Many students in secondary schools consider the sciences difficult and unattractive. This applies to physics in particular, a subject in which students attempt to learn and understand numerous theoretical concepts, often without much success. A case in point is the understanding of the concepts current, voltage and resistance in simple electric circuits. In response to these problems, reform initiatives in education strive for a change of the classroom culture, putting emphasis on more authentic contexts and student activities containing elements of inquiry. The challenge then becomes choosing and combining these elements in such a manner that they foster an understanding of theoretical concepts. In this article we reflect on data collected and analyzed from a series of 12 grade 9 physics lessons on simple electric circuits. Drawing from a theoretical framework based on individual (conceptual change based) and socio-cultural views on learning, instruction was designed addressing known conceptual problems and attempting to create a physics (research) culture in the classroom. As the success of the lessons was limited, the focus of the study became to understand which inherent characteristics of inquiry based instruction complicate the process of constructing conceptual understanding. From the analysis of the data collected during the enactment of the lessons three tensions emerged: the tension between open inquiry and student guidance, the tension between students developing their own ideas and getting to know accepted scientific theories, and the tension between fostering scientific interest as part of a scientific research culture and the task oriented school culture. An outlook will be given on the implications for science lessons.
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Universities have the potential, and the responsibility, to take on more ecological and relational approaches to facilitating learning-based change in times of interconnected socioecological crises. Signs for a transition towards these more regenerative approaches of higher education (RHE) that include more place-based, ecological, and relational, ways of educating can already be found in niches across Europe (see for example the proliferation of education-based living labs, field labs, challenge labs). In this paper, the results of a podcast-based inquiry into the design practises and barriers to enacting such forms of RHE are shown. This study revealed seven educational practises that occurred across the innovation niches. It is important to note that these practises are enacted in different ways, or are locally nested in unique expressions; for example, while the ‘practise’ of cultivating personal transformations was represented across the included cases, the way these transformations were cultivated were unique expressions of each context. These RHE-design practises are derived from twenty-seven narrative-based podcasts as interviews recorded in the April through June 2021 period. The resulting podcast (The Regenerative Education Podcast) was published on all major streaming platforms in October 2021 and included 21 participants active in Dutch universities, 1 in Sweden, 1 in Germany, 1 in France, and 3 primarily online. Each episode engages with a leading practitioner, professor, teacher, and/or activist that is trying to connect their educational practice to making the world a more equitable, sustainable, and regenerative place. The episodes ranged from 30 to 70 min in total length and included both English (14) and Dutch (12) interviews. These episodes were analysed through transition mapping a method based on story analysis and transition design. The results include seven design practises such as cultivating personal transformations, nurturing ecosystems of support, and tackling relevant and urgent transition challenges, as well as a preliminary design tool that educational teams can use together with students and local agents in (re)designing their own RHE to connect their educational praxis with transition challenges. van den Berg B, Poldner K, Sjoer E, Wals A. Practises, Drivers and Barriers of an Emerging Regenerative Higher Education in The Netherlands—A Podcast-Based Inquiry. Sustainability. 2022; 14(15):9138. https://doi.org/10.3390/su14159138
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When students explore their own open questions, they learnto be proactive and see themselves not only as consumersbut also as producers of knowledge. Such student-framed inquiryhas received less research attention. This article aimsto shed light on learning outcomes and effects on students’mind-set and behavior by discussing a course that fostersstudent-framed inquiry. The one-semester, elective coursewas open to third- and fourth-year students of various bachelor’s-level programs. A questionnaire was sent to alumni after11 iterations of the course. The results showed that thecourse fostered the development of skills in innovation, networking,and cross-boundary collaboration and learning, aswell as enhanced personal and professional development.Students became more proactive, less afraid to contact peopleand take steps to make things happen. The results suggestthat courses for inquiry-based learning should include notonly more traditional, discipline-oriented research skills andmethods but also student-framed methods for design anddiscovery.
