How to encourage students to choose for a future in agrifood? Not like we always did. The labor market shows an increasing shortage. The agrifood sector plays a significant role in achieving global food security and environmental sustainability. Scholars hardly realize what they can contribute to these social, ecologic and economic issues. The sector needs to expand the range of career opportunities in the agriculture-food-nutrition-environment nexus. Most importantly, it means creating incentives that encourage young people to see agrifood as one of the best options for a career choice. We developed inspiring learning materials to achieve awareness in secondary schools in the Netherlands. A Genomics Cookbook with food metaphors to explain biological principles is highly appreciated by both teachers and students. It is a way to increase influx into green colleges and universities, and thereby efflux to the agrifood sector.
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The agrifood sector is crucial for achieving global food security and environmental sustainability. In the Netherlands, innovations in food technology and adjacent areas are achieved in attractive projects at Universities of Applied Sciences (UASs) in close interaction with government, industry, other knowledge institutes and society. By providing students central positions in innovative joint efforts that answer to the demands of small and medium sized enterprises, the curricula stay up to date and appealing. Examples of such efforts are the Food Innovation Academy (FIA), the World Horti Centre (WHC) and the Food Innovation Community Amsterdam (FICA). Interdisciplinary projects in these settings help to encourage students to choose for a future in agrifood. Exposure is key to reach the target groups. For that reason, several paths on the roadmap of the human capital agenda have to be taken. We developed inspiring learning materials that appeal to students and teachers in secondary schools. A “Genomics Cookbook” to introduce biological knowledge behind nutrigenomics and a velcro-model called “DNAbAND” to explain principles behind the Polymerase Chain Reaction for food safety applications, are examples. These are ways to increase influx into green colleges and universities, and thereby efflux to the agrifood sector.
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How to encourage students to choose for a future in agrifood? Not like we always did. The labor market shows an increasing shortage. The agrifood sector plays a significant role in achieving global food security and environmental sustainability. Scholars hardly realize what they can contribute to these social, ecologic and economic issues. The sector needs to expand the range of career opportunities in the agriculture-food-nutrition-environment nexus. Most importantly, it means creating incentives that encourage young people to see agrifood as one of the best options for a career choice.Inspiring learning materials have been developed to achieve awareness in secondary schools in the Netherlands. A Genomics Cookbook with food metaphors to explain biological principles is highly appreciated by both teachers and students. It is a way to increase influx into green colleges and universities, and thereby efflux to the agrifood sector.
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Between 1 March 2021 and 30 April 2023, a consortium (consisting of in the Netherlands: the National Library of the Netherlands (Koninklijke Bibliotheek -KB), The Hague University of Applied Sciences, the Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision in Hilversum; in Belgium: Media & Learning Association in Leuven and Public Libraries 2030 in Brussels; and in Spain: Fundación Platoniq in Barcelona) carried out an Erasmus+-funded research project on news media literacy among young people. It involved Dutch, Belgian and Spanish young people aged 12-15. The acronym SMILES, which stands for 'innovative methodS for Media & Information Literacy Education involving schools and librarieS', was chosen for the project title. The main goals of the SMILES project are: • Forming pairs between librarians and secondary school teachers in the three European countries, who were empowered through train-the-trainer workshops to teach secondary school students about news media literacy in relation to disinformation; • Helping students use digital technologies more safely and responsibly with a focus on recognising reliable and authentic information versus becoming more resilient to disinformation; • Developing five building blocks serving as teaching materials for Dutch, Belgian and Spanish pupils aged 12-15 with the aim of making them recognise disinformation and making them more resilient against it; • A scientific evaluation of the effectiveness of the implemented lessons through impact measurement using 'pre-knowledge tests' and 'post-knowledge tests'; • A strengthening of existing collaborations and creation of new collaborations between schools and libraries in the three partner countries. The SMILES project was implemented through three work packages. In the first work package, five so-called 'Baseline studies', or literature reviews, were conducted. The focus was on what the different educational approaches in Spain, Belgium and the Netherlands are with regard to disinformation and how these approaches can be linked. Based on these studies, the five building blocks were developed in the second work package. In addition, the teaching pairs were offered the training programme developed by SMILES through a 'train-the-trainer methodology' to safely and responsibly deploy the use of digital media tools during lessons with students. Also, based on the disinformation literature, the knowledge tests were designed to conduct an impact measurement of the train-the-trainer workshops and lessons among the trainers (teaching pairs) and students, respectively. These knowledge tests contained statements on disinformation that were answered correctly or incorrectly by respondents. The number of correctly answered statements prior to the lessons was compared with the number of correctly answered statements after the lessons. In this way, an attempt was made to prove a positive learning effect of the deployed lessons. In the third work package, the results from the pre-knowledge tests and the post-knowledge tests were analysed. In addition to these quantitative analyses, qualitative results were also used to analyse and look at the extent to which the training provided to trainers (teaching pairs) and the lessons with the five building blocks for students proved effective in teaching, recognising and becoming more resilient to disinformation, respectively. In doing so, we also reflect on whether the methodology tested has been effective in the three countries: what are the best practices and where do we see areas for improvement?
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In this chapter, we discuss the education of secondary school mathematics teachers in the Netherlands. There are different routes for qualifying as a secondary school mathematics teacher. These routes target different student teacher populations, ranging from those who have just graduated from high school to those who have already pursued a career outside education or working teachers who want to qualify for teaching in higher grades. After discussing the complex structure this leads to, we focus on the aspects that these different routes have in common. We point out typical characteristics of Dutch school mathematics and discuss the aims and challenges in teacher education that result from this. We give examples of different approaches used in Dutch teacher education, which we link to a particular model for designing vocational and professional learning environments.We end the chapter with a reflection on the current situation.
