The quality of teaching has a clear impact on student success, but how can good teaching be defined? The European QualiTePE research project, funded by the Erasmus+ programme and involving ten European countries, seeks to adress this question specifically for Physical Education (PE). The QualiTePE instrument was designed for use in teacher training and further training to enable criteria-based observation and assessment of the quality of Physical Education lessons. The instrument is designed for diverse PE teaching and learning scenarios, alongside teacher resources, facilitating the practical assessment of teaching quality in PE. The QualiTePE instrument quantifies teaching quality by assessing specific, observable teaching characteristics via questionnaire items. Each assessment is conducted by three different population groups: 1) the students 2) the PE teacher 3) an observer. The comparative analysis of the data collected from these three perspectives enables systematic and criteria‐based feedback for (prospective) teachers, identifies areas of improvement, and informs content development for PE across Europe. The QualiTePE digital web-based evaluation tool for assessing the “Quality of Teaching in Physical Education” is now available in English, German, French, Italian, Spanish, Dutch, Swedish, Slovenian, Czech and Greek.
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Over the past few decades, education systems, especially in higher education, have been redefined. Such reforms inevitably require reconsideration of operational notions and definitions of quality, along with a number of related concepts. This reconsideration aligns with the core of higher education reforms: improving efficacy and compatibility with emerging social demands while adapting to competitiveness and accountability trends. As primary players in the teaching and learning process, online tutors have a protagonistic role and, therefore, must be equipped with a suitable set of competencies and attributes in addition to content knowledge. This quantitative research aims to analyze the perceptions of 250 online tutors working in European higher education institutions, distributed in 5 knowledge areas: Business, Education, Humanities, Sciences and Health. This descriptive and exploratory nonexperimental study reveals the technological and pedagogical skills and competencies that online tutors consider fundamental for effective online teaching and proposes professional development actions to ensure quality online teaching.
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Background to the problem Dutch society demonstrates a development which is apparent in many societies in the 21st century; it is becoming ethnically heterogeneous. This means that children who are secondlanguage speakers of Dutch are learning English, a core curriculum subject, through the medium of the Dutch language. Research questions What are the consequences of this for the individual learner and the class situation?Is a bi-lingual background a help or a hindrance when acquiring further language competences. Does the home situation facilitate or impede the learner? Additionally, how should the TEFL professional respond to this situation in terms of methodology, use of the Dutch language, subject matter and assessment? Method of approach A group of ethnic minority students at Fontys University of Professional Education was interviewed. The interviews were subjected to qualitative analysis. To ensure triangulation lecturers involved in teaching English at F.U.P.E. were asked to fill in a questionnaire on their teaching approach to Dutch second language English learners. Thier response was quantitatively and qualitatively analysed. Findings and conclusions The students encountered surprisingly few problems. Their bi-lingualism and home situation were not a constraint in their English language development. TEFL professionals should bear the heterogeneous classroom in mind when developing courses and lesson material. The introduction to English at primary school level and the assessment of DL2 learners require further research.
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Educational programs teaching entrepreneurial behaviour and knowledge are crucial to a vital and healthy economy. The concept of building a Communities of Practice (CoP) could be very promising. CoP’s are formed by people who engage in a process of collective learning in a shared domain of human endeavour (Wenger, McDermott and Snyder, 2002). They consist of a group of people who share a concern or a passion for something they do and learn how to do it better as they interact regularly. Normally CoP’s are rather homogeneous. Saxion institute Small Business & Retail Management (SB&RM) started a CoP with entrepreneurs September 2007. Typical in the this community, are the differences between the partners. The Community consists of students, entrepreneurs and members of an institution for higher education. They have different characteristics and they don’t share the same knowledge. Thus, building long-lasting relations can be complicated. Solid relations for longer periods are nevertheless inevitable in using CoP as a mean in an educational concept that takes approximately 4 years. After one year an evaluation took place on the main aspects of a lasting partnership. The central problem SB&RM in Deventer faces is to design the CoP in a way possible members will join and stay for a longer period and in a way it ensures entrepreneurial learning. This means important design characteristics have to be identified, and the CoP in Deventer has to be evaluated to assess whether it meets those design characteristics in an effective and efficient way. The main target of the evaluation is to determine which key factors are important to make sure continuity in partnership is assured and entrepreneurial learning is best supported. To solve the problem, an investigation on how a CoP works, what group dynamics take place, and how this can be measured has to be conducted. Furthermoreusing the CoP as a tool for entrepreneurship means key aspects of entrepreneurial learning have to be identified. After that the CoP in Deventer has to be examined on both aspects. According to literature CoP’s define themselves along three dimensions: domain (indicating what is it about), community (defining how it functions), and practice (indicating what capabilities it has produced) (Wenger, 1998). This leads to meaningful, shared and coordinated activities (Akkerman et al, 2007): Key aspects of a successful CoP lie in both hard and soft sides of creating a partnership. It means on one hand a CoP has to deal with defining their own overall vision, formulating long term goals and targets on the short term. They have to formulate how to achieve those targets and create meaningful activities (reification). On the other hand a CoP has to deal with relations, trust, norms and values (participation). Reification and participation as design characteristic can provide indicators on which the CoP in Deventer can be evaluated. A lasting partnership means joining the CoP and staying. Weick provides us with a suitable model that enables us to do research and evaluate whether the CoP in Deventer is successful or not, Weick’s model of means convergence. To effectively ensure entrepreneurial learning the process in the CoP has to provide or enable actionoriented forms through Project-based activity, accompanied by reflection, with high emotional exposure (or cognitive affection) preferably caused by discontinuities to be suitable as a tool in entrepreneurial learning. Furthermore it should be accompanied by the right preconditions to work effectively and efficiently. The evaluation of the present CoP in Deventer is done by interviewing all participants at the end of the first year of the partnership. In a structured interview, based on literature studies, all participants were separately questioned
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In March 2020 schools in The Netherlands closed to contain the spread of Covid-19 virus. Shortly after, schools took to online education. The condensed setting of the Covid-19 situation provided a background to study which learning activities and tools teachers choose in online education and how they use them to promote interaction. Interaction is quintessential to learning but in online education it is not easy to provide room for interaction. Our central research question therefore is how interaction within online education activities change over time. An online longitudinal survey amongst teachers was conducted. The first four rounds took place in the early stages of the lockdowns and shortly after. In total 179 different secondary school teachers participated of whom 16 responded three rounds or more. Most teachers use tools in online education that can facilitate more interaction than necessary for the Instructional Design. This means that improving interaction in online education is more a pedagogical challenge than a technical one. It was also found that teachers who deploy Instructional Designs that require more interaction use more and different tools. However, only few of these tools seem to facilitate the interactive quality the teachers pursued. Over time we saw the interactive quality of Instructional Design and tools converge. We are in awe of the artful way in which some teachers manage to combine the possibilities of different tools to establish high interactive quality in the online learning processes they conduct.
