This Work-in-Progress Innovate Practice Short Paper is concentrated around online teaching and learning and especially focused on the didactics in remote labs. In a remote lab, the lab equipment or instruments are geographically atanother place than the student (and/or lecturer) himself. Learning will take place through the internet. Insights from online teaching and learning help to define what is needed in the special case of teaching and learning in remote labs. Feedback and interaction remain key factors for effective learning. Typesof interaction in remote labs are: student-lecturer-, studentstudent-, student-content-, and student-interface interaction. These forms of interaction should be worked out when setting up a remote lab environment for students, taking onlineengagement into account. The purpose is to come with an overview of didactical methods for teaching- and learning in remote labs.
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The design and use of online materials for blended learning have been in the spotlight of educational development over the last decade. With respect to didactical courses, however, the potential of online and blended learning seems to be underexplored; little is known about its affordances for teacher education, and for domain specific didactical courses in particular. To investigate this potential, as well as the ways to organize the co-design of such learning units, we carried out a small and short-term research project in which teacher educators in the Netherlands engaged in a co-design process of developing and field-testing open online learning units for mathematics and science didactics. We focused on the features of the designed online learning units, on the organization of the co-design process, and on the experiences with the learning units in teacher education practice. A first conclusion was that it was most fruitful to design building blocks rather than ready-to-use courses, and that students should have play a role in the materials. With respect to the co-design process, intensive meetings of small design teams seemed an efficient approach. The experiences in the field tests revealed that the learning units were inspiring, but needed finalization, and educators needed time to prepare the incorporation in their existing educational practices. In the future, the resulting learning units will be maintained and extended, and are expected to contribute to a community of practice of mathematics and science educators.
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The research project In search of pedagogical sensitivity is executed from the research department of the knowledge circle renewing methods and didactics for teacher education and training of the Hogeschool Utrecht in the Netherlands under supervision of Hans Jansen (associated professor of the Hogeschool Utrecht - chair: renewing methods and didactics for teacher education and training) by Karel Mulderij, Renée van der Linde and Loes Houweling (all senior teachers and senior researchers of the Hogeschool Utrecht and members of the knowledge circle renewing methods and didactics for teacher education and training) with assistance of 25 students (teachers) studying in a three year Master course Ecological Pedagogy.
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Blended learning, a teaching format in which face-to-face and online learning is integrated, nowadays is an important development in education. Little is known, however, about its affordances for teacher education, and for domain specific didactical courses in particular. To investigate this topic, we carried out a design research project in which teacher educators engaged in a co-design process of developing and field-testing open online learning units for mathematics and science didactics. The preliminary results concern descriptions of the work processes by the design teams, of design heuristics, and of typical ways of collaborating. These findings are illustrated for the case of two of the designed online units on statistics didactics and mathematical thinking, respectively.
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This paper explores how a Bildung-making approach underpinned by embodied pedagogy and didactics can contribute to a learner becoming a person and a teacher’s development of artistry. We argue that the existing Cartesian divide between mind and body can explain the fundamental differences in how teachers and learners perceive Bildung within the Dutch educational system: either as an ‘academic’ phenomenon (for ‘the head’) or as vocational (for ‘the hand’). In this study, Dutch (pre)vocational teachers designed and co-created Bildung prototypes in professional learning communities (PLCs) and classrooms. The teachers used ‘real life’ questions from their teaching practices as their departure point to develop Bildung-making. The results of the study show that when Bildung education becomes an embodied maker’s process, it enables learners to transcend barriers to educational equity. Co-created enjoyment and social emotional learning come to the foreground during Bildung-making, thus fostering inclusive education.
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Covid-19 made us realize that educational practices in higher education must change AND can change. A possible solution for practicing lab work is working in a remote lab: a real lab in which students and the equipment/instruments are physically apart. The concept of printed touchless electronics was taken as the leading principle for students in the Department of Electrical Engineering of a university of applied sciences. They got the assignment to write a programming code, with which they could control a robot. This robot was supposed to draw, with conductive ink, a pattern, that could function as a printed (light) sensor. The robot was situated in the lab, the students uploaded their code from home. Via a live stream, the students could follow the movements of the robot and the pen. From a didactical perspective, the goal was to find out if the selected didactical methods: teamwork and feedback via an internet platform and working with consultation hours, had the estimated effect. An interdisciplinary team of three lecturers was composed to guide the students. Students thought that the consultation hours were very helpful. The online teamwork between the students did not work so well. In the future, students would like to have more opportunities for testing and working with the remote lab.
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I intend to do an action research on how I can improve educating teachers by means of training them in reflective skills through Socratic Dialogue. In order to be able to meet demands posed to student teachers by the recently introduced changes in higher professional education in the Netherlands and also the didactics of new learning introduced at junior vocational education, they need to develop into Self-Directed Learners. We should help them equip themselves with more than just the necessary reflective skills. We should induce and facilitate the birth of genuine need to reflect. They should leave this education able to make justified choices for learning in their professional careers. And they should leave with a genuine curiosity and interest in other ways of thinking than their own. Having realized the importance and value of an open dialogue they will become self-conscious thinkers and practitioners who know how to learn to look and wonder about what they see. In the present situation, the students are asked to reflect on all sorts of items and situations connected with their study career and their school practice. Various models are offered to them (Korthagen, Hendriksen) in the hope that by reflecting, they will learn how to reflect. And they certainly do, to a certain extent. But what this extent is and how long it will be perpetrated after they leave the school is less certain. But the genuine need to reflect remains untouched upon. This can be done by means of training in Socratic Dialogue and training in facilitating one.
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