Exploring Teaching for Active Learning in Engineering Education

Engaging, Belonging, Learning

This conference is for you who want to motivate student participation and engagement in class. It is for you who want to design safe and engaging learning environments where students experience meaningfulness in the learning activities and develop a sense of belonging. Come and join workshops, presentations of work-in-progress and conceptual discussions that will inspire your future practices as engineering educators, educational managers and researchers.  


The ETALEE2026 is organized by the IUPN network

Date:

Location:

Sign up here:

Accommodation:

22 - 23 April, 2026

DTU Ballerup Campus, Lautrupvang 15, 2750 Ballerup

Registration fee for full conference participation including lunches, coffee breaks and conference dinner DKK 2.800 (excluding VAT). Register HERE (Deadline 15/3)

We recommend that you use Hotel Lautrup park DKK 1.349 per room (Breakfast included) 


Meet the Keynotes

Søren Hansen

Assistant Professor, Aalborg University


About Søren Hansen
For more than 30 years, Søren has conducted research in the intersection between learning, creativity, and innovation. As an action researcher and consultant, he has participated extensively in research and development projects within education as well as in the public and private sectors. He has developed several models aimed at fostering creativity and psychological safety and has been instrumental in establishing multiple educational programs in creativity, innovation, and entrepreneurship.


Learning in Safe and Creative Learning Communities

Psychological safety and creativity are fundamental to the learning communities that students engage in — with teachers, supervisors, and fellow students. Safety and creativity are also two sides of the same coin, supporting and developing each other like best friends while forming the foundation for learning. Søren will present various models from his research and share examples from his own teaching on how educators and academic leaders can create safe and creative learning communities.



Eva Ulstrup

Senior Consultant at TEACH, University of Copenhagen


About Eva Ulstrup

The keynote will be delivered by Eva Ulstrup, Senior Consultant at TEACH, University of Copenhagen.
Eva’s PhD dissertation examined the correlations and discrepancies between pedagogical intentions and student participation in university teaching. Her work identifies five factors that influence student engagement and active participation.


What Influences Student Engagement?

This keynote focuses on student engagement and what teachers can do to motivate their students to actively participate in class. Drawing on Danish and international research, it explores questions such as: Which factors determine whether students listen attentively to lectures or instead turn to social media? What influences whether many students join classroom discussions, or only a few speak up? And what is decisive for whether students engage in preparatory reading or show up to class unprepared?



Contribution

A. Workshop

Workshops are interactive sessions on a specific topic with activities that are intended to engage the participants. The aim is that the participants should gain further knowledge or skills, or a new perspective. The workshop must include a considerable active component.

A workshop is a 60 minutes session and should include the following the schedule items:

  • Introduction (setting the scene) (approximately 10 minutes)
  • Hands-on Activity (incl. summing-up) (approximately 30
  • Discussion, evaluation & conclusions (approximately 20 minutes)

The author(s) submit a proposal for the workshop how this learning activity or educational structure/tool contributes to activate students and support their learning – incl. theoretical explanation and references

B. Work in progress

In the work in progress session, it is possible to present developed ideas (not merely preliminary thoughts), but not finalized projects.

A key objective of this session is to enable the presenter to draw inspiration from participants, supporting further development of the underlying concept.

The work in progress session is  60 minutes session following the schedule (based on 3 presentations per session):

  • Introduction (the chair will set the scene for each topic)
  • Presentation (10 minutes) – each presenter has 10 minutes
  • At the end of each presentation, each presenter poses one critical question based on the presented topic as a starting point for the following reflection and discussion.
  • Q & A
  • Closing

Each session is chaired by a session chair.

How to submit

If you wish to contribute, you must submit an abstract, using the abstract template. Submit your abstract as a pdf via mail: halo@dtu.dk. Deadline February 15th.   If you contribute remember to sign up for the conference as well. (Deadline March 15th) 


Program ETALEE 2026

Wednesday April 22

Time


09:00 - 09:30 


09:30 - 10:00


10:00 - 11:00


11:00 - 11:15


11:15 - 12:15 


12:15 - 13:15


13:15 - 14:15


14:15 - 14:45


14:45 - 15:45


16:00 - 17:00


18:00 - 




Activity


Registration


Welcome and introduction


Keynote Eva Ulstrup


Break


Session 1


Lunch


Session 2


Break


Session 3


Networking


Travel to Restaurant


Dinner at Restaurant Bryggeriet Skovlyst


Location


DTU Ballerup Campus



Thursday April 23

Activity


Keynote Søren Hansen


Break


Session 4


Sum up and goodbye (lunch to go)




Time


09:00 - 10:30


10:30 - 10:45


10:45 - 11:45


11:45 - 12:15





Location


DTU Ballerup Campus



Visitor Guide

Where and When

Join us at DTU Ballerup Campus

Lautrupvang 15, 2750 Ballerup

22 -23 April, 2026


Accomodation

We recommend that you use

Hotel Lautrup park (1349 DKk/Night)

Transportation

Train + Bus:

Take the S-train (C or H) to Malmparken Station, located 1.3 km from the Campus.


From Malmparken, either walk (17 min), or take the bus 350S which stops directly at Campus.


Direct bus from Central Copenhagen. Bus 350S runs between Ballerup Station and Dragør, passing trough Copenhagen areas: serve stops near DTU Campus.


Car:

Driving from downtown Copenhagen: ~12 min, ~13 km via main roads.


Free on-campus parking available; ample spaces including EV charging points.


Papirstak

Previous ETALEE Conferences

ETALEE 2024

ETALEE 2023