Teylingen College: Supporting traditional teaching with flexible digital tools

About Teylingen College

Teylingen College Leeuwenhorst is a secondary school located in Noordwijkerhout, The Netherlands. The school offers a wide range of programs to cater to the needs of just over 1300 students. Robbert van Empel is one of the 122 teachers working at the school, his teaching subject being History.

Robbert is also his school’s ‘Digi-coach’ and a member of the Digital Council that oversees a diverse group of schools local to the area: Teylingen College Duinzigt, Teylingen College – KTS, Fioretti College, Hillegom, Fioretti College Lisse and ISK Duin- en Bollenstreek. The council is tasked with keeping up-to-date on trends in educational technology, AI developments and other digital tools to support teachers in their everyday work. Teylingen College Leeuwenhorst alone has conducted over 30 000 digital tests on the Exam.net platform since it was first adopted, freeing up time and simplifying test administration for teachers in the process.

Challenges

Teylingen College Leeuwenhors originally needed a digital tool to conduct and submit online tests with secure proctoring back in 2020. They struggled with finding a tool that was intuitive and flexible – enabling teachers to remain in the driving seat – whilst realizing the benefits that often come with digital tools. Administrators at the school were also acutely aware of the necessity for security and safe data handling – all data would need to stay in Europe, preferably in The Netherlands. Another time-consuming challenge for teachers was the growing number of students requiring support with special needs. Preparing audio files and other accommodations for students prior to an assessment took time-consuming manual work from teachers already busy with their everyday tasks.

More recently, challenges for the school include the rapid development of AI and tools like ChatGPT. In this new normal, teachers are challenged with finding ways to ensure academic honesty when conducting exams and assessments digitally.

Solutions

Representatives from the six schools on the Digital Council tested various digital tools and together came to the conclusion that Exam.net was the best online test platform for use across all six schools. Today, the platform is used more than ever. Exam.net was found to be intuitive to use, making it easy for teachers to get started. Because of its flexibility and range of features, teachers can decide to what degree they want to be “digital” vs. keep to traditional methods in the classroom. For example, teachers can reuse old PDF tests and upload them to Exam.net, allowing students to take the test online, then it can be printed and marked by the teacher on paper, or passed on to Google Classroom to be marked there.

Exam.net also offers a range of tools to support students with learning challenges, which the teacher can adjust themself within Exam.net during an online test. Tools such as text-to-speech can easily be enabled for specific students, making it possible to cater to each student’s individual needs.

Because of Exam.net’s flexibility and range of features, teachers can decide to what degree they want to be “digital” vs. keep to traditional methods in the classroom.

Benefits

Exam.net is a Swedish-founded company and the majority of all national tests in Sweden are conducted online with Exam.net. The data is handled and stored in Europe with the main servers based in The Netherlands.

“We felt very confident knowing that Sweden had used this tool for a long while and that it's approved by the Swedish government for the national tests. The data is also kept in Europe - this was one of the big reasons why we choose to use Exam.net for our schools”

Robbert van Empel
Teylingen College

The benefits of Exam.net continue to emerge, and even the students now request using Exam.net when taking tests – they can often type faster than they write and can easily rearrange texts. The teachers appreciate this too because it simplifies the assessment process by not having to decipher messy handwriting!

Exam.net also has built-in proctoring and cheat-prevention tools, helping teachers in a world where generative AI and ChatGPT are forcing them to look for new ways to ensure safe and fair assessments.

Going Forward

Robbert and the Digital Council work a lot with their teachers in helping them adopt digital tools to simplify administration and everyday work.

“Our teachers decide where it’s relevant to use digital tools to enhance the traditional teaching experience. Exam.net is used for all end of year school tests, but also to provide a distraction-free environment in the classroom for smaller formative tests.”

Robbert van Empel
Teylingen College

Exam.net has met many of Teylingen College Leeuwenhorst needs and Robbert continues to explore the platform’s newly released features – most recently AI-generated questions for online tests.

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