During the last decades competence has become very popular in education. Much of it had to do with the preparation of student for occupations and professions, or the labour market and society in general. Parallel to that, organisations, including Wageningen UR, introduced competence-management systems. International education development organisations also jumped on the bandwagon, and are exporting competence-based education models, leading to phrases like ‘we implement competence-based’, as shorthand for using principles of competence-based vocational or professional education. Even at university level, variations of competence-based education are being introduced.

Continue reading Competence and education

This week, Dr Carlos A. Gómez,  Professor Principal in the field of Zootechnology at the National Agricultural University La Molina in Lima, Peru, visited ECS. Ideas for cooperation in the field of agricultural education development were explored.

The manuscript “Inquiry-based science education competencies of primary school teachers:  A literature study and critical review of the American National Science Education Standards” of PhD-student Ester Alake-Tuenter is accepted for publication in the International Journal of Science Education.

Continue reading Manuscript of PhD-student Ester Alake-Tuenter accepted

The AERA 2012 SIG Workplace Learning newsletter and program is out (thanks Judith Brown). Welcome to the program, and hoping to seeing many of you. Continue reading AERA 2012 SIG Workplace Learning newsletter and program

As a result of the PhD project of Omid Noroozi, a new publication appeared in an edited volume on collaborative and distributed research in the field of e-learning. The full reference is: Noroozi, O., Biemans, H.J.A., Busstra, M.C., Mulder, M., Popov, V., & Chizari, M. (2012). Effects of the Drewlite CSCL platform on students’ learning outcomes. In: Juan, A., Daradoumis, T., Roca, M., Grasman, S. E., & Faulin, J.  (Eds.), Collaborative and Distributed E-Research: Innovations in Technologies, Strategies and Applications. Hershey: Information Science Reference (pp. 276-289). For more information check: http://www.igi-global.com/chapter/effects-drewlite-cscl-platform-students/63513

Met with Chris Garforth to speak about the meeting of the Tempus WBREN consortium in Ohrid next week. Hansje Eppink will represent ECS there

A Research Meeting will be organised by ECS on January 10, from 10:00-11:00hrs in the Leeuwenborch (Hollandseweg 1, Wageningen) in room C83. Invited speaker at this Meeting is Dr. Nicolet C.M. Theunissen. Nicolet is psychologist and Senior Research Scientist of the expertise group `Training & Performance Innovations’ at TNO. The question “How to help people to become the director of their own life”  is a recurring subject in her research work. For more information: www.ntheunissen.nl. The theme of her talk is Enduring Learning. Under the flag of `Enduring Learning’, TNO contributes to enduring and evidence-based improvements in learning. This ‘learning’ includes both formal and informal learning and as such takes place within the field of education and training as well as within companies and organizations. It is ‘enduring’, because people become self-directed, flexible and innovative learners who can and will keep on learning throughout their entire lifespan. Moreover, it is ‘enduring’ because the technology for on- and off-line learning is designed in such a way that reuse is promoted and new technological possibilities can be incorporated without starting from scratch. And it becomes ‘enduring’ by the transformation of organizations into learning organizations. These are organizations that facilitate the learning of all its members and continuously transform themselves. The approach of Nicolet is ‘evidence based’ because she believes that a scientific foundation helps to decide which improvements make a valuable contribution for a learner, an education organization, a company or institution or society as a whole. During the meeting a picture will be given of the TNO research line ‘Enduring Learning’. This meeting is open to all who are interested in this theme.

Dear visitor. A warm welcome! I am very glad that you are visiting my new Home Page. In September my University moved to Windows 7, and therefore I could not update my old website anymore. My printers even stopped working with me – gggrrrr – I had to buy new ones 🙁 So I needed to change the platform of the website. But that is done, and from now on I will post new items regularly 🙂 I am happy that the social media on which I am active are linked to this Home Page as well. Very (nearly) 2012!