Albert Pilot

Utrecht University | UU

This exploratory study is about the question of how teachers perceived how their experience with honors education have promoted innovations in their regular education. In this study, we interviewed teachers from four universities of applied sciences about this question. Interviews were conducted in 2019 and 2020, which resulted in 11 cases of innov...

The authors stress that assessment is important as an integral building block of all learning, when assessment stimulates learning and is based on intrinsic motivation. This book focusses on twenty examples in higher education of teachers who in an innovative way assess competences of their students, like integration of disciplines, cooperation, re...

Waarom een boek over onderwijsprincipes gericht op ontwikkeling van professionele excellentie? In het hoger onderwijs in Nederland zijn de laatste jaren veel onderwijsprogramma’s ontwikkeld voor ‘hoogvliegers’, studenten die meer willen en meer kunnen dan het reguliere programma hun biedt. De universiteiten van Utrecht en Leiden zijn begin jaren ‘9...

Didactisch handelingskader voor honoursdocenten Met de erkenning van het belang van talentontwikkeling en de komst van honoursprogramma’s is een nieuw soort onderwijs tot ontwikkeling gekomen voor studenten die meer kunnen en willen dan het reguliere programma hun biedt. Het centraal stellen daarbij van de kenmerken van een excellente professional...

Kwaliteitszorg voor honoursprogramma’s Dit hoofdstuk geeft een beschouwing over de kwaliteitszorg in honoursprogramma’s op instellingsniveau. De inhoud is gebaseerd op de (ruime) ervaring met kwaliteitszorg in de VS en op de eerste ervaringen in Nederlandse onderwijsinstellingen. Ter illustratie van dat laatste geven we voorbeelden van een intern a...

De activiteiten binnen een honoursprogramma sturen in hoge mate het leerproces van de student en bepalen of de ontwikkeling van de student in de richting van professionele excellentie gaat. De activiteiten beginnen al bij de selectie voor toelating tot het honoursprogramma, waarna projecten, opdrachten en andere activiteiten volgen. Met de activite...

In dit hoofdstuk gaan we in op de manier waarop honoursprogramma’s worden georganiseerd. De instelling moet bijvoorbeeld de keuze maken voor langdurige oefening of voor juist meer geconcentreerde oefening in de tijd. Tevens staat daarin vermeld of de instelling het honoursprogramma programmeert of de student. We behandelen ook de verschillende mani...

Er zijn studenten met de nodige capaciteiten, die niet deelnemen aan honoursprogramma’s. De vraag is hoe dit komt. Is het niet aantrekkelijk genoeg voor hen of zijn er drempels of andere factoren in het spel die hen ervan weerhouden om deel te nemen? Mogelijk zijn er studenten die zich niet realiseren dat ze voldoende talenten hebben om deel te nem...

In de honoursprogramma’s van diverse instellingen voor hoger beroepsonderwijs zijn de competenties of kwaliteiten samengevat in een excellentieprofiel. Instellingen hanteren het excellentieprofiel op verschillende manieren, waarbij het gemeenschappelijke is dat het fungeert als een kompas gedurende het programma voor de excellerende student, de beg...

Honoursprogramma’s zijn gericht op het ontwikkelen van talent en professionele excellentie. Het is belangrijk dat duidelijk is wat in de praktijk wordt bedoeld met die termen. Dit hoofdstuk gaat in op onderzoek naar kenmerken van talent en professionele excellentie. Dat onderzoek levert aanwijzingen op voor de inrichting van een honoursprogramma en...

Studenten in honoursprogramma’s vormen vaak eigen netwerken van contacten. Dit is gebleken uit Amerikaanse ervaringen met honoursprogramma’s via interviews met de Amerikaanse site visitors van honoursprogramma’s, maar ook uit nader onderzoek bij Nederlandse honoursprogramma’s. In de VS worden deze netwerken ook wel honourscommunity’s genoemd, een t...

This license permits unrestricted use, sharing, and adapting in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. Abstract At the introduction of honors programs in Dutch higher education, stakeholders assumed that honors educ...

At the introduction of honors programs in Dutch higher education, stakeholders assumed that honors education could stimulate innovation in regular education. Whether this assumption holds was researched in the ‘Transfer of honors education to regular education’ project. This article focuses on the question of whether teachers’ experiences with hono...

The aim of this study is to develop more understanding about strategies to support teachers' professional development in curriculum innovations, in which pedagogy and content change simultaneously compared to the conventional curriculum. A pre‐existing framework, including strategies for professional development, was adapted, implemented, and evalu...

