UTAlumni NetworkNewsELAN successful in obtaining several new (NRO) grants

ELAN successful in obtaining several new (NRO) grants

ELAN obtained three new research grants in the last couple of months.  Kim Schildkamp, Cindy Poortman, Klaas van Veen (Rijksuniversiteit Groningen) en Siebrich de Vries (Rijksuniversiteit Groningen) received NRO funding for a four-year project entitled “the role of the school leader in sustainable educational improvement”.

PLCs

A short description of this project: A promising way of realizing educational improvement is through working in Professional Learning Communities (PLCs). However, it is a challenge for PLCs to realize sustainable improvement. School leaders play an important role in this matter. Therefore, this study is aimed at the role of leadership (formal and informal leadership) in realizing sustainable educational improvement through PLCs, and the competences needed in the school for this.

Lesson Study

Nellie Verhoef is involved in another four year NRO grant on lesson study entitled “professionalizing teachers with Lesson Study in the Dutch context”. This is also a joint project with the Rijksuniversiteit Groningen. A short description of this project: Lesson Study (LS) is a relatively new approach to professional development of teachers in primary, secondary, vocational, and higher education. In a LS, a team of teachers designs a ‘research lesson’ on the basis of an educational/learning problem, observes this lesson ’live’, and collects and analysis data collaboratively focused on to reveal and to improve student learning. LS can be described as a mixture between formal and informal learning. In this study, the focus is on if and how LS as a mixture of formal and informal learning can be validated and rewarded.

Coaching Starting Teachers

Jan van der Meij and Ingrid Breymann have received an 850,000 euro grant for a three-year extension of the “Coaching Starting Teachers” project (Begeleiding Startende Leraren, BSL). Part of the budget is spent on research into the effects of Lesson Study and videofeedback coaching on the professionalization of teachers in the first three years of their profession. For this research, a PhD student will be appointed for a period of four years.