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In order to be able to integrate ICT into Inquiry Based Science Education (IBSE), teachers need much time and support for mastering ICT tools, learning the basis of IBSE, and getting experience in applying these tools in pupil investigations. For this purpose, we have developed a course within the teacher education program of universities in the Netherlands. During the course, pre-service teachers learn to use and apply one of three ICT tools i.e. data logging, video measurement, or modeling to design and implement an inquiry-based lesson in the classroom. The course participants are expected to study on their own most of the time through a blended setting including life sessions, in-between tasks, and an online platform with support materials and with close supervision. The challenges are the lack of time and the heterogeneous background of pre-service teachers, many of whom opted for teaching later in life, not immediately after university and already hold first year teaching jobs. This paper presents the first case study on implementation of the course in early 2013 with 12 pre-service teachers. The learning scenario was implemented quite faithfully as the life sessions were executed pretty smoothly, and finally, almost all participants went through a complete cycle of designing, implementing, and evaluating an ICT-IBSE lesson. Within a limited time, the heterogeneous group of pre-service teachers achieved a reasonable level of competence regarding the use of ICT in IBSE. There was still a considerable difference between intended inquiry activities and actual realized inquiry which parallels result from the literature [1], [8]. The blended setting with support materials contributes to this result if course participants really spend considerable time outside the life sessions. Also discussed in this paper are revision for further rounds of development based on case studies in the Netherlands and investigation on applicability of the course setting and materials in different contexts e.g. in-service training, other countries.
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Learning by Design (LBD) is a project-based inquiry approach for interdisciplinary teaching that uses design contexts to learn skills and conceptual knowledge. Research around the year 2000 showed that LBD students achieved high skill performances but disappointing conceptual learning gains. A series of exploratory studies, previous to the study in this paper, indicated how to enhance concept learning. Small-scale tested modifications, based on explicit teaching and scaffolding, were promising and revealed improved conceptual learning gains. The pretest-posttest design study discussed in this paper confirms this improvement quantitatively by comparing the conceptual learning gains for students exposed to the modified approach (n = 110) and traditional approach (n = 77). Further modifications, which resulted in a remodified approach tested with 127 students, show a further improvement through reduced fragmentation of the task and addressed science. Overall, the remodified approach (FITS model: Focus - Investigation - Technological design - Synergy) enriches technology education by stimulating an empirical and conceptual way of creating design solutions.
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To adequately deal with the challenges faced within residential care for older people, such as the increasing complexity of care and a call for more person-centred practices, it is important that health care providers learn from their work. This study investigates both the nature of learning, among staff and students working within care for older people, and how workplace learning can be promoted and researched. During a longitudinal study within a nursing home, participatory and democratic research methods were used to collaborate with stakeholders to improve the quality of care and to promote learning in the workplace. The rich descriptions of these processes show that workplace learning is a complex phenomenon. It arises continuously in reciprocal relationship with all those present through which both individuals and environment change and co-evolve enabling enlargement of the space for possible action. This complexity perspective on learning refines and expands conventional beliefs about workplace learning and has implications for advancing and researching learning. It explains that research on workplace learning is itself a form of learning that is aimed at promoting and accelerating learning. Such research requires dialogic and creative methods. This study illustrates that workplace learning has the potential to develop new shared values and ways of working, but that such processes and outcomes are difficult to control. It offers inspiration for educators, supervisors, managers and researchers as to promoting conditions that embrace complexity and provides insight into the role and position of self in such processes.
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This article reports on a literature review on empirical research investigating learning for vocations in the context of vocational education. We included 36 studies in which learning for vocations is empirically studied. Learning for vocations is characterised based upon prevalent research traditions in the field and framed from the perspective of vocational education and organised learning practices. This framing and characterisation directed the search terms for the review. Results show empirical data on vocational learning and illustrate how learning processes for the functions of vocational education - vocational identity development, development of a vocational repertoire of actions, and vocational knowledge development - actually take place. The review further shows that, empirical illustrations of learning processes that occur in the context of vocational education and organised learning practices are relatively scarce. The findings can be typified in relation to our theoretical framework in terms of three learning processes, that is learning as a process of (a) belonging, becoming, and being, (b) recontextualization, and (c) negotiation of meaning and sense-making. We argue that more empirical research should be carried out, using the functions of vocational education and the three learning processes to better understand vocational learning.