As the world is undergoing the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR), the fusing of physical, digital, and biological worlds with the new technologies, we experience a profound impact of this revolution on the labor markets and subsequent career planning of students. The new economic reality created by 4IR calls for immediate action in the world of hi...

Het meten en evalueren van het niveau van een hbo-opleiding op valide en betrouwbare wijze is een lastig probleem waarvoor nog geen adequate oplossing is gevonden. Wel zijn er verschillende initiatieven genomen en instrumenten ontwikkeld. Deze bleken echter ‘bureaucratisch’ en/of ‘ambigu’ wat de betrouwbaarheid van de meting in de weg staat. Er zij...

This study describes the improvement of a science curriculum based on a social constructivist approach in order to support primary students in a Confucian heritage culture in practicing scientific argumentation. The former design is adjusted by the application of an adapted model of the learning placemat for argumentation and by the formulation of...

Dit is een nieuwe editie van het boek Studeer Effectief (4e herziene druk, 2020). Het boek bevat praktische aanwijzingen, suggesties, checklists, voorbeelden en oefeningen voor studenten in het hbo en wo. Toegevoegd zijn hoofdstukken over de werking van het brein, het studeren uit e-books en het maken van online-tentamens.

This paper details the lessons learned in the process of setting up a new open access (OA) journal from scratch. The Journal of the European Honors Council (JEHC) was started in 2016, published its first issue in 2017, and is currently publishing its fifth issue. The development of JEHC is described in four phases: lead-up to the first idea (2015-2...

This paper describes the implementation of a social constructivism-based primary science curriculum, which was designed culturally appropriate with Vietnamese Confucian heritage culture. It focuses on analysing a specific science lesson best functioning in classroom practice. Both achievements and shortcomings of the designed science curriculum wer...

This paper details the lessons learned in the process of setting up a new open access (OA) journal from scratch. The Journal of the European Honors Council (JEHC) was started in 2016, published its first issue in 2017 and is currently publishing its fifth issue. The development of JEHC is described in four phases: lead-up to the first idea (2015-20...

Feedback can have different forms and functions depending on its objectives as well as its provider: teacher feedback, student feedback, peer feedback, written feedback, oral feedback, etc. One of the most constructive forms of feedback may be peer feedback, since it involves group learning (Van Gennip, Segers and Tillema, 2010). According to Toppi...

Honors education offers students challenging experiences and teachers a laboratory for educational innovation. Successful innovations can stimulate other teachers to experiment and improve their educational practice. This requires that innovations become known to other teachers. For this reason, a project on good practices in honors education has b...

Het hoger onderwijs moet studenten voorbereiden op een werkomgeving waarin artificiéle intelligentie een belangrijke rol zal spelen. Hoe pak je dat aan? Volgens Albert Pilot, Pierre van Eijl en Josephine Lappia kunnen hogescholen en universiteiten veel leren van de zogeheten honoursprogramma's.

One of the challenges of context-based science education is to construct high quality teaching materials. This paper presents results from a study investigating the heuristic value of an activity-based instructional framework for transformation of authentic scientific practices for use in the science classroom, in line with cultural historic activi...

Key points of honours communities: • Students in honours programmes often form networks of contact: honours communities a form of learning community. • The participants in such an honours community experience a ‘sense of community’ that binds them together. • Honours communities consists of students, but also teachers and external partners can par...

Honors programs are frequently regarded as inspiring for redesigning curricula in higher education that incorporate 21st century skills. This explorative study focuses on eliciting students’ perceptions regarding their learning gains related to these skills in honors programs. Results demonstrated high learning gains. Moreover, based on students’ i...

This paper describes the perception of a social constructivist approach to teaching and learning among Vietnamese teachers in a Confucian heritage culture and the changes these teachers undergo through their interaction with a new science curriculum that was designed culturally appropriate. A framework of teacher professional development combining...

Seven strategies for implementing an honours community 1.Match students for the honours programme based on willingness and capabilities to cooperate 2.Shared experiences are the key issue in honours communities. 3.Facilitate student initiatives can be a powerful way to strengthen student ownership of an honours community. 4.Create of an intense per...

The implementation of social constructivist approaches to learning science in primary education in Vietnamese culture as an example of Confucian heritage culture remains challenging and problematic. This theoretical paper focuses on the initial phase of a design-based research approach; that is, the description of the design of a formal, written cu...