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Morssink-Santing, V. E., van der Zee, S., Klaver, L. T., de Brouwer, J., andamp; Sins, P. H. (2024). The long-term effect of alternative education on self-regulated learning: A comparison between Montessori, Dalton, and traditional education. Studies in Educational Evaluation, 83, 101380. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.stueduc.2024.101380
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Context When the pandemic hit the world, teachers were forced to change their education from onsite to virtual overnight Understandably, teaching quality decreased in the beginning, as there was little experience in how to adapt the educational design Zuyd University of Applied Sciences ( recognized the problem that teachers were on different didactic and pedagogical levels when it comes to online education Unfortunately, the pandemic made it hard for teachers to connect with each other In the Domain of Health and Welfare, this led to the idea of establishing a professional learning community A professional learning community ( can be seen as an informal group of people who share knowledge and experiences among each other on a common topic they are all highly interested in Zuyd’s vision “passion for development” sets a good basis for the start of such a community. Steps we took In order to find out how a professional learning community can look like in Zuyd, the following steps were taken Firstly, we collected and evaluated literature and best practices around the topic Based on our findings we developed an interview guideline and conducted interviews with eight teachers from the Domain of Health and Welfare Throughout the whole report a SWOT analysis was performed with the literature and best practices filling opportunities and threats and the interviews providing content for strengths and weaknesses Main findings From these sources, we derived enablers for a successful learning community, which led to recommendations for Zuyd on how to strategically position, implement and organize a PLC One of our major recommendations is to make didactic and pedagogical skills an important topic within Zuyd in order to strategically implement the learning community into Zuyd’s strategy Furthermore, we recommend giving the lead in organizing and facilitating the PLC to the blended learning task force To collect a diverse set of interested employees to the core group, the educational managers should personally approach teachers that might be interested The sense of urgency around the topic needs to be addressed regularly through the directors of the Domain, the task force of blended learning, as well as the PLC itself In this way, interest in the topic of didactic and pedagogical skills and blended learning can be enhanced In the report we go into greater detail on how to organize and apply these recommendations. We are convinced that implementing these steps will pay off in the future and will successfully enhance competencies on blended learning and didactic and pedagogical skills through knowledge exchange.
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The purpose of this final chapter is twofold: (1) to provide the synthesis of learnings on quality in teaching and teacher education on the basis of the analysis and discussion of the fourteen chapters collected in this monograph, and (2) to discuss implications for future research on quality in teaching and teacher education, policy and practice. In so doing, we ask: What do we know about quality in teaching and teacher education from the collected chapters and how can these findings inform future research, policy and practice in these areas? In order to answer these questions, the chapter is divided into five main parts. In the first part we identify a call that is present in all chapter: to move beyond a reductionist notion of education. In the second part we recognize the growing attention for teaching quality both as a blessing and a burden. In the third part we identify seven key dilemmas that arise from the different chapters. Next we use these dilemmas to identify implications for teacher education practice, policy and research. We conclude this chapter with some final reflections.
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A short paper on the whats and the hows of learning technology standardization
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This paper will explore how a portfolio approach to teaching and learning can help the educator incorporate unique forms of reflective practice into his or her daily work. By being able to express ideas more clearly to himself, the educator can better promote the relational construction of knowledge in his educational communities. This paper, as part of a larger body of research asks, how can a portfolio approach to teaching and learning help the educator develop unique forms of reflective practice that will help him express his ideas more clearly, first to himself and then secondly to his educational communities? Research methodology is primarily participatory action research and includes an autoethnographic review of the author's work, reviews, interviews, observations, and focus groups with student teachers and professional teachers in the United Arab Emirates. The research concludes that in consideration of McLuhan's (1964) notion that the "medium is the message," the interactions that arise through the use of new media tools can lead us to relational, co-constructed ideas that are not those simply passed on from other texts. By making our thinking visible, the portfolio approach allows the educator to capture the contextual relationship between the author, the audience or community, and the knowledge being created.
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