33 research outputs found
Professional development in practice:exploring how lesson study unfolds in schools through the lens of organizational routines
Full text linkAlthough lesson study is increasingly adopted in the Netherlands, it remains difficult for schools to implement and maintain the initiative. How can you organize lesson study successfully in your own high school? In this dissertation, this question is explored through the concept of organizational routines. As a first step, we reviewed the use of concept of organizational routines to examine educational initiatives in practice. Insights from this review study are used to see if and how schools implement and perform lesson study. Firstly, we focused on how teachers’ understanding of lesson study connects to their performance and evaluation of the initiative. Second, we looked at how schools (successfully) set-up organizational tasks and processes to organize lesson study, such as scheduling, recruiting participants, and giving credit for teachers’ time-investment. Lastly, we directed our attention to which school factors promote or inhibit implementing lesson study. Factors such as part-timers, turnover, scheduling, school improvement policy, and scheduling were reported to be very influential. This dissertation shows that the ‘organizational space’ schools have to organize lesson study varies and it provides leads for schools how they can increase that space
Preparing the Dutch Educational System for the 21st Century
No full textEducational reforms in the Netherlands have a strong ideological nature. The main reason is that the quality of the educational system is generally high. Due to the ideological nature of educational reforms, teachers and schools are often not involved in the design of the reforms, which constitutes the central cause of reforms failing. The current reform regarding preparing the Dutch educational system for the 21st century also has ideological features, although attempts were made to involve teachers and schools to a large extent, making it more promising to succeed
The hullabaloo of schooling: the influence of school factors on the (dis)continuation of lesson study
Full text linkThis study examines which school factors schools report influence their (dis)continuation of lesson study, a professional development initiative, and how after a four-year, cross-school lesson study project ends. To examine this, the framework on three types of school factors (features of employment, malleable school processes and fixed school characteristics) and the concept of organisational routines are used. Semistructured interviews were held with 21 teachers and 15 school leaders from the 14 schools who participated in the project. Findings show schools reported nine school factors that influenced their (dis)continuation of lesson study after the project: five features of employment (part-time appointment, turnover, (un)planned leave of absence, work location and beginning teachers), three malleable processes (policies on improvement, scheduling and school finances), and one fixed school characteristic (school size). School factors were reported to constrain schools from making lesson study a repeated practice in the school, performing its core features, and ensuring collective attendance. Two narrative portraits revealed that the simultaneous occurrence of school factors made continuing with lesson study especially complex and limited schools’ ability to move beyond shortened and simplified initiatives to more rich and meaningful professional development
Unembanked Areas: A risk assessment approach
No full textAreas outside the primary flood defenses, here called unembanked areas have a special status in the Dutch water safety policy. Whereas, primary flood defenses have to fulfill to legal standards and a functional manager is appointed for construction, maintenance and management. For unembanked areas this situation is different; some provinces have water safety policy and according to the national water plan residents and users are responsible for taking consequence reducing measures of floods. For the development of new areas decisions have to be made about the desired level of safety and how this is achieved. This leads to the issue of optimal adaptation strategies. What is the best level of safety so that unnecessary high risk levels and overinvestment in safety related infrastructure can be circumvented? This study presents a framework for municipalities and property developers how to deal with flood risk in unembanked areas. 952 developments are planned in unembanked areas of which 183 comprise urban dwelling projects. This thesis especially focuses on these urban dwelling projects where flood events can be regarded as a local, regional and direct tangible risk. The following research question is answered: How can we deal with the uncertainties of flood risk in investment decisions in the development of unembanked areas? 1. What is the current policy of building in unembanked areas and what are the responsibilities of the government? 2. Which strategies can be formulated to create the desired level of safety and how should they be compared? 3. How can a multi-layer safety approach contribute to the safety of the project area? 4. How do area specific characteristics influence the cost effectiveness of the measure? 5. How to deal with the residual risk? A multi-layer safety approach assumes three layers in flood control: 1. Prevention: characterized by structural measures which influence the boundary conditions of the project area. Surface level heightening and the construction of an embankment are discussed 2. Spatial planning, characterized by structural measures which influence the exposure and vulnerability. Wet proofing, dry proofing and an elevated configuration are discussed. 