In recent years many honours programmes were introduced at universities and colleges in the Netherlands (Van Eijl, Pilot & Wolfensberger, 2010). An important goal of these programmes is to stimulate students to more fully develop their talents. To get more insight in the process of talent development from the perspective of honours students, we sta...

All students have a talent for something. We focus here on talent development in special programmes in higher education, mostly called “honours programmes”. Do these students learn to perform more difficult tasks, solve complicated sums or analyse difficult texts? Are these students now only get an A+? No! When we talk about talented students, we f...

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 accompany...

In higher education courses are needed that are effective in different circumstances and for different groups of students. To use the added value of the combination of ICT and Face-to-Face learning we have been working towards a robust pedagogical design for blended learning. From reports in the literature it is known to be quite a difficult task t...

The present chapter deals with a study of the development of a framework consisting of goals, learning phases, strategies and instructional functions, and how the framework was translated into a professional development programme intended to empower teachers for designing and teaching context-based chemistry education. The study investigated the pr...

Project “The Honours Experience”: Pierre van Eijl (15 min.) Informative questions (5 min.) Honours as precursor for 21st century skills: Albert Pilot (15 min.) Informative questions (5 min.) C. Small group interaction: What is pivotal in honours regarding 21st century skills ? (25 min.) D. Plenary interaction (25 min.)

One of the challenges of science education is to integrate activities, content, and tools in a meaningful manner. One way to address this challenging goal is the transformation of authentic scientific practices into contexts for learning, in line with sociocultural activity theory. In this respect, authentic scientific practices are interpreted as...

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 European...

This document is a summary of the book Honours Experience. We are very proud to present this book. "We" are the students, teachers and researchers of the project "The Honours Experience”. After some years of hard work, interviewing, writing and rewriting, it succeeded. Together we have studied what drives an honours student. We did the honours stud...

Honoursprogramma’s bieden studenten, die meer uitdaging willen, extra mogelijkheden voor talentontwikkeling op hogescholen en universiteiten, bovenop het reguliere programma of als vervanging van delen daarvan. De vraag is hoe die talentontwikkeling verloopt. In een uniek project zijn veertig honoursstudenten van verschillende instellingen geïnter...

IntroductionNowadays, one of the most important questions in teaching and learning involves increasing the degree of students’ engagement in learning. According to Astin’s Theory of Student engagement, the best learning environment is one in which it is possible to increase students’ engagement. The current study investigates the influences that us...

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 o...

Context-based learning environments are being developed in various countries to renew science education and create new vital learning environments to fulfil the diverse needs of students, society and science (Osborne & Dillon, 2008; see also Chapters 2 and 12). Fensham (2009) observes an increasing interest in contextbased science education from a...

Creating context-based learning environments has appeared to be quite a difficult problem (Pilot & Bulte, 2006). For teachers it involves a change in pedagogical approach and content to teach within a new vision on the goals and emphasis in science education. The research described in this chapter focuses on the implementation on factors that hinde...

In this final chapter we reflect on the papers presented in this book. As such, the different contributions provide a range and variety in Context-Based Learning Environments in Science (CBLES) and associated teaching strategies, as well as an outlook on how to assist and stimulate teachers to develop themselves for creating such environments. How...

"Context-based science education has led to the transformation of science education in countries all over the world, with changes also visible in learning environments and how these are being shaped. These changes involve authentic problems on research and design, new types of interactions within communities of practice, new content areas and also...

Social constructivism has been increasingly studied and implemented in science school education. Nevertheless, there is a lack of holistic studies on the implementation of social constructivist approach in primary science education in Confucian heritage culture. This study aims to determine to what extent a social constructivist approach is impleme...

This article aims to explain differences between a group learning English on a Facebook page and a face-to-face group in terms of Self-Determination Theory (SDT). SDT focuses on three main variables, which improve self-determination and motivation outside but also inside the classroom: autonomy, competence and relatedness. The main research questio...

In deze derde Inspiratiebundel [misschien een verwijzing naar de eerste en tweede Inspiratiebundel, resp. Gesprekken met lectoren en Gesprekken met docent-onderzoekers] zijn verhalen van Honoursstudenten over hun persoonlijke en professionele ontwikkeling bij elkaar gebracht. Professionele ontwikkeling tot beginnende innovatieve professionals vormt...

Several researchers have suggested the importance of being responsive to students' needs in research supervision. Adapting support strategies to students' needs in light of the goals of a task is referred to as adaptivity. In the present study, the practice of adaptivity is explored by interviewing expert thesis supervisors about diagnosing student...

