It was an honour to be key note speaker at the conference on the innovation of higher agricultural education at the Universidad Nacional Agraria La Molina in Lima, Peru, together with highly esteemed Prof em Erik de Corte. He was speaking today about his theory about the improvement of adaptation competence of students in higher education. In his opinion, amongst other things, self-regulated learning is extremely important in the development of adaptation competence. I have been speaking yesterday about competence needs for higher agricultural education.

Continue reading Key note speakers Erik de Corte and Martin Mulder at conference on HAE in Lima

On October 8 Vitaliy Popov defended his doctoral dissertation successfully. As a result of this, he received the Doctorate diploma of Wageningen University. The dissertation was qualified as very good.

Continue reading Vitaliy Popov receives his Doctorate diploma

The dissertation of Vitaliy Popov, ‘Scripting Intercultrural Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning in Higher Education’, is now online. See: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1096751613000298

On October 8, 2013, at 16:00 hours, Vitaliy Popov will defend his dissertation in the auditorium (Aula) of Wageningen University, Generaal Foulkesweg 1, 6703 BG Wageningen. Co-promotors of this dissertation are Dr. Harm J.A. Biemans from ECS and Prof. Andrei N. Kuznetsov from Russia. Opponents are: Prof. T. van Boekel, Prof. A. Weinberger, Prof. M. Valcke, and Prof. J.P.L.M. van Oudenhoven, who (since he had to apologize for absence) for the defence will be replaced by Dr. J.G.M. Jacobs.The topic of the dissertation is intercultural learning within higher education. Continue reading Intercultural learning in higher education

Stoas Vilentum opened it’s new three-story round green teacher education building, next to the campus of Wageningen University. It will give ample opportunities to enhance cooperation between the university and the teacher education college. Continue reading Ecological intelligence

The ECER conference in Istanbul was succesfully completed. The VETNET strand within EERA had a strong programme again, with interesting sessions, meetings and symposia. A new board was chosen, partly with the same persons, but also with new colleagues. all board members have assumed tasks. This will make the board more robust and will contribute to the further development of the network. The editors of the new eBook on Educational Design Research, Tjeerd Plomp and Nienke Nieveen, launched their enormous work, which is published online by the SLO, directed by Jan van den Akker. The chapters are for free, including the one David Kintu and I contributed on the validation of design rules of competence-based curriculum development. See http://international.slo.nl/publications/edr/contents/c41/ Continue reading ECER 2013 in Istanbul succesfully completed

The 21st bi-annual European Seminar on Extension Education (ESEE) in Antalya, Turkey, is successfully completed. Chaired by Prof. Orhan Özçatalbaş, around 50 papers were presented from just under 20 different countries from 4 continents. I have had the opportunity to present a paper on competence development in cooperatives and learned that cooperative organizations are very differently perceived in different regions around the world. We studied large cooperative organizations in a Western market-driven economy in which independent entrepreneurship is a key assett. Various members of the Editorial Board of the Journal of Agricultural Education (JAEE) were present at a board meeting, and I could present the journal at a plenary session of the conference. At the end of the conference it was decided that the 22nd edition of the ESEE will be held in Wageningen, on the same dates as the conference of the Association of International Agricultural Extension and Education, from April 28 to May 1st, 2015. More about this conference will be published in the JAEE and on the website of the journal.

Continue reading European Seminar on Extension Education in Antalya, Turkey, successfully completed

Cooperatives have unique features which enable competence development. A first concise explorative study shows that cooperatives have various facilities for competence development of members, board members and employees. The paper on this issue will be presented at the ESEE seminar (http://esee1973.org/) and the ECER conference, both in September in Turkey (http://www.eera-ecer.de/ecer2013/).

Torrence E. Sparkman is the winner of the Best Dissertation Award of the Special Interest Group (SIG) Workplace Learning  (WPL) of the American Educational Research Assocation (AERA). The title of his disseration is: Understanding the Leadership Development Experiences of Executive Church Denomination Leaders: A Phenomenological Approach. Dr Sparkman received his PhD from the Graduate College of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2012. His Doctoral Committee consisted of Professor K. Peter Kuchinke, Chair, Associate Professor Russell F. Korte, Associate Professor Assata Zerai and Professor David D. Daniels III. These findings of the research ‘…suggest that leadership development experiences for executive church leaders should include ministry venture creation, the use of relevant and real cases, and mentoring relationships’.

 

 

The AERA SIG Workplace Learning will have a Panel discussion with industry representatives in Philadelphia. This is the first time that this Special Interest Group organises an event outside the conference location as an off-site session.

Panel Discussion Participants:
Joseph P. Welsh, Esq. CEO of the Collegiate Consortium for Workforce and Economic Development (Moderator for the Panel)

Mike Giantomaso, Senior VP of Human Resources for Aker Philadelphia Shipbuilding

Dan Rhoads, President & CEO at Rhoads Industries

Jerry Parker, President of Delaware County Community College

Steve Hart, Assistant Vice President, Human Resources, Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia

Katherine Rondeau-Fiore, Organizational Learning & Development Professional, Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia

Martin Mulder, Professor and Head of the Chair Group of Education and Competence Studies at Wageningen University, the Netherlands (AERA Workplace Learning SIG)

Susanne Weber, Professor, Institute for Human Resource Education, University of Munich, Germany (AERA Workplace Learning SIG)

James Bartlett, Associate Professor, Workforce and Human Resource Education, North Carolina State University (AERA Workplace Learning SIG)