Professional teacher communities appear to be positively related to student learning, teacher learning, teacher practice and school culture. Teacher collaboration is a significant element of these communities. In initial teacher training as well as in-service training and other initiatives for teacher learning, collaborative skills should be…

Research has shown that honors programs often provide active networks of students that contribute to the development of the students' talents (De Boer & van Eijl; van Eijl, Pilot & Wolfensberger). These contact networks are also described as "learning communities" (Wilson et al.) and "honors communities" (van Eijl,…

Despite the potential of social networks in formal learning, there should be more knowledge on the students and teachers attitudes toward such technology and more recent information in the context of the actual educational situation. The Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) was used. The instruments included a questionnaire investigate the attitudes…

A cross-national comparison of degree programme levels became relevant when the borders of European countries opened for students and graduates, and higher education institutions were restructured into bachelor's and master's programmes. This new situation foregrounded the questions of what students are learning in the degree programmes of…

Students need to be challenged to stimulate their learning. Applying challenge in practice however is not straightforward. Challenging students may conflict with other teacher responsibilities, creating potential dilemmas for teachers. This study discloses dilemmas teachers encounter when challenging students as well as the considerations…

The existing literature on indicators of an optimal learning environment for high-ability students frequently discusses the concept of challenge. It is, however, not clear what, precisely, constitutes appropriate challenge for these students. In this study, the authors examined an undergraduate honours course, Advanced Cell Biology, which has…

We present a framework for analysing the interplay between context-based teaching material and teachers, and for evaluating the adequacy of the resulting implementation of context-based pedagogy in chemistry classroom practice. The development of the framework is described, including an account of its theoretical foundations. The framework needs…

Although universities aim to challenge high-ability students to develop their talents to the full, the question of how to create such challenges remains unanswered. In this study, we examined six different honors courses to discover which factors in the learning environment specifically designed for high-ability students challenged these students…

The European Quality Assurance system demands that the degree programme level is represented in terms of quantitative outcomes to be valid and reliable. To meet this need the Educational Level Evaluator (ELE) was devised. This conceptually designed procedure with instrumentation aiming to evaluate the level of a degree validly and reliably still…

Research supervision can be investigated from social-emotional and cognitive perspectives, but most studies include only one perspective. This study aims to understand the interplay between a social-emotional (supervisor-student relationship) and cognitive (feedback) perspective on the outcomes of master's thesis supervision in specific, by…

Case-based learning formats, in which relevant case information is provided just in time, require teachers to combine their scaffolding role with an information-providing one. The objective of this study is to establish how this combination of roles affects teacher behavior and that, in turn, mediates students' reasoning and problem solving. Data…

In Europe, there is a growing interest in honors education, not only in the bachelor's but also in the master's degree. The Dutch government, for instance, is actively promoting excellence in both bachelor's and master's degrees through honors programs (Siriusteam). Most Dutch universities have honors programs at the bachelor's level or are…

Peer assessment is understood to be an arrangement with students assessing the quality of their fellow students' writings and giving feedback to each other. This multiple-case study of seven designs of peer assessment focuses on the contribution of peer assessment to the acquisition of undergraduates' writing skills. Its aim is to arrive at an…