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Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to focus on the effects of career development and guidance among students (age 17-23) enrolled in higher education in The Netherlands. First the paper explores whether the development of career competencies contribute to career identity, learning motivation, certainty of career choice and drop out, and also whether the learning environment affects these variables. In the study, four career competencies are identified: career reflection (reflective behavior), work exploration (exploring behavior), career action (pro-active behavior) and networking (interactive behavior). Aspects of the learning environment that are taken into account are practice- and inquiry-based curriculum and career guidance conversations. Design/methodology/approach: A questionnaire-based study was carried out among 4,820 students and 371 (school) career counsellors in 11 universities. Findings: The results show that career competencies are related to learning motivation, career identity, certainty of career choice and drop out threat. The learning environment also contributes to these outcome variables. Students who participate in a practice-based and inquiry-based curriculum, and who have helping conversations about their study with their teachers, feel more motivated for learning, are more certain of their career choice and are less likely to quit their study. Research limitations/implications: A limitation of this study is that, due to the cross-sectional design with no control group, no strong evidence for effectiveness can be presented. Moreover, the lack of well validated instruments limits the value of the results. The explained variance of the outcome variables, however, does indicate that there are relationships between career competencies and career learning environment on one hand, and career identity, learning motivation and certainty of choices on the other. Practical implications: Constructing and attributing meaning when engaging in these dialogues is of central importance; the development of personality traits and qualities only takes place when those learning find the content meaningful (and that is something quite different than content being considered “necessary”). In order to achieve such a learning environment within the dominant educational culture, transformative leadership is essential. Such leadership, however, is rare in Dutch universities of applied sciences until now. Social implications: Universities are increasingly acknowledging that they have a strong responsibility to guide students not only in their academic growth, but also in their career development. Universities – and especially universities of applied sciences – cannot leave this task to the public or private sector for two key reasons. First, universities are funded by the government and are therefore expected to prepare their students adequately for life in our individualized society as well as for the labor market. In the second place because organizations in the private and public sector often lack the knowledge and the motivation to guide young people on their career paths. Originality/value: A limitation found in the research, as well as in actual career interventions in schools, is that they focus on change in students’ knowledge, attitudes and decision-making skills, while students’ behaviors are not examined. Hughes and Karp (2004) maintain that research should focus on exploring the relationships between guidance interventions and positive students’ behavioral outcomes. Therefore, the paper concentrates – in search of the influence of school-based career interventions – not on decision-making skills, attitudes or knowledge but on actual career behavior, i.e. career competencies of students.
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An on-going investigation in the learning effects of IPD projects. In three subsequent semesters the students were asked how they rated their competencies at the start of the project as well as at the end of it. Also questionnaires were filled out and students were interviewed. A lot of students tended to give themselves lower ratings in the end than in the begin. It appeared that if they met any difficulties in for instance communication or co-operation during the project, that they interpreted this as a decrease in competencies. Finally the students were explicitly asked to mention an eventual increase in competencies and also a possible contribution for this effect. Only a few factors that actually contribute to the learning effects have been defined.
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Het hoofddoel van deze studie is het verkrijgen van inzicht in welke factoren van het honoursonderwijs een meerwaarde opleveren voor het leren van studenten in honoursprogramma’s. Deze studie draagt hiermee bij aan kennis over de relatie tussen excellentiebevorderend onderwijs enerzijds en leergedrag en motivatie van studenten anderzijds. De praktische relevantie van deze studie ligt in het ontwikkelen van kennis voor het opzetten en verbeteren van talentgericht doceren, ter bevordering van het professionaliseren van docenten. In deze studie wordt bestudeerd wat volgens docenten de meerwaarde voor studenten is van honoursonderwijs. In deze exploratieve kwalitatieve interviewstudie werden twaalf docenten in drie verschillende honoursprogramma’s voor talentvolle bachelorstudenten bevraagd over hun opvattingen. De meerwaarde van hethonoursonderwijs voor studenten wordt volgens de docenten gekenmerkt door: (1) studentgerichtheid; (2) gebruik van andersoortige onderwijsvormen; (3) nadruk op ‘inquiry-based’ strategieën; (4) gerichtheid op kritisch en creatief denken; (5) hoge verwachtingen en ambitieuze doelen; en (6) kleinschaligheid en interdisciplinair karakter. Deze resultaten worden besproken en geïllustreerd met interviewfragmenten. Tevens worden de resultaten gerelateerd aan professionalisering voor docenten in honoursprogramma’s in het hoger onderwijs.
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