Martin Mulder

On April 3, 9:00-10:00hrs Jifke Soll will present the results of a three year programme on Biodiversity. She will also elaborate the research methodology. Special attention will be given to the role of reflexive monitoring as a way of learning in transition experiments. The foundation ‘Echte Welvaart’ will present a special game they developed on the basis of the programme and the research. The presentation will be in Dutch. It will take place in the Leeuwenborch, Hollandseweg 1, Wageningen, room  V72.

On March 28 and 29 I discussed the concept of competence with Jonathan Winterton (in Toulouse) in the perspective of composing a book together with invited chapters. Jonathan shared his recent article ‘Competence in European Policy Instruments: A Moving Target for Developing a National Qualifications Framework?’ in the Journal of Contemporary Educational Studies (5/2011, p. 72ff.). That is an interesting piece of work that meticulously analyses the development of the concept of competence in the European VET and HE debates and instrument creation for raising opportunities for mobility and related qualification comparison. The article shows in an excellent way the many inconsistencies and unclarities in the way European policymakers have defined and used the concept of competence, making it thus practically impossible to say anything consistent over the last decade in the direction of practice. It is therefore not a miracle that EU member states  have difficulties in developing or matching their national qualification framework with the EQF which is meant to be the EU reference model for all national qualification frameworks in the EU. A lot of intelligence is needed to reach more convergence in the common understanding of the central concepts used in the European VET and HE policy development agenda.

Today a small group of representatives of HRM departments in vocational and professional colleges and staff of ECS have discusses various issues in HRM and professional development of teaching staff.  Competence and performance based management, results and development assessments, control and commitment models, regional learning roles and competencies of mid-career teaching staff, and team approaches in education and learning suppport were discussed in a lively manner. This was truly an interactive session, which took from 13:15-17:15hrs, which went by like a minute. I am sure ECS staff learned as much as our guests. The atmosphere was so positive that is has been decided to have a similar meeting again in the Fall of 2012. In that meeting the overall results of the ProDo-project (on professional development of teachers in green education) and the AOC-Council project ‘Proud of our teacher’ will be presented at large. This may well be a crowded meeting.

Just published: Popov, V., D. Brinkman, H.J.A. Biemans, M. Mulder, A. Kuznetsov, O. Noroozi (2012). Multicultural student group work in higher education. An explorative case study on challenges as perceived by students. International Journal of Intercultural Relations, 36, p.p. 302– 317 .

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