3. Disaster control, characterized by non-structural measures which influence the exposure and vulnerability. Organizational aspects and financial compensation are discussed. It was founded that the urban dwelling density of a project area determines the profitability between individual consequence reducing measures (layer 2 of the MLS approach) and collective probability reducing measures (layer 1). The profitability of collective measures grow linear and transcend individual measures at 24 dwellings/ha. An elevated configuration is preferred above wet and dry proofing. Considering the construction of an embankment it was founded that the profitability grows according to a power function and transcends surface level heightening at 35 ha. All proposed urban dwelling plans in unembanked areas are analyzed on these criteria and it was founded that for 23% of the plans individual measures are preferred above collective measures. 62% of these plans are located in areas where the province has no flood probability standards and therefore consequence reducing measures have a good chance. The other 38% of the plans are located in provinces with flood profitability standards and the profitability of extra consequence reducing measures is dependent on this standard. For the remaining 77% of the areas a probability reducing approach is preferred; of which for 6% the construction of an embankment is preferred and for the other a surface level heightening strategy is preferred. All criteria of insurability (grouped in actuarial, market-determined and societal) are analyzed for a flood damage insurance for unembanked areas. Due to the physical aspects and policy of unembanked areas the formulated criteria of insurability score better for unembanked areas. The actual realization will depend on the market determined criteria. This approach has been tested for a redevelopment project in Rotterdam, Heijplaat, where it was founded that surface level heightening is the only profitable measure.Water ResourcesWatermanagementCivil Engineering and Geoscience
Electiciteitsvoorziening en energie-opslag
No full textDe aanleiding is het rapport Windenergie en Waterkracht, later bekend als plan Lievense, en het vooronderzoek naar Pompaccumulatie in Nederland. Om deze reden is besloten de energie-opslag mogelijkheden te onderzoeken.Hydraulic EngineeringCivil Engineering and Geoscience
Between lethal and local adaptation:Lesson study as an organizational routine
Full text linkProfessional development practices remain at the forefront of ways to support teacher learning but are difficult to sustain. We investigate whether and how teachers continued to perform the professional development practice of lesson study in their own schools after participating in a cross-school Lesson Study Professional Learning Network for four years. We found different perceptions of the general idea of lesson study. If the general idea was modified, teachers rarely continued to perform lesson study; if they did, they transformed lesson study in such a way that core elements were removed. When teachers maintained the general idea of lesson study they were more likely to continue to perform lesson study in their own school and to consider the practice useful.<br/
The Concept of Organizational Routines and Its Potential for Investigating Educational Initiatives in Practice: A Systematic Review of the Literature
Full text linkThis review examines the concept of organizational routines and its potential for investigating educational initiatives in practice. The studies in our review revealed three different approaches to routines: (1) examining organizational routines as entities, (2) (also) examining conversational routines, and (3) examining the internal structure of organizational routines. Current definitions, operationalizations, and examinations can lack clarity and validity. At present, the concept of organizational routines not only holds potential but is also ambiguous. To bolster the potential of the concept, two working definitions of organizational routines are formalized that best allow researchers to investigate initiatives in practice. These working definitions are needed to create clarity regarding the concept and for it to be able to deliver on its promise for providing meaningful and relevant information on how new initiatives actually work and unfold in practice
A curriculum in transition: TL/L1 use in Dutch EFL literature lessons
Full text linkFL literature lessons in Dutch secondary education present a potential dilemma for teachers in terms of language use. On the one hand teachers are encouraged to support target language (TL) input and output to promote foreign language (FL) learning. On the other hand, the curricular culture in the Netherlands has historically stipulated that FL literature teaching should take place in the first language (L1). Furthermore, studies on TL/L1 use in FL lessons suggest teachers and students turn to L1 when discussing complex content such as a passages from a literary texts. As such, it is unknown what is currently happening regarding TL/L1 use during FL literature lessons in the Netherlands. Therefore, this descriptive study investigates how much and during which classroom activities TL/L1 were used in English as a foreign language (EFL) literature classrooms. Twenty-four lessons (four for each of six teachers) were video-recorded and TL/L1 use analysed. Results show that although students used mostly L1, teachers predominantly used TL, revealing them to be actively providing a language focus in EFL literature lessons. TL/L1 use by teachers and students differed between classrooms and individual lessons; TL/L1 choice was generally not determined by classroom activities but by teacher consistency and encouragement
