Zoekresultaten

CyberParks - the interface between people, places and technology

Communities of practice: pedagogy and internet-based technologies to support educator's continuing technology professional development in higher education

Advances in information and communication technologies (ICTs) as well as modern pedagogical perspectives have created new possibilities to facilitate and support learning in higher education (HE). Emerging technologies bring opportunities to reconsider teaching and learning. New ideas and concepts about the educational use of new technologies transform the roles of teachers. In this context the key question of this study is: whether learning as part of a (virtual) community of practice supports teachers' technology professional development. Different learning alternatives such as distance learning, workplace learning as well as blended forms of learning will enhance lifelong learning which forces a rethinking of traditional forms of education. However, most institutions for education foster just-in-case learning while new technologies foster just-in-time learning. As a result of new learning perspectives and the potential pedagogical benefits of ICTs in educational contexts, teachers have to learn how to integrate new technologies in teaching and learning. It is recommended that teacher professional development should be situated in multiple learning settings in which learning is teacher-centred. Next to classroom settings and cross-institutional learning communities, virtual learning communities (VCoPs) are a significant source for learning. There is an overlap between the educational values of interned-based learning and social theories of learning such as Lave & Wenger's situated learning theory and Wenger's theory of communities of practice. Drawing upon these theories, offers a perspective on social learning that emphasizes social processes within (V)CoPs where community participants engage in collective learning and knowledge creation. 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 paper concludes that VCoPs are learning environments since these network-based learning communities push learners to take more control of their learning and provide tasks which are more contextualised and meaningful.

Matters of measuring: student learning and success in sustainability education

Higher education has done well to establish itself as the supply side of business talent with stable markers of success that indicate when a student is ready for the ‘real world.’ However, the role of education is evolving in the context of sustainable development, where education strives to be holistic, transformative, and learner-centred. This approach demands new forms of meaningful assessment that emphasises learning over metrics. This chapter explores learning as conceived in responsible management education and education for sustainable development and the related function of assessment to articulate a research and practice agenda to explore new forms of assessment for sustainability education.

The art of the possible: an insider analysis of change processes within a Dutch teaching university

Insider ethnographic analysis is used to analyze change processes in an engineering department. Distributed leadership theory is used as conceptual framework.

Leerrouteplanner voor de plannende student

De leerrouteplanner is een intranetapplicatie voor de toekomstige student een student die actief de eigen studie plant in het vraaggestuurd onderwijs. De student kan met de applicatie keuzes maken voor vakken, informatie opvragen over studie-onderdelen, studieresultaten bekijken en een eigen individuele leerroute samenstellen. Met de back-office van de applicatie kan de onderwijsorganisatie grip houden op de toenemende complexiteit van de onderwijsorganisatie. De applicatie biedt mogelijkheden voor het monitoren van studenten en tevens voor capaciteitsbewaking.

Entrepreneurship can be taught: an example of a learner-centered approach

In most European countries entrepreneurship is one of the top priorities on the national agenda, to stimulate individual and organizational innovativeness and (regional) economic growth. As a consequence, embedding entrepreneurship in education to achieve this goal has gained importance and momentum especially at universities of applied sciences. Two questions need answering when trying to embed entrepreneurship in a curriculum. First of all: cán entrepreneurship be taught and second: hów should entrepreneurship be taught. In this paper we focus on an educational programme based on a learner-cantered, constructivist approach, which is offered in a multidisciplinary, inspiring and entrepreneurial setting. It is competency-based and is tailor-made to individual student demand and goes beyond the classic business school approach based on instruction. The programme caters for students from at least 40 different departments of the university. The starting point in this programme is the assumption that entrepreneurship can indeed be taught but that the pedagogical climate and approach is crucial and should contribute towards the development of entrepreneurial competencies and skills. In this paper issues such as the dynamics of learning are dealt with as well as some a discussion on learning paradigms. We elaborate on the programme developed at The Hague University of Applied Sciences, The Hague in The Netherlands. So far, over 250 students have participated in the programme and since September 2007 longitudinal research has taken place to establish the effects of the programme and the pedagogical approach on the development of entrepreneurialism. We then describe the research design and draw preliminary conclusions about the relation between pedagogical climate and entrepreneurial behaviour, competencies and entrepreneurial behaviour and finally the relation between entrepreneurial behaviour and the choice to become an independent entrepreneur. Our findings show that such competencies as self-discipline and vulnerability are positive influencers of entrepreneurial ambition. We also found negative influencers of entrepreneurial ambition in depression and inadequacy, yet interestingly also in sincerity. The role of the business partners involved in the programme is discussed and an account is given of the experiences of a population of students over a period of three years on the basis of a number of issues: what works, what doesn't work and what needs to be improved. Interesting drivers for entrepreneurial behaviour are distilled from our research, on the basis of which recommendations are given on how to best implement these drivers into an educational programme. The paper finalizes with a concluding note in which some of the drawbacks of a learner-centred approach as opposed to an instruction-based approach are discussed and suggestions for future research are made.