44 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
Study of Protein Production, Folding, Crystallization and Structure: Survival of Motor Neuron Protein and Fenna-Matthews-Olson Protein
Full text linkabstract: Protein crystallization has become an extremely important tool in biochemistry since the first structure of the protein Myoglobin was solved in 1958. Survival of motor neuron protein has proved to be an elusive target in regards to producing crystals of sufficient quality for X-ray diffraction. One form of Survival of motor neuron protein has been found to be a cause of the disease Spinal Muscular Atrophy that currently affects 1 in 6000 live births. The production, purification and crystallization of Survival of motor neuron protein are detailed. The Fenna-Matthews-Olson (FMO) protein from Pelodictyon phaeum is responsible for the transfer of energy from the chlorosome complex to the reaction center of the bacteria. The three-dimensional structure of the protein has been solved to a resolution of 2.0Å with the Rwork and Rfree values being 16.6% and 19.9% respectively. This new structure is compared to the FMO protein structures of Prosthecocholoris aestuarii 2K and Chlorobium tepidum. The early structures of FMO contained seven bacteriochlorophyll-a (BChl) molecules but the recent discovery that there is an eighth BChl molecule in Ptc. aestuarii 2K and Cbl. tepidum and now in Pld. phaeum requires that the energy transfer mechanism be reexamined. Simulated spectra are fitted to the experimental optical spectra to determine how the BChl molecules transfer energy through the protein. The inclusion of the eighth BChl molecule within these simulations may have an impact on how energy transfer through FMO can be described. In conclusion, a reliable method of purifying and crystallizing the SMNWT protein is detailed, the placement of the 8th BChl-a within the electron density and the implications on energy transfer within the FMO protein when the 8th BChl-a is included from the green sulfur bacteria Pld. phaeum is discussed.Dissertation/ThesisPh.D. Biochemistry 201
Fission products chemistry and scenario analysis of accident progression at Fukushima-Daiichi nuclear power station: Investigation of the Ba-Sr-Cs-Mo-O system
No full textThe severe accident at the Fukushima-Daiichi Nuclear Power Station in 2011 has shown the necessity to study the impact of the release of hazardous fission products. This work investigates the Ba-Cs-Sr-Mo-O system, which contains some of the most abundantly produced fission products, as well as fission products that carry a great health risk on release. The study of this system is broken up into four subsystems: Ba-Sr-O, Ba-Mo-O, Sr-Mo-O and Ba-Cs-Mo-O. A literature study into the ternary Ba-Sr-O system, including existing thermodynamic models, showed the formation of no stoichiometric ternary compounds due to the mutual miscibility of Ba and Sr. Despite this mutual solubility, a miscibility gap is shown to be present in the solid region of the binary BaO-SrO phase diagram below a certain temperature. Thermogravimetric differential scanning calorimetry (TGDSC) investigations of the BaMoO4 – MoO3, SrMoO4 – MoO3 and BaMoO4 – Cs2MoO4 pseudo-binary systems revealed likely compositions for the eutectic equilibria at 0.792 ≤ x(MoO3) ≤ 0.80, 0.806 ≤ x(MoO3) ≤ 0.82 and 0.909 ≤ x(Cs2MoO4) ≤ 0.976, respectively. These measurements also allowed for the development and optimisation of a new thermodynamic model of the BaMoO4 – Cs2MoO4 system using the CALPHAD (Calculation of Phase Diagram) method. Syntheses of BaMoO4, BaMo3O10, Ba2MoO5 and BaCs2(MoO4)2 were successfully completed. A partially successful synthesis method was developed for Ba3MoO6 that needs further optimisation. The novel synthesis of Ba2MoO5 allowed for solution calorimetry measurements to be performed, leading to the determination of its standard enthalpy of formation ΔfH°m(298.15K, Ba2MoO5) = -(2169.0 ± 14.7) kJ/mol. Vapour pressure studies of BaMoO4 by means of Knudsen EffusionMass Spectrometry (KEMS) gave insight into the composition of the vapour formed above BaMoO4 after vaporisation. The results showed extensive influence of fragmentation reactions and only a small amount of congruent evaporation, indicated by the high partial pressure of BaO(g) and other binary molecules. A partial reduction of the BaMoO4 sample to BaMoO3 could have occurred, but this cannot be confirmed due to the full evaporation of the KEMS sample. Further studies are required to investigate a potential reduction.Chemical Engineerin
Suprematist Architecture: a Plane Drawing: Architectural History Thesis on Suprematist Architecture by Kazimir Malevich
No full textThe thesis examines the unbuilt Suprematist architecture through the architectural drawings made by Russian artist Kazimir Malevich (1878-1935) over the period 1923-24. By looking into the expression of non-objectivity in the built object, the study complements the current body of knowledge of Suprematism and architectural form development in the twentieth century. The research is constructed of a literature review and analysis of three architectural drawings by Malevich. Malevich envisioned an urban environment which form originates from Suprematist principles. Although the thesis has been able to establish the relation between Suprematism and the architectural form, there remains discussion to whether architectural principals or utopianism underlie the argument to why Suprematist architecture has not been constructed.AR2A011Architectural History ThesisArchitecture, Urbanism and Building Science
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