This paper introduces the Analysis Framework of Face Interaction (AFFI) which is developed based on a new face dimension termed Face Confirmation − Face Confrontation at two levels: Individual level within the group and Collective level between groups. This proposed framework of face analysis reveals a dearth of research on face confrontation as es...

Pursuit of Excellence in a Networked Society: Theoretical and Practical Approaches

Despite the importance of goals in educational theories, goals in master's thesis projects are rarely investigated. Therefore, this study explores how goals play a role in master's thesis supervision in terms of: defining the goals (up-component); locating where the student stands in relation to the goals (back-component); and how the student can m...

The process of opportunity identification is under-emphasized in higher education; and there is a need for validated educational strategies to foster this competence in science students. In a previous study, three strategies were elaborated and evaluated in the classroom: stimulating the use of idea generation techniques, stimulating the conceptual...

Het applaus van de bezoekers van het Amsterdams Concertgebouw was overweldigend. De 120 jonge muzikanten van het Boston Philharmonic Youth Orchestra leken er beduusd van. Hun dirigent, Benjamin Zander, had het Concertgebouw al een jaar geleden vastgelegd voor dit optreden. Overigens, ruim voor zijn eerste repetitie met dit orkest. Zulk een aanpak p...

In honours programmes students and teachers often form a contact network that makes an important contribution to the development of the students. These ‘honours communities’ encourage productive interactions among students and between students, teachers and other professionals within and outside the honours programme. In the literature, little info...

Peer review is a significant component in scientific research. Introducing peer review into inquiry processes may be regarded as an aim to develop student understanding regarding quality in inquiries. This study examines student understanding in inquiry peer reviews among pre-university chemistry students, aged 16-17, when they enact a design of a...

Wat zijn academische vaardigheden? Welke academische vaardigheden worden onderscheiden in het hbo en wo? Met welke toetsvormen zijn academische vaardigheden te toetsen? Welke toets past het best bij het beoordelen van welke academische vaardigheden? Langs welke stappen kan de keuze voor een bepaalde toets het beste plaatsvinden? Welke informatie is...

Evaluating the level of degree programmes became crucial with the Bologna Agreement in 1999 when European ministers agreed to implement common bachelor’s and master’s degree programmes and a common system of quality assurance. The European Quality Assurance system demands evaluation of the degree programme level based on valid and reliable outcomes...

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 a...

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 investi...

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 ne...

In higher education in the Netherlands, many educational programmes have been developed in recent years for 'highflyers', students who wish to achieve more and are able to achieve more than regular programmes offer them. At the beginning of the 1990s, the universities of Utrecht and Leiden started so-called honours programmes and many other institu...

Waarom een boek over onderwijsprincipes gericht op ontwikkeling van professionele excellentie? In het hoger onderwijs in Nederland zijn de laatste jaren veel onderwijsprogramma’s ontwikkeld voor ‘hoogvliegers’, studenten die meer willen en meer kunnen dan het reguliere programma hun biedt. De universiteiten van Utrecht en Leiden zijn begin jaren ‘9...

Teachers are expected to frequently collaborate within teacher communities in schools. This requires teacher education to prepare student teachers by developing the necessary community competence. The present study empirically investigates the extent to which teacher education programmes pay attention to and aim to stimulate the development of comm...

Students often experience that it is difficult to relate (sub)microscopic models to macroscopic phenomena. In line with the works of Millar, and Besson and Viennot, we have explored how to break up this ‘huge’ gap into smaller steps with intermediate ‘meso’-structures that become manifest when using a lens, a microscope, an electron scanning micros...

A growing body of research has investigated student perceptions of written feedback in higher education coursework, but few studies have considered feedback perceptions in one-on-one and face-to-face contexts such as master’s thesis projects. In this article, student perceptions of feedback are explored in the context of the supervision of master’s...

Opportunity identification is a core competence for entrepreneurs, and therefore should be part of an education in entrepreneurship. A pedagogical theory for teaching opportunity identification has not yet been defined, and therefore a design principle for 'fostering science students' competence in opportunity identification' was developed, based o...

Traditional research on chemistry teaching and learning is dominated by the context of formai, often compulsory, schooling. There is, however, growing interest in learning outside formal educational contexts, and the interface between formal and informal learning. The literature suggests that chemistry teaching commonly fails to recognize or exploi...

To be effective, feedback should be goal-related. In order to better understand goal-related feedback in Master’s thesis projects, the present study explores the goals of supervisors and students in supervision dyads and similarities and differences within and between these dyads. Twelve supervisors and students were interviewed, and their goals we...