This article focuses on improving the instructional quality of student teachers in elementary education. We developed a coaching approach involving classroom observation and appropriate lesson preparation and feedback templates. Using an untreated control group design with pre-test and posttest (n = 198), we answered the question ‘whether student teachers who learned to teach with the new coaching approach achieved a higher level of pedagogical and didactical teaching skills compared to student teachers who did not receive this approach’. The effect variable used was the observation instrument ICALT. We compared the average scores of the control group and the experimental group on the posttest (ANCOVA). The differences found on the posttest, after controlling for the confounding variables, were significant on all ICALT scales. These effect sizes are medium on the scales; ‘Safe climate’ and ‘Clear instruction’ and large on the scales; ‘Classroom management’ ‘Activating pupils’ ‘Adaptive teaching’ and ‘Teaching learning strategies’.
Despite the willingness of many educational institutions worldwide to embrace Education for Sustainable Development and Education for Sustainable Development Goals, critical scholars have pointed out that the very enterprise of sustainable development is not without its contradictions. Therefore, any education that engages with sustainable development needs to be carefully reviewed, rather than supported, in its ambition to promote the supposedly universally desirable aims. The rhetoric of sustainable development as meeting the needs of present and future generations is largely anthropocentric in failing to take nonhuman species into account when setting up pragmatic and ethical objectives. Similarly to the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) that have helped to raise living standards across the world, but have largely failed to address environmental sustainability challenges, the Sustainability Development Goals (SDGs) tend to prioritize “inclusive economic growth” at the expense of ecological integrity, which is very likely to negatively affect not only nonhuman species but also future generations and their quality of life. Thus, as this chapter will argue, universally applicable Education for Sustainable Development Goals (ESDGs) is problematic in the context of addressing the long-term sustainability for both human and nonhuman inhabitants of the planet. Given escalating climate change, biodiversity loss, pollution, and depletion of natural resources, this chapter questions whether ESDGs can qualify as a desirable “quality education”. The paradoxes of sustainable development and ways forward that seem a better alternative for ESDG include indigenous/traditional learning, ecopedagogy, ecocentric education, and education for degrowth, steady-state, and Cradle-to-Cradle and circular economy. Advantages of universal education are also highlighted, as any education that supports basic literacy, numeracy, and values attributed to the intrinsic rights of humans and nonhumans can help students to be equipped to deal with social and environmental challenges. https://doi.org/10.3390/books978-3-03897-893-0-1 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/helenkopnina/
MULTIFILE
Over the last two decades, institutions for higher education such as universities and colleges have rapidly expanded and as a result have experienced profound changes in processes of research and organization. However, the rapid expansion and change has fuelled concerns about issues such as educators' technology professional development. Despite the educational value of emerging technologies in schools, the introduction has not yet enjoyed much success. Effective use of information and communication technologies requires a substantial change in pedagogical practice. Traditional training and learning approaches cannot cope with the rising demand on educators to make use of innovative technologies in their teaching. As a result, educational institutions as well as the public are more and more aware of the need for adequate technology professional development. The focus of this paper is to look at action research as a qualitative research methodology for studying technology professional development in HE in order to improve teaching and learning with ICTs at the tertiary level. The data discussed in this paper have been drawn from a cross institutional setting at Fontys University of Applied Sciences, The Netherlands. The data were collected and analysed according to a qualitative approach.
The project’s aim is to foster resilient learning environments, lessen early school leaving, and give European children (ages 4 -6) a good start in their education while providing and advancing technical skills in working with technology that will serve them well in life. For this purpose, the partnership has developed age appropriate ICT animation tools and games - as well as pedagogical framework specific to the transition phase from kindergarten to school.
During the coronavirus pandemic, the use of eHealth tools became increasingly demanded by patients and encouraged by the Dutch government. Yet, HBO health professionals demand clarity on what they can do, must do, and cannot do with the patients’ data when using digital healthcare provision and support. They often perceive the EU GDPR and its national application as obstacles to the use of eHealth due to strict health data processing requirements. They highlight the difficulty of keeping up with the changing rules and understanding how to apply them. Dutch initiatives to clarify the eHealth rules include the 2021 proposal of the wet Elektronische Gegevensuitwisseling in de Zorg and the establishment of eHealth information and communication platforms for healthcare practitioners. The research explores whether these initiatives serve the needs of HBO health professionals. The following questions will be explored: - Do the currently applicable rules and the proposed wet Elektronische Gegevensuitwisseling in de Zorg clarify what HBO health practitioners can do, must do, and cannot do with patients’ data? - Does the proposed wet Elektronische Gegevensuitwisseling in de Zorg provide better clarity on the stakeholders who may access patients’ data? Does it ensure appropriate safeguards against the unauthorized use of such data? - Does the proposed wet Elektronische Gegevensuitwisseling in de Zorg clarify the EU GDPR requirements for HBO health professionals? - Do the eHealth information and communication platforms set up for healthcare professionals provide the information that HBO professionals need on data protection and privacy requirements stemming from the EU GDPR and from national law? How could such platforms be better adjusted to the HBO professionals’ information and communication needs? Methodology: Practice-oriented legal research, semi-structured interviews and focus group discussions will be conducted. Results will be translated to solutions for HBO health professionals.
A world where technology is ubiquitous and embedded in our daily lives is becoming increasingly likely. To prepare our students to live and work in such a future, we propose to turn Saxion’s Epy-Drost building into a living lab environment. This will entail setting up and drafting the proper infrastructure and agreements to collect people’s location and building data (e.g. temperature, humidity) in Epy-Drost, and making the data appropriately available to student and research projects within Saxion. With regards to this project’s effect on education, we envision the proposal of several derived student projects which will provide students the opportunity to work with huge amounts of data and state-of-the-art natural interaction interfaces. Through these projects, students will acquire skills and knowledge that are necessary in the current and future labor-market, as well as get experience in working with topics of great importance now and in the near future. This is not only aligned with the Creative Media and Game Technologies (CMGT) study program’s new vision and focus on interactive technology, but also with many other education programs within Saxion. In terms of research, the candidate Postdoc will study if and how the data, together with the building’s infrastructure, can be leveraged to promote healthy behavior through playful strategies. In other words, whether we can persuade people in the building to be more physically active and engage more in social interactions through data-based gamification and building actuation. This fits very well with the Ambient Intelligence (AmI) research group’s agenda in Augmented Interaction, and CMGT’s User Experience line. Overall, this project will help spark and solidify lasting collaboration links between AmI and CMGT, give body to AmI’s new Augmented Interaction line, and increase Saxion’s level of education through the dissemination of knowledge between researchers, teachers and students.
