Annegien Langeloo’s research while affiliated with Hanze University of Applied Sciences and other places

To help students reach their full potential, additional challenges beyond the standard curriculum may be necessary for some. In Dutch secondary vocational education, education for talented students is organized in two prevalent ways: through participation in honors programs that foster community building and through professional competitions. Given the apparent contradiction and potential tension between community building and competition, this research explores these concepts and their interplay to create optimal learning environments for talented students. A scoping review was conducted, analyzing 101 studies and identifying six overarching themes: Added Value, Characteristics & Conditions, Design & Development, Collaboration, Membership & the Role of Actors, and Enhanced Learning & the Role of Actors. Findings confirmed the benefits of both community building and competition in honors education. Despite a literature gap regarding their combination, this review provides insights into how these concepts can be merged to create enriching learning environments by synthesizing the themes.

Een gevoel van saamhorigheid onder studenten en tussen studenten en docenten is belangrijk voor goed onderwijs, ook voor online onderwijs. Door de plotselinge overschakeling naar afstandsonderwijs tijdens de coronacrisis worstelden docenten met het creëren van gemeenschappen. Betekenisvolle verbindingen en betrokkenheid tussen docenten en studenten ontstonden moeizaam. Deze systematische review van onderzoek naar strategieën voor gemeenschapsvorming in het online hoger onderwijs bundelt de kennis over dit onderwerp en presenteert praktijkgerichte adviezen voor docenten. Zevenentwintig artikelen zijn geïncludeerd in onze reviewstudie. In de analyse komen vier thema’s naar voren: (1) pedagogisch-didactische strategieën, (2) sociale interacties, (3) leeromgeving en (4) differentiatie. Om sterke online leergemeenschappen te verwezenlijken zijn ruimte en aandacht voor gemeenschapsvorming, goede communicatie en een gevoel van nabijheid de belangrijkste kernstrategieën voor docenten. Nadrukkelijk bewustzijn van het belang van gemeenschapszin is nodig om in online onderwijs gemeenschappen te kunnen vormen.

With a growing number of multilingual children entering early childhood education, teachers are challenged to create appropriate learning opportunities for all children. Given diverse literacy skills and cultural backgrounds, early childhood educators might provide different support to children after an inappropriate child response depending on the child’s language background. Therefore, the present study aimed to identify different types of teacher third-position support (i.e., support provided after not being satisfied with the child response or nonresponse) in interaction with multilingual and monolingual kindergartners. We conducted a multiple case study in which three kindergarten teachers and seven multilingual and five monolingual children were observed in the classroom during one school year. Support sequences were analyzed using content analysis. We identified six different types of teacher third-position support in educational interactions with multilingual children: allocate turn to another child, provision of hints, reduction of choice, establishing common ground, modeling, and using the home language. Teachers tended to use reduction of choice more with multilingual children, whereas provision of hints was used more with monolingual children. Overall, the presented study enabled us to obtain an in-depth view of how teachers differentially adopt types of third-position support in interaction with multilingual and monolingual kindergartners.

Face-to-face contact in higher education was greatly reduced during the global health pandemic. This study examines how honors educators experienced community building with both students and colleagues during the period of emergency remote teaching. A questionnaire was developed to assess both the quality and importance of contact with students and colleagues as experienced by teachers, as well as changes therein due to the pandemic. Thirty-seven honors educators from various disciplines at a single institution participated in the study. Quantitative analysis indicates that teachers found the contact with both their students and colleagues to be of good quality overall and that they did not experience much change in the quality of communication as a result of the pandemic despite the lack of inperson interaction. Authors consider the large variation underlying their results, observing that while some teachers experienced a great deal of improvement, others perceived a significant decrease in the quality of contact. Results indicate that honors educators feel that too little attention was paid to their needs during the pandemic, especially regarding their need for community building with colleagues. Authors argue that educational leaders must ensure that teachers’ contact with both students and colleagues is sufficiently supported, emphasizing that both are important for fostering a sense of community. Authors conclude that honors educators might especially benefit from a strong sense of community in the upcoming transition to more blended educational models, as it can stimulate their professional development and promote adaptive ways of effectively dealing with change.

Early childhood education serves an increasing number of multilingual children, and teachers are challenged to create high-quality learning opportunities in the classroom for all children. The child’s engagement and interactions with the teacher are important in this respect. The present study therefore examined how multilingualism relates to engagement and teacher-child interactions, taking a person-oriented approach. During one school year, 76 kindergarteners (43 multilingual) from 19 classrooms were observed for behavioral engagement and individual teacher-child interactions. Five engagement profiles were identified that reflect different levels of engagement across classroom settings. Multilingual children were overrepresented in profiles that showed lower engagement in one or more settings. Also, five interaction profiles were identified that showed strong diversity in the interactions of teachers with children in their classroom. Monolingual and multilingual children were equally represented across these profiles. Children in the more beneficial interaction profiles were also often in the moderate-to-high engagement profiles.

Nowadays, classrooms include children coming from a wide range of cultures and speaking different languages. Teachers are therefore challenged to create appropriate learning opportunities for very diverse children. The current study examined the unique contribution of general classroom interaction, individual teacher-child interactions and behavioral engagement, on early literacy and executive functioning development of monolingual and multilