Leadership & Innovation in Teaching

In 2017, Mando was elected the Lecturer of the Year in the Faculty of Law, University of Groningen. She is the first woman and first international member of staff and non-Dutch speaker to get this award in the Faculty of Law.

She is very fond of using LEGO and other objects and toys so as to explain how to make legal arguments.

Teaching Global Classrooms (in non-Western institutions)

Mando has acquired extensive experience in teaching in non-Western institutions, including at Qatar University where she designed and taught the international law and human rights courses (2013-2016). She has also given a series of lectures at the University of Rwanda in the Faculty of Law and the National Police Academy (October 2022). In her capacity as a member of the committee for research and societal impact of the sub-Saharan Africa policy (2022-2026) of the University of Groningen she contributes to assessing teaching and learning projects across continents.

Commitment to Diversity, Inclusion & well-being in Learning & Teaching

Mando’s teaching praxis aspires to embed diversity, inclusion and well-being in learning. Besides her own teaching, her work in the Law Faculty Council has highlighted areas of improvement and modes of enriching existing pedagogical and institutional practices. In this context she has also organised a series of workshops in the Faculty of Law, University of Groningen on diversity & inclusion in learning and teaching (2020-2022) and have led student events on discussing well-being.

Crucially as a member of the Community of Expertise on Inclusion and Diversity in Teaching and Learning, Teaching Academy Groningen (2020 – ) and in collaboration with the Office of the University of Groningen on Strategy Department of Education & Research and Stellenbosch University we are developing modules for training members of staff on internationalising the curriculum for quality and inclusive programmes.

 

Course Curriculum Development & Teaching Innovation

Mando systematically engages in designing new courses and developing the curriculum both at undergraduate and graduate levels. She does so by applying innovative learning approaches and tools, including critical legal scholarship, multi-disciplinary approaches, project-based learning and design thinking.

 

In the LLM Public International Law, she redesigned, coordinated and taught the Settlement of International Disputes course (2017-2023). In the Technology Track within the LLB International & European Law, she designed, coordinates and teaches the Intellectual Property course.

 

She is also involved in teaching at the University College Groningen and at the Honours Masters of the University of Groningen.

In the University College Groningen (2018-2021) she designed and taught the capstone course The Age of Human Rights. The course adopted:

  • a multi-disciplinary approach linking students’ existing knowledge from other disciplines (e.g. sociology, international relations, political science) to international human rights law; and
  • the project-based and the design thinking learning approaches so as to redefine problems and provide solution-based approaches to them.

 

In the Honours Masters programme she designed the masterclass Dissidence in Leadership “What Would Bert Roling Do?” (2020 – present). The course studies in a multi-disciplinary way the phenomenon of dissidence with a special focus on how scholarship and societal forces bring (or not) change and lead novel ways of thinking.

Teaching & Course Coordination

LLM Technology Law & Innovation (2023 – )

  • design, coordination and teaching of the Cybersecurity course

 

Technology Track within the LLB International & European Law (2020 – )

Alongside Jeanne Misfud-Bonnici and Jonida Milaj-Weishaar, we developed a new programme of studies on technology law as a specialised track within the existing LLB in International & European Law.

  • designed and teach the lectures/seminars on digital rights in Data Protection & Human Rights course
  • designed and teach part of the Research Seminar on Technology Law
  • designed, coordinate and teach the Intellectual Property course

 

LLM Public International Law (2017-2023)

  • co-taught the Seminar on Human Rights (2017-2019)
  • coordinated and taught the Settlement of International Disputes course

 

LLB International & European Law (2016-2020)

  • involved in teaching the courses: Introduction to International & European Law; Public International Law; Research Seminar on International Law
  • coordinated and taught the moot court course (Honours College)

Supervision & Assessment of Graduate Students

  • Supervision of LLM theses (2016-2022): 30 students
  • External second supervisor PhD thesis (with Assistant Professor Mirva Lohiniva-Kerkelä), University of Lapland, Finland (2021 – )
  • Opponent & external member, PhD Reading Committee, University of Turku, Finland (thesis by Vasiliki Koniakou, Rethinking Internet Governance) (2021)
  • Member, PhD examination committee, University of Groningen (thesis by Getahun Alemayehu Mosissa, A Re-examination of Economic, Social and Cultural Rights in a Political Society in the Light of the Principle of Human Dignity) (2020)