The knowledge-based economy, advances in information and communication technologies as well as new pedagogical perspectives all influence the needs to improve the population skills and competencies in the 21st century. Emerging technologies bring opportunities to reconsider teaching and learning in higher education. Innovative educational ideas and concepts transform the roles of teacher educators and their students. To accomplish the new roles, teacher educators need to learn to work with a new set of information and communications skills and knowledge. In other words, adequate technology training is a prerequisite for the 21st century teacher educator to develop prospective teachers who are able to use new technologies so as to support and improve their own students' achievement gains. In order to deal with the new challenges, teacher education institutions are designing, developing and facilitating teacher educators' technology professional development programs. However, the majority of these efforts fail, since they are for most part based on a formal, institutional delivery of instrumental knowledge and skills. Adequate technology training is a major factor that can help teacher educators to integrate emerging technologies into the curriculum, which is in turn, beneficial to their students. The technology learning preferences instrument designed, implemented and evaluated in this research is intended to make a link between teacher educators' technology learning needs in the workplace and the way in which professional development programs should be designed, developed and evaluated.
Feedback is one of the most powerful tools teachers can use to enhance student learning. In 2006, the Dutch Inspectorate of Education concluded from classroom observations that it is difficult for Dutch teachers to give their students good feedback in order to stimulate students' learning process and developmental progress. Similar problems were revealed in other school levels and countries, for example in secondary education and in Finland. Giving feedback during active learning may be even more troublesome for teachers. During active learning, students are working in small groups on different learning goals and undertake different learning activities at the same time. They need to achieve task-related goals as well as to develop the meta-cognitive knowledge and skills that are needed for active learning. Yet, teachers often seem unable to provide the feedback that is needed and they do not know how to support the development of meta-cognitive knowledge and skills.Therefore, this research project focused on ways to improve primary school teachers' feedback giving practices during active learning. The central research question is: How can primary school teachers learn to give optimal feedback to pupils during active learning? To answer this question, five studies have been conducted. In the first study, knowledge regarding teachers' feedback practices was gathered. A category system was developed based on the literature and empirical data. A total of 1465 teacher-student interactions of 32 teachers who practiced active learning in the domain of environmental studies in the sixth, seventh or eighth grade of 13 Dutch primary schools were videotaped and assessed using this system. Results showed that about half of the teacher-student interactions contained feedback. This feedback was usually focused on the tasks that were being performed by the students and on the ways in which these tasks were processed. Only 5% of the feedback was explicitly related to a learning goal. In their feedback, the teachers were directing (rather than facilitating) the learning processes. During active learning, however, feedback on meta-cognition and social learning is important. Feedback should be explicitly related to learning goals. In practice, these kinds of feedback appear to be scarce. In the second study, the problems these 32 primary school teachers perceive and the beliefs they hold regarding the provision of feedback were investigated. A writing task and an interview were conducted. It appeared that teachers believed that conditional teacher skills, especially time management, hindered them most from giving good feedback. The most widely held belief was that 'feedback should be positive'. Teachers also believed that it is important to adopt a facilitative way of giving feedback, but they found this difficult to implement. Only some teachers believed goal-directedness and a focus on student meta-cognition were important during active learning and teachers did not perceive problems regarding these aspects. In the third study, a professional development program (PDP) was developed, implemented and evaluated. The goals and content of the PDP were based on a review of the literature regarding feedback and active learning and on the results of the preceding studies. The design of the PDP was based on the extant literature regarding the features which are considered to be important for PDPs, including structural features, goal setting and characteristics of the professional development activities that are part of the program. Effects of this PDP on 16 primary schoolteachers' knowledge, beliefs, perceived problems and classroom behavior were examined via observations, a writing task and a questionnaire prior and twice after the program was implemented. Results showed that several aspects of feedback during active learning were improved, both in the short and in the long term. For example, teachers learned to believe that feedback must be goal-directed and that learning goals need to be communicated to students. In the classrooms, teachers related their feedback more often explicitly to the learning goals. In the fourth study, the extent to which teachers attributed the success of the PDP to each of the purposefully implemented features of the PDP was examined. The 16 teachers that participated in the PDP completed a questionnaire and four focus group interviews were conducted. Results indicated that teachers value most features quite highly; all features contributed to teachers' professional development according to the teachers themselves. The qualitative data was used to illustrate and specify the theoretical knowledge regarding the features that appeared to be effective in PDP's. Finally, in the fifth study, the learning process of two of the participating teachers was described in detail. Written reflections, as well as videotaped reflections during the video interaction training meetings were analyzed and related to the effects of the PDP on both teachers' knowledge, beliefs, perceived problems and classroom behavior during te course of the PDP. By relating the learning processes of these two teachers to the literature regarding professional development, we aimed for a rich understanding of the impact of the PDP on teachers' professional development.
The energy management systems industry in the built environment is currently an important topic. Buildings use about 40% of the total global energy worldwide. Therefore, the energy management system’s sector is one of the most influential sectors to realize changes and transformation of energy use. New data science technologies used in building energy management systems might not only bring many technical challenges, but also they raise significant educational challenges for professionals who work in the field of energy management systems. Learning and educational issues are mainly due to the transformation of professional practices and networks, emerging technologies, and a big shift in how people work, communicate, and share their knowledge across the professional and academic sectors. In this study, we have investigated three different companies active in the building services sector to identify the main motivation and barriers to knowledge adoption, transfer, and exchange between different professionals in the energy management sector and explore the technologies that have been used in this field using the boundary-crossing framework. The results of our study show the importance of understanding professional learning networks in the building services sector. Additionally, the role of learning culture, incentive structure, and technologies behind the educational system of each organization are explained. Boundary-crossing helps to analyze the barriers and challenges in the educational setting and how new educational technologies can be embedded. Based on our results, future studies with a bigger sample and deeper analysis of technologies are needed to have a better understanding of current educational problems.
Our world is changing rapidly as a result of societal and technological developments that create new opportunities and challenges. Extended Realities (XR) could provide solutions for the problems the world is facing. In this project we apply these novel solutions in food and hospitality. It aims to tackle fundamental questions on how to stimulate a healthy and vital society that is based on a sustainable and innovative economy. This project aims to answer the question: How can Extended Reality (XR) technologies be integrated in the design of immersive food experiences to stimulate sustainable consumption behavior? A multidisciplinary approach, that has demonstrated its strength in the creative industry, will be applied in the hospitality and food sector. The project investigates implications and design considerations for immersion through XR technology that can stimulate sustainable consumption behavior. Based on XR prototypes, physiological data will be collected using biometric measuring devices in combination with self-reports. The effect of stimuli on sustainable consumption behavior during the immersive experience will be tested to introduce XR implementations that can motivate long-term behavioral change in food consumption. The results of the project contribute towards developing innovations in the hospitality sector that can tackle global societal challenges by exploiting the impact of new technology and understanding of consumer behavior to promote a healthy lifestyle and economy. Next to academic publications and conference contributions, the project will develop a handbook for hospitality professionals. It will outline steps and design criteria for the implementation of XR technologies to create immersive experiences that can stimulate sustainable consumption behavior. The knowledge generated in the project will contribute to the development of the curriculum at the Academy for Hotel and Facility at Breda University of Applied Sciences by introducing a technology-driven experience design approach for the course Sustainable Strategic Business Design.