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This study explores waste management literacy among secondary school communities in Tangerang City, Indonesia, using the Knowledge, Attitude, Behavior (KAB) model within the 3R (Reduce, Reuse, Recycle) framework. Employing a mixed-methods sequential explanatory design, the research integrates quantitative data from 357 participants including principals, teachers, staff, and students from seven schools near the Rawa Kucing Landfill, with qualitative insights from follow up interviews. This study was applied to multiple regression and correlation analyses to evaluate relationships between knowledge, attitude, and behavior. Results show that while knowledge positively influences behavior, attitude unexpectedly correlates negatively, revealing an attitude-behaviorgap. Although respondents generally hold positive attitudes toward waste management, these attitudes do not consistently translate into active engagement. The study’s qualitative phase uses interviews to identify barriers contributing to this gap, uncovering individual, social, and structural obstacles such as inadequate facilities and established waste practices that hinder effective waste management. Advocating for a comprehensive approach, the study recommends providing schools with 3R bins and training, sustainable behavior modeling by teachers, alignment of municipal waste collection with school efforts, family reinforcement of waste practices, and curricular integration of waste management. This coordinated approach seeks to bridge the attitude-behavior gap and promote sustainable waste practices across school communities in Tangerang City.
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Educational innovations often tend to fail, mainly because teachers and school principals do not feel involved or are not allowed to have a say. Angela de Jong's dissertation shows the importance of school principals and teachers leading 'collaborative innovation' together. Collaborative innovation requires a collaborative, distributed approach involving both horizontal and vertical working relationships in a school. Her research shows that teams with more distributed leadership have a more collaborative 'spirit' to improve education. Team members move beyond formal (leadership) roles, and work more collectively on school-wide educational improvement from intrinsic motivation. De Jong further shows that school principals seek a balance in steering and providing space. She distinguished three leadership patterns: Team Player, Key Player, Facilitator. Team players in particular are important for more collaborative innovation in a school. They balance between providing professional space to teachers (who look beyond their own classroom) and steering for strategy, frameworks, boundaries, and vision. This research took place in schools working with the program of Foundation leerKRACHT, a program implemented by more than a thousand schools (primary, secondary, and vocational education). The study recommends, towards school principals and teachers, and also towards trainers, policymakers, and school board members, to reflect more explicitly on their roles in collaborative innovation and talk about those roles.
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Despite the increase in entrepreneurship initiatives and interventions, there is a poor understanding of entrepreneurship programs’ principles and learning objectives in secondary education. This study provides insight into the current range of entre‑ preneurship programs and their underlying pedagogy in secondary education in the Netherlands. To structure the analysis, we used the 11 design principles of Baggen et al. (Entrep Educ Pedagog 5(3):347–374, 2022). Data were collected from three different sources: the Vecon Business Schools (VBS) application forms, interviews with VBS schools, and additional documents. The findings show that most schools are unfamiliar with the definitions of entrepreneurship education. Many of the prin‑ ciples of broad entrepreneurship education focus on personal growth and the devel‑ opment of an entrepreneurial mindset. These are not always recognizable in sec‑ ondary schools’ current offerings of entrepreneurship education. Furthermore, the pedagogies on which entrepreneurship programs are based are mostly traditional, despite literature showing that (socially) constructivist entrepreneurship programs lend themselves better to developing an entrepreneurial mindset.
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In the past years teacher education colleges have started to offer more alternative routes to teaching in secondary education. The development is a response to teacher shortages but also to a change in thinking about teaching as a profession, professional learning and the school as site of learning. Three alternative routes were studied. The characteristics of the new students and the way teacher colleges adapt their programmes to these new students are discussed. The alternative teacher education programmes realize characteristics of work-based learning to a certain extent, but not fully yet. Alternative routes are a promising development in teacher education, opening new opportunities to enter teaching, and marking a change in the role of schools as important environment of teachers professional learning.
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Continuing professional development approaches such as professional learning communities (PLCs) could help schools to sustainably work on school improvement to meet the rapid changes in the world around us. Sustainability is achieved when the core components of the approach become a self-evident and functional part of the school (or: organizational routine), which is flexible and adaptive to ongoing work, and aimed at regular improvement. Achieving sustainability has been found to be a challenge for a lot of schools, however. Leadership is assumed to be crucial for sustainability. We studied leadership through a distributed leadership lens: all activities tied to the core work of the school that are designed by the school’s staff members to influence the motivation, knowledge, or practices of other members of the school organization were considered. As research into sustainability of professional development and leadership was scarce, this dissertation focused on the following question: What is the role of school leadership in schools that work sustainably on school improvement with PLCs? A case study design was used to gain in-depth insight into what leadership and sustainably working on school improvement with PLCs looks like in five Dutch secondary schools. The schools were intensively observed (approximately 160 hours per school), school (policy) documents were collected, social network questionnaires were administered, and the school leadership was interviewed. Based on four studies, that focused on leaders’ practices, knowledge brokerage, and beliefs, the role of school leadership appears to be threefold. They 1) adequately designed the organization for working with the PLC, 2) managed the teaching and learning program while considering the PLC, and 3) helped and supported the staff members’ development for working with the PLC. The way in which leaders carried out the triple role of leadership seemed to be related to different factors. These factors are situated at the personal, interpersonal, and school contextual levels. The dissertation shows what leadership practices were carried out in what way and provides practical implications resulting from that. The insights could inspire schools and school leadership to work sustainably on school improvement with PLCs too.
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