June 2024
Dr. Elif Ozturk will visit the Teacher education Department of the University of Groningen from July 22 to 26, 2024. She will deliver a series of guest lectures about education effective teaching strategies, design thinking in education, and differentiation strategies and practices in school.
April 2024
Last April, Hector Tronchoni Albert from the University of Valencia visited our department under the Erasmus mobility scheme. During his visit, discussion and future plans about research and education activities on the area of effective teaching and learning between his university and ours were conducted. We organized a seminar about teaching quality and its measurement attended by a total of 15 attendees. Hector presented his research titled, “Evaluative study of the participatory interaction between students and teacher in instructional settings with systematic observational methodology”. You can find his slides here. During the seminar, a PhD student from Czechia, Lucie Cerna, also attended the seminar and shared her PhD research on using ICALT as a tool to improve professional vision when reflecting on observational practice. Bilge and Cathy also contributed to the seminar by presenting one of their PhD studies. Bilge’s presentation was about student perceptions of teaching quality in the Netherlands, Spain, and South Korea”, and Cathy’s presentation was about teacher motivation and teaching quality of beginning teachers in the Netherlands. Please feel free to contact Bilge (b.gencoglu@rug.nl) and Cathy (xiangyuan.feng@rug.nl). if you want to know more about their studies. Ridwan concluded the seminar by sharing the research program of our department and the work of his team on teaching quality across education systems.
Hector was impressed by the quality of our research and education. He plans to introduce ICALT in his institution and include it in his own course. Currently, he is exploring possibilities for a longer postdoc visit to our department in the near future to realize and strengthen research collaboration between two universities. Lucie and her supervisor Karolina Duschinka are also interested in learning about ICALT further for Czechia. They are planning to visit our department longer during the next academic year. Hector thanked all colleagues who have made his visit to Groningen very pleasant and successful.
July 2023
From 3 – 5 July we welcomed 2 visiting scholars from South Korea. Professor Heeok Heo from Sunchon National University, and Professor Kang from Cheongju University. Both professors are experts in educational technology and artificial intelligence and its application to (teacher) education. During their visit, they delivered a seminar and workshop on AI and teacher education. A number of researchers and teacher educators from our department and NHL Stenden attended the event.
Both prof. Heeok and prof. Kang are part of the Global Effective Teaching and Learning (GETLIN consortium) led by our department. Currently, we have been working on planning an international joint-master program on educational technology, AI, and (teacher) education, a cooperation between three European universities (NHL Stenden, Tallin University, Gothenburg University) and three Korean universities (Sunchon University, Cheongju University, Chung An University). This is a long-term plan. During their visit, we also discussed a plan to organize an international Summer school together, as well as exploring research cooperation in terms of double-doctorate program. Please feel free to contact Ridwan (r.maulana@rug.nl) if you are interested in knowing more about these plans.
March 2023
Between 20 and 23 March 2023, we hosted our UK research partners from Worcester University under the Erasmus visiting scholar scheme. The UK group consists of prof. Alison Kington, Dr. Ben Looker, and Dr. Karen Blackmore. They have been part of the global effective teaching and learning consortium, which is a continuation of the ICALT3 project. During their visit, analysis and joint publication plans were discussed. Furthermore, potential cooperation in research and education was explored together with our faculty. Working together on research funding acquisitions and planning a double doctorate between Worcester University and University of Groningen were discussed and will be followed up.
As part of their visit, we organized a seminar on effective teaching and learning. The majority of researchers from our department contributed to the seminar. Our colleagues from the newly established Centre of Learning and Teaching of the Faculty of Science and Engineering also contributed. They presented their European-funded interconnecting projects on imagining sustainable futures by zooming into the role of STEM education. Some projects they presented include:
The UK colleagues also presented the interconnected projects on: 1) the importance of peer relationships for early career teachers’ identity and for staying the profession, 2) the role of school staffrooms in fostering peer relationships for veteran teachers, 3) teacher-pupil relationships and alienated pupils, and 4) the use of mobile technology as a means of facilitating collaborative primary science inquiry. The seminar was also attended by online participants who are also part of our consortium including Dr. James Ko and Dr. Yanmin Zhao (The Education University of Hong Kong) and Dr. Ye Wang (Hiroshima University). We thank the UK colleagues and all the participants for highly engaging participation and stimulating discussion about teaching and learning during and after the seminar. For further information, please don’t be shy to contact Ridwan Maulana (r.maulana@rug.nl).
