In honours programmes, teachers face the task of designing courses in which students feel challenged and learn from accomplishing demanding assignments. The aim of this study was to investigate students’ and teachers’ perceptions of challenge and learning in an honours programme. From 2016 to 2019, students and teachers rated the learning activities during the programme and explained their ratings. The results showed that in the first two years, teachers estimated challenge and learning significantly higher than the students did. However, both students and teachers viewed the tasks as the factor with the strongest impact on challenge and learning. In the first year, students also identified group dynamics as challenging and a source for learning. Enhancing task complexity and supporting group dynamics are the main factors to adjust the level of challenge in an honours programme. Monitoring students’ and teachers’ perceptions can help to adapt the programme to improve students’ learning.
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What tips would you give to your fellow students or to your study programme? These can be tips relating to well-being, online education or studying at home. We asked this question in the international well-being questionnaire. All of the tips have been analysed and organised into tips for fellow students, teachers and bachelor programmes. On top of that, we compared the tips with our previous well-being survey from 2018. It is clear that, while many of the tips for students are the same, there is now a greater emphasis on mutual contact and studying together. Creating a fixed daily schedule was mentioned many times as well this time. For lecturers personal contact seems to be even more important now, especially amongst students in their final year. Other frequently mentioned topics include online interaction, flexibility and support with planning. For the bachelor programmes clarity and information were already important before, but these seem to be absolute necessities during the corona crisis.
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Writing as soul work refers to the active engagement of students in transformative writing activities in a group setting with the aim to enable students to develop new, more empowering narratives. This article explains how soul work through writing can be used to foster career adaptability, expressed in the form of increased awareness and self-direction. We summarize the labour market realities that underlie a need for more narrative approaches and introduce writing as soul work as a potential method to respond to these contemporary career challenges. We define what is meant by soul work and writing, illustrate its use with several stories from practice, and make recommendations for teachers and implementation in institutions. “This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in "British Journal of Guidance and Counsellingon" on 04/16/2016 available online: https://doi.org/10.1080/03069885.2016.1169366 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/reinekke-lengelle-phd-767a4322/
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Background: Despite the growing importance of eHealth it is not consistently embedded in the curricula of functional exercise and physical therapy education. Insight in barriers and facilitators for embedding eHealth in education is required for the development of tailored strategies to implement eHealth in curricula. This study aims to identify barriers/facilitators perceived by teachers and students of functional exercise/physical therapy for uptake of eHealth in education. Methods: A qualitative study including six focus groups (two with teachers/four with students) was conducted to identify barriers/facilitators. Focus groups were audiotaped and transcribed in full. Reported barriers and facilitators were identified, grouped and classified using a generally accepted framework for implementation including the following categories: innovation, individual teacher/student, social context, organizational context and political and economic factors. Results: Teachers (n = 11) and students (n = 24) of functional exercise/physical therapy faculties of two universities of applied sciences in the Netherlands participated in the focus groups. A total of 109 barriers/facilitators were identified during the focus groups. Most related to the Innovation category (n = 26), followed by the individual teacher (n = 22) and the organization (n = 20). Teachers and students identified similar barriers/facilitators for uptake of eHealth in curricula: e.g. unclear concept of eHealth, lack of quality and evidence for eHealth, (lack of) capabilities of students/teachers on how to use eHealth, negative/positive attitude of students/teachers towards eHealth. Conclusion: The successful uptake of eHealth in the curriculum of functional exercise/physical therapists needs a systematic multi-facetted approach considering the barriers and facilitators for uptake identified from the perspective of teachers and students. A relatively large amount of the identified barriers and facilitators were overlapping between teachers and students. Starting points for developing effective implementation strategies can potentially be found in those overlapping barriers and facilitators.
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Nowadays companies need higher educated engineers to develop their competences to enable them to innovate. This innovation competence is seen as a remedy for the minor profitable business they do during the financial crises. Innovation is an element to be developed on the one hand for big companies as well as for small-and-medium sized companies through Europe to overcome this crisis. The higher education can be seen as an institution where youngsters, coming from secondary schools, who choose to learn at higher education to realize their dream, what they like to become in the professional world. The tasks of the Universities of applied Sciences are to prepare these youngsters to become starting engineers doing their job well in the companies. Companies work for a market, trying to manufacture products which customers are willing to pay for. They ask competent employees helping achieving this goal. It is important these companies inform the Universities of applied Sciences in order to modify their educational program in such a way that the graduated engineers are learning the latest knowledge and techniques, which they need to know doing their job well. The Universities of applied Sciences of Oulu (Finland) and Fontys Eindhoven (The Netherlands) are working together to experience possibilities to qualify their students on innovation development in an international setting. In the so-called: ‘Invention Project’, students are motivated to find their own invention, to design it, to prepare this idea for prototyping and to really manufacture it. Organizing the project, special attention is given to communication protocol between students and also between teachers. Students have meetings on Thursday every week through Internet connection with the communication program OPTIMA, which is provided by the Oulu University. Not only the time difference between Finland and the Netherlands is an issue to be organized also effective protocols how to provide each other relevant information and also how to make in an effective way decisions are issues. In the paper the writers will present opinions of students, teachers and also companies in both regions of Oulu and Eindhoven on the effectiveness of this project reaching the goal students get more experienced to set up innovative projects in an international setting. The writers think this is an important and needed competence for nowadays young engineers to be able to create lucrative inventions for companies where they are going to work for. In the paper the writers also present the experiences of the supervising conditions during the project. The information found will lead to success-factors and do’s and don’ts for future projects with international collaboration.
