Editorial. The question of 'how teachers learn' is important because answers to this question may result in recommendatons for the improvement of both initial teacher education and the further professional development of teachers. All five articles in the special issue address this question.

Since 2000, all Dutch Universities of Professional Education are confronted with three major renewals. The first was the European agreement to implement the Bachelor-Master system in Higher Education. The second was the strong tendence to renew eduction towards Competence Based Education. The third renewal …

With the rise of the knowledge-based economy, Higher Education Institutions not only have to produce (under)graduates that are skilled in their profession but who also are competent as knowledge workers. This study focused on the enabling competences of the knowledge worker. Our aim was to develop a …

In 2001, higher professional education received a research function by law. This new research role is incorporated into so-called lectureships. In these lectureships, which are analogous to university chairs to some degree, experts in specific fields function as intermediaries between higher professional …

This paper reports on CATS (2006-2007), a project initiated by the Research Centre ‘Teaching in Multicultural Schools’, that addresses language related dropout problems of both native and non-native speakers of Dutch in higher education. The project’s main objective is to develop a model for the redesign …

Teacher education is in a state of change. There is a new focus on professional competence, including the competence for further development and learning, conceived of as workplace learning. Teacher shortages put pressure on the development of alternative routes to teaching. The arrival of prospective …

The field of higher professional educational in the Netherlands is undergoing drastic structural changes. Organizational-wide mergers are commonplace and are often followed by development of new curricula. Furthermore, this is often accompanied by the implementation of a completely new educational concept …

Present study focuses on revealing and developing personal constructs regarding problem behaviour in classrooms. The main idea is that teachers’ opinions about their students and themselves influence the way they interact with them. Their thoughts and ideas about students - their personal constructs …

This article intends to focus on those critical issues arising from the Connect case study (Renshaw, 2005) that have wider applicability in contemporary professional practice in terms of lifelong learning. Special attention will be given to the following areas: • formal, non-formal and informal learning; …

Background to the problem Dutch society demonstrates a development which is apparent in many societies in the 21st century; it is becoming ethnically heterogeneous. This means that children who are secondlanguage speakers of Dutch are learning English, a core curriculum subject, through the medium of …