theory and practice, giving us the opportunity to get out of our comfort zone and actually speak up in a safe environment. Very interesting! Would recommend!”
Your Workshop Host
Adina Petre (Insights)
I have always been deeply involved with the business community, the entrepreneurial life and the startup scene. I’ve offered workshops, trainings, and contributed to organizing events around the topic of entrepreneurship. I coached Enactus Maastricht for their first, second and third Dutch National Competitions. Meanwhile I was also working as project and community manager for LaunchBase – the first startup pre-incubation programme ever to be set up in Maastricht. I also worked for TedX Maastricht where I was part of the speaker liaison and story-telling coaches subteam. I’m always looking for interesting new projects, challenges and collaborations! But most importantly, I look for dedicated, passionate and interesting people that have a genuine desire to grow.
Available sessions:
- Thursday 14.03.2024, 14:00-17:00 hrs;
- Monday 22.04.2024, 14:00-17:00 hrs.
The “Ultimate Presentation Skills” workshops will take place at EDLAB’s Tapijn Building X. All attendees will receive a reminder email with the exact location two days before the session.
Speed Reading
People spend a lot of their time reading: students and knowledge workers alike. Weird enough we are not aware of how we read, why we wander off and what we can do to read better and faster. The adult reads with a speed of 200 to 250 words a minute and comprehends approximately 60% of what he is reading. With some practical tools and insights it is possible to double the reading speed without losing any text comprehension.
In this workshop you get a better insight in your own reading and information processing skills and learn how to double your reading speed and increase text comprehension in a practical and effective way.
The main focus of this workshop is to:
- Get valuable insights in the attention process during reading.
- Learn efficient reading strategies and techniques.
- Gain insight in inhibitions and distractions during reading combined with effective ways to tackle them.
- Learn practical tools to increase your reading speed and text comprehension.
- Practice with exercise texts to increase your reading speed and text comprehension.
- Track progress in reading speed and text comprehension.
The only way to learn speed reading is by actually doing it. That is why practicing is the main focus of this workshop. Reading exercise texts, tracking your reading speed and text comprehension is therefore the main activity in this workshop.
“This was really fun! I feel like I have a better grasp of how to maintain focus while reading, and I also learned some strategies to improve comprehension and information retention. I enjoyed the workshop a lot!”
Your Workshop Host
Patrick Stastra (TijdWinst)
I encourage organizations and their workers, entrepreneurs & students to work, collaborate, communicate and learn smarter. All done by workshops, inspiring talks & e-learning programs.
“My 3 hour workshops and 1 hour talks are full of practical exercises, ideas and tricks, always served with a hint of theory (e.g. Getting Things Done), scientific foundation and a lot of enthusiasm. All my efforts are focused on changing your behavior to work, collaborate, communicate or learn smarter from the next day on.”
Available sessions:
- Monday 04.03.2024, 13:30-16:30 hrs.
- Tuesday 07.05.2024, 09:30-12:30 hrs.
All “Speed Reading” workshops will take place at EDLAB’s Tapijn Building X. All attendees will receive a reminder email with the exact location two days before the session.
Workshop Registration S.O.S.
In case you wish to change the timeslot for a certain workshop, or cancel a workshop registration completely, you need to contact the Honours+ Central Management Team.
