Teachers’ assessment literacy affects the quality of assessments and is, therefore, an essential part of teachers’ competence. Recent studies define assessment literacy as a dynamic, contextual and social construct, situated in practice and mediated by teachers’ identity and conceptions of assessment. …

Exploring Practical Knowledge investigates professional practices from a hermeneutic perspective. The book presents, discusses and applies notions such as practical knowledge, practical wisdom, tacit knowledge, and normativity to the professional lifeworld. These contributions focus on both specific …

In this chapter we elaborate a hermeneutical perspective on professionalism and professional development in the wide range of professions and vocational trainings, which fall under the concern of a University of Applied Sciences (UAS). In a joint research programme of the HU UAS and Utrecht University …

In this chapter, we present a perspective on the professionalisation of students in higher vocational education, which relates their life orientation to professional and societal values and beliefs. In a teaching programme at HU UAS Utrecht, inspired by Biesta’s notion of a pedagogy of interruption, …

In this study, a data feedback program to improve teachers’ science and technology (S&T) teaching skills was designed and tested. The aim was to understand whether and how the four design principles underlying this program stimulated the intended teacher support. We examined how teachers in different …

Worldwide, pupils with migrant backgrounds do not participate in school STEM subjects as successfully as their peers. Migrant pupils’ subject-specific language proficiency lags behind, which hinders participation and learning. Primary teachers experience difficulty in teaching STEM as well as promoting …

Vocational teachers continuously tailor their teaching to changes in occupational practice, technologies, and student diversity. Teacher professional development is crucial for dealing with these changes. A longitudinal study was conducted to study the professional development activities of vocational …

The maker movement is increasingly finding its way into informal and formal educational settings. This chapter welcomes that trend and reflects on the cases in this book through five lenses, whereby informal and formal settings are contrasted. The first lens focuses on the development of a maker identity. …

To meet society’s changing demands, the responsive development of curricula is vital, and curriculum developers need to increasingly foresee and incorporate changes into their curricula in a timely manner. However, responsive curriculum development is a complex problem for curriculum developers in vocational …

In Nordic countries, as well as in the Netherlands, schools have high school autonomy. In schools there are both horizontal and vertical working relations and all teachers and school principals within a school are expected to take responsibility for collaborative-innovation practices (CIP). In this paper, …