Blended learning offers a learner-centred approach that employs both in-class learning and digital technology to facilitate online learning. Such an approach is especially advantageous to adult-learners in higher education as it meets their educational needs. However, adult-learners’ participation in blended learning programmes remains challenging due to a general lack of online interaction, and no clear teaching strategies that address this concern. Literature relating to adult-learners’ educational needs and online interaction was consulted in order to design teaching strategies that foster adult-learners’ online interaction. The aim of this study is to further validate these teaching strategies, hence a multiple case study was carried out using a mixed method approach. As such, eight teachers and sixteen students from four courses across three universities in Belgium and the Netherlands were interviewed. Additionally, a questionnaire testing a pre-defined set of variables was distributed to 84 students. The results lead to a set of validated teaching strategies that help teachers to further develop their professional skills and expertise. The teaching strategies can be grouped into three categories, namely 1) the teacher's online presence, 2) collaborative learning activities and preparatory learning activities, and 3) the distribution of learning content and learning activities across online and in-class learning. An elaborate set of validated teaching strategies is included. This study aids towards teacher professional development and adds evidence-based knowledge to teaching strategies and instructional frameworks for adult-learners in higher education.
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Veel scholen in het Nederlandse voorbereidend middelbaar beroepsonderwijs (vmbo) hebben de laatste jaren initiatieven genomen om vormen van competentiegericht onderwijs in te voeren. Drie aspecten van het leren van leerlingen in competentiegericht onderwijs lijken van bijzonder belang te zijn, namelijk doeloriëntaties, informatieverwerkingsstrategieën en leerresultaten. In dit proefschrift worden de relaties beschreven en verkend tussen de leerprocessen van leerlingen - in termen van doeloriëntaties, informatieverwerkingsstrategieën en kennisontwikkeling - en de mate waarin kenmerken van competentiegericht onderwijs geïmplementeerd zijn op vmbo-scholen. De centrale vraagstelling was: Wat zijn de relaties tussen de doeloriëntaties, informatieverwerkingsstrategieën en kennisontwikkeling van leerlingen in competentiegericht vmbo?
Ethnographic fieldwork is a balancing act between distancing and immersing. Fieldworkers need to come close to meaningfully grasp the sense-making efforts of the researched. In methodological textbooks on ethnography, immersion tends to be emphasized at the expense of its counterpart. In fact, ‘distancing’ is often ignored as a central tenet of good ethnographic conduct. In this article we redirect attention away from familiarization and towards ‘defamiliarization’ by suggesting six estrangement strategies (three theoretical and three methodological) that allow the researcher to develop a more detached viewpoint from which to interpret data. We demonstrate the workings of these strategies by giving illustrations from Machteld de Jong’s field- and text-work, conducted among Moroccan-Dutch students in an institution of higher vocational education.
