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This chapter presents a case study of building TU/e innovation Space, a unique learning hub for developing, sustaining, and disseminating research-informed challenge-based learning (CBL) practices at the Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e). This learning hub for education innovation fosters the collaboration between students, industry, research, and societal organizations and drives the continued development of the CBL approach at TU/e. The chapter presents insights from the development of CBL at TU/e innovation Space, drawn from postcourse evaluation surveys of two flagship courses, the innovation Space Bachelor End Project (ISBEP; third year bachelor level) and the innovation Space Project (ISP; master's course level). Analysis of the data shows that students generally rated the courses highly. As the main motivation to choose these courses, students cited the desire to do something else than their own major, aiming for interdisciplinarity and breadth of knowledge, and wanting to do something real-life or business-like. Students also liked the ability to choose their own project, but in some cases, struggled with the structure of the assessment. We also briefly describe academics' perspective on running CBL courses at the hub and present additional activities related to the full learning ecosystem of the hub. Finally, we describe some of the future directions in terms of CBL research and educational developments at the hub.

Challenge-based learning (CBL) is a trending educational concept in engineering education. The literature suggests that there is a growing variety in CBL implementations, stemming from the flexible and abstract definition of CBL that is shaped by teachers' perceptions. The chapter discusses how the CBL concept has been developed at Eindhoven University of Technology and describes the development and use of two educational resources aimed to facilitate conceptualization, design, and research of CBL for curriculum designers and teachers. The first resource is a set of CBL design principles for framing the variety of CBL and providing teachers with advice about how to develop CBL courses within an overall CBL curriculum. The second resource is a curriculum-mapping instrument called the CBL compass, which aims at mapping CBL initiatives and identifying gaps, overlaps, and misalignments in CBL implementation at a curriculum level. Both CBL design principles and the CBL compass have been developed by combining insights from theory and practical examples of CBL at TU/e into a higher order model of vision, teaching and learning, and support. We discuss the two educational instruments and showcase their application in the Eindhoven Engineering Education (E³) program, and we discuss preliminary findings and insights. The chapter concludes with recommendations for future practice and research.

To gain insight in how policy makers work and learn, in‐depth interviews were held with seven Dutch policy makers working on global sustainability issues. The focus of the interview was on the information needs, information gathering practices, and working styles of the policy makers. Our results indicate that policy makers have a strong need for information on linkages between different policy problems, and on different cultural perspectives on those problems. Information gathering is marked by an emphasis on information filtering towards the policy issue at hand. Finally, policy makers appear to be predisposed to an application‐oriented working style. The combination of an application‐oriented working style with a policy‐driven search for information seems inadequate for satisfying policy makers’ information needs. Current learning practices among policy makers appear to be inadequate for coping with complexity.

The purpose of the present study is to report the initial analyses of relationships between various components of the learning patterns exhibited by a group of 1,572 post‐secondary students in Hong Kong as operationalized via the Inventory of Learning Styles (ILS), a quantitative instrument developed by Vermunt originally for the Dutch higher education context.

The ILS was adapted and translated into Chinese for the new response‐context. After validation of the ILS scales (results reported in another paper), the possible direct, indirect, or spurious effects among the learning constructs operationalized by these scales were explored using a general theoretical model proposed by Richardson, according to the exhibited statistical significance and magnitude of the beta weights derived from multiple regression analyses.

Empirical support was found in this new Chinese response‐context for the theoretical model that underpins the ILS. In particular, the findings confirm the central explanatory role of regulation strategies in students’ learning patterns, as originally hypothesized by Vermunt.

The present study contributes to the ILS literature by expanding the application of the instrument to a new Chinese response‐context. It is also believed to be the first attempt to adapt Richardson's general theoretical model to analyse the relationships between the ILS components.

Examines the application of the Leittext method (a training system designed to stimulate active learning by novices) to the domain of word processing. A pre‐test/post‐test control group design was used to study effects of the method, learning performance, preferences for learning activities, learning processes, motivations and learning conceptions. Concludes that there may exist some interaction effects of learning style but the size of the group studied was too small to allow confirmation of this. Describes some ways in which the Leittext method can be made more effective for learning word processing.

This chapter provides an overview of the LEGACY project in the UK and its evaluation, focussing on the effectiveness of the different methodologies used for measuring learning gain. The overall impact of the project on participating institutions and the higher education sector as a whole, in terms of capacity building and developing communities of understanding, is also reviewed.

Research on student teacher learning has identified development of a professional identity as an inevitable focus in teacher education. Accordingly, many teacher education programs have come to include attention for the development of student teachers’ professional identities, but not much research has been done on the (effects of) pedagogies that have such development as their goal. Pedagogies that aim at developing teacher identity share common elements, such as the view that developing a professional identity is an ongoing process and the view that developing a professional identity as a teacher unmistakably includes a combination of personal and professional (including contextual) aspects. This chapter describes pedagogies that focus particularly on the development of student teachers’ and beginning teachers’ professional identity, from different angles, but sharing the views as described above. First, we describe two pedagogies that have “key incidents” in student teachers’ development as focus point. Second, we report on the “subject-autobiography,” in which student teachers describe and develop how their identity is shaped in relation to the subject they (learn to) teach. Third, we describe the “at-tension” program, which teachers follow during their first year of teaching, and which focuses particularly on the professional tensions that they experience in their first year of teaching, and how they personally and professionally deal with socialization in the school context. Together, these pedagogies reflect our view that professional identity development is underlying the entire teacher education program. This view implies that only a combination of various-focus pedagogies enables student teachers to develop a full-fledged professional identity.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the role of generation in teachers’ advice and information-seeking interactions in Flemish secondary school teams, and moreover how the content of advice shapes these interactions. Four content-related advice and information-seeking networks are investigated in this study: subject-matter knowledge, classroom management, innovative teaching methods and ICT.

Data were collected from 660 teachers in ten secondary education schools in Flanders (Belgium) by using an online socio-metric survey. Social network analysis was conducted, more specifically quadratic assignment procedure and multilevel P2 modeling.

The findings underline the importance of investigating content-related advice networks. Generation affects the formation of interactions. First, the results revealed that older teachers are less likely to ask advice on subject-matter knowledge, classroom management and innovative teaching methods. Second, the data showed that older teachers are more likely to be asked for advice on subject-matter knowledge. Third, young teachers are more likely to be asked for advice on innovative teaching methods and ICT. Fourth, homophily effects occurred for the youngest teachers when advice is about subject-matter knowledge, and for the oldest teachers for advice about classroom management.

This study is innovative due to its application of social network analysis to investigate intergenerational knowledge flows, and due to its clear focus on content-related advice-seeking interactions that go beyond the approach of general advice and information-seeking interactions.

The studies considered in this review of research on teachers’ professional identity until 2004 can be divided into three categories: (a) studies in which the focus was on teachers’ professional identity formation; (b) studies in which the focus was on the identification of characteristics of teachers’ professional identity; and (c) studies in which professional identity was (re)presented by teachers’ stories. Four essential features of teachers’ professional identity could be derived from the studies. Many of the reviewed studies appeared to be studies on teachers’ personal practical knowledge. However, in only a few studies was the relationship between this knowledge and professional identity made explicit. It is argued that, in future research on teachers’ professional identity, more attention needs to be paid to the relationship between relevant concepts like “self” and “identity,” the role of the context in professional identity formation, what counts as “professional” in professional identity, and research perspectives other than the cognitive one that may also play a role in designing research on teachers’ professional identity.