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Nowadays companies need higher educated engineers to develop their competences to enable them to innovate. This innovation competence is seen as a remedy for the minor profitable business they do during the financial crises. Innovation is an element to be developed on the one hand for big companies as well as for small-and-medium sized companies through Europe to overcome this crisis. The higher education can be seen as an institution where youngsters, coming from secondary schools, who choose to learn at higher education to realize their dream, what they like to become in the professional world. The tasks of the Universities of applied Sciences are to prepare these youngsters to become starting engineers doing their job well in the companies. Companies work for a market, trying to manufacture products which customers are willing to pay for. They ask competent employees helping achieving this goal. It is important these companies inform the Universities of applied Sciences in order to modify their educational program in such a way that the graduated engineers are learning the latest knowledge and techniques, which they need to know doing their job well. The Universities of applied Sciences of Oulu (Finland) and Fontys Eindhoven (The Netherlands) are working together to experience possibilities to qualify their students on innovation development in an international setting. In the socalled: ‘Invention Project’, students are motivated to find their own invention, to design it, to prepare this idea for prototyping and to really manufacture it. Organizing the project, special attention is given to communication protocol between students and also between teachers. Students have meetings on Thursday every week through Internet connection with the communication program OPTIMA, which is provided by the Oulu University. Not only the time difference between Finland and the Netherlands is an issue to be organized also effective protocols how to provide each other relevant information and also how to make in an effective way decisions are issues. In the paper the writers will present opinions of students, teachers and also companies in both regions of Oulu and Eindhoven on the effectiveness of this project reaching the goal students get more experienced to set up innovative projects in an international setting. The writers think this is an important and needed competence for nowadays young engineers to be able to create lucrative inventions for companies where they are going to work for. In the paper the writers also present the experiences of the supervising conditions during the project. The information found will lead to successfactors and do’s and don’ts for future projects with international collaboration.
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The advantages and drawbacks of components of flexible assessment have been studied mostly from the standpoint of students and, to a lesser extent, teachers. A gap persists in understanding the collective perspectives of teachers and students concerning flexible assessment. This study aimed to explore experiences and perspectives of students and teachers regarding flexible assessment within the specific context of nursing education. Seven focus groups comprised four sessions with teachers and three with students, each involving 5-8 participants. Results showed that students and teachers have a predominantly positive perspective towards flexible assessment. They acknowledge the opportunities that flexible assessment provides for diverse forms to present evidence. However, concerns were raised regarding the design of flexible assessments, issues of fairness in rating evidence, and the understanding among teachers and students regarding the assessment processes. Additionally, discussions focused on the perceived benefit of flexible assessments, particularly concerning the time investment required for their implementation and evaluation. In conclusion, the success of flexible assessments is contingent on the careful consideration of its design, ensuring equitable evaluation of evidence, and fostering comprehensive understanding among both teachers and students. Recognizing potential disparities in views of students and teachers offers valuable insights into the effectiveness of flexible assessment. Achieving a balance between the flexibility of assessment formats, aligned forms of evidence, and an appropriate rating methodology is crucial for effective implementation.
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L1 grammar teaching worldwide often takes the form of traditional grammar teaching with decontextualized parsing exercises and rules of thumb. Some researchers have proposed enriching such forms of grammar teaching by relating traditional grammatical concepts to underlying metaconcepts from linguistic theory. The merits of such an approach have become apparent in recent intervention studies, but the question remains how teachers perceive such forms of grammar teaching, which is of particular importance for curriculum development. The present study investigated Dutch teachers’ beliefs in focus groups and a national survey (N = 127). It is found that Dutch language teachers see important benefits of a metaconceptual approach to grammar teaching, particularly as a means to improve students’ grammatical understanding. However, results also indicate that while teachers may see clear pedagogical and conceptual advantages of working based on underlying metaconcepts, their own teaching practice appears to be much more traditional. This discrepancy is explained by assuming that contextual factors have a restraining effect on what teachers can or want to do in reality. Once such contextual factors no longer play a part, teachers’ views tend to be much more geared towards a metaconceptual approach. The paper concludes with some implications for future research.
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Primary school teachers can enhance their teaching and provide inclusive education by using their students' cultural knowledge. Cultural knowledge, however, is a broad term and is often used as an abstract concept. To make this more concrete, we identified, organized, and categorized the concept of cultural knowledge through a scoping review. A literature search was conducted in five databases, and we included 84 studies. We identified twelve domains related to the students themselves, their families, and their communities. For example, students' ethnic background, families' home characteristics, and cultural identity. By concretizing the domains, schools and teachers can delve into the cultural knowledge of students and enrich their teaching in multicultural settings. Additionally, this research contributes to a conceptual understanding of cultural knowledge, providing a foundation for further research and practical application in educational settings to improve teaching strategies in multicultural settings.
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Earlier research argues that educational programmes based on social cognitive theory are successful in improving students’ self-efficacy. Focusing on some formative assessment characteristics, this qualitative research intends to study in-depth how student teachers’ assessment experiences contribute to their self-efficacy. We interviewed 15 second year student teachers enrolled in a competence based teacher educational programme. Thematic content analysis results reveal that the assessment characteristics ‘authenticity’ and ‘feedback’ exert a positive influence on student teachers self-efficacy during all phases of the portfolio competence assessment. The results provide a fine-grained view of several types of self-efficacy information connected with these assessment phases.
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