The keynote address Competence-based Vocational and Professional Education: A Global Overview, given at the International VET Conference on Crossing Boundaries in Vocational Education and Training: Innovative Concepts for the 21st Century, at Bremen, September 2, is uploaded on the page Downloadable papers of this website. Enjoy.

Dear website visitor. Welcome back after, I hope, a beautiful Summer for you. This Academic year begins with a lot of good news for ECS. First I would like to share that the paper of Elsbeth Spelt on interdisciplinary learning is published in the European Journal of Engineering Education. The full reference to the publication is:

Spelt, E.J.H., P.A. Luning, M.A.J.S. van Boekel, and M. Mulder (2015). Constructively aligned teaching in higher education in engineering: what do students perceive as contributing to the learning of interdisciplinary thinking? European Journal of Engineering Education 40(5), 459-475.

Access the article via: http://www.tandfonline.com/action/doSearch?quickLinkJournal=&journalText=&AllField=spelt&=Search&publication=40000158

I wish you a very good start of the Academic year 2015-2016.

Dear visitor; the first half year of this year the amount of hits of this website breaks all records: until today (July 1, 2015) the website has 380,000 hits. Thanks, visitors, for your interest. Have a good Summer!

Elsbeth Spelt will defend her doctoral thesis publicly on October 26, 11:00am in the Aula of Wageningen University. The theme of the dissertation is teaching and learning of interdisciplinary thinking in higher education in engineering. The study was conducted within Wageningen University and based on the design, implementation and analysis of a multidisciplinary course in Food Quality Management.

A bit later than planned, here are the pictures taken during the excursion to the Flora Holland Flower Auction, during the AIAEE-ESEE 2015 conference. Enjoy!

Continue reading AIAEE-ESEE 2015 Flora Holland excursion

Research of Yvette Baggen et al showed that the field of cognitive research contributes to the field of entrepreneurship research; it provides a deeper understanding of the initial steps of the entrepreneurial process. More specifically, it is argued that those who excel in opportunity identification, share core characteristics with high-level complex problem solvers.

The results will be published in Baggen, Y., Mainert, J., Lans, T., Biemans, H. J. A., Greiff, S., & Mulder, M. (in press). Linking complex problem solving to opportunity identification competence within the context of entrepreneurship. International Journal of Lifelong Education. Doi: 10.1080/02601370.2015.1060029. (special issue: Problem solving – facilitating the utilization of a concept towards lifelong education).

Interested in fostering argumentation competence via online group learning? See the publication of Omid Noroozi et al, entitled: ‘ Facilitating argumentative knowledge construction through a transactive discussion script in CSCL’. The results of this study showed that transactive discussion scripts facilitate argumentative knowledge construction. Furthermore, learners assigned to the scripted condition acquired significantly more domain-specific and domain-general knowledge on argumentation than learners assigned to the unscripted condition. Source: Noroozi, O., Weinberger, A., Biemans, H.J.A., Mulder, M., & Chizari, M. (2013). Facilitating argumentative knowledge construction through a transactive discussion script in CSCL. Computers and Education, 61(2), 59-76.

The research on strategies for self-regulated learning in hands-on simulations is published online. Full reference: Khaled, A., J. Gulikers, H.J.A. Biemans & M. Mulder (2015). Occurrences and quality of teacher and student strategies for self-regulated learning in hands-on simulations, Studies in Continuing Education, DOI: 10.1080/0158037X.2015.1040751

This week the site visit of the peer review committee of Graduate School WASS took place. Last Wednesday the committee shared its impressions, first results and tentative conclusions. The results regarding the whole Graduate School seem to be quite promising. Continue reading Peer review Graduate School WASS completed

Jurian Meijering won the prestigious ‘Most Promising WASS publication’ Award of Graduate School WASS this year. Congratulations! The full reference to the article is: Meijering, J.V., K. Kern and H. Tobi (2014). Identifying the methodological characteristics of European green city rankings. Ecological Indicators (43), 8, pp. 132–142. DOI: 10.1016/j.ecolind.2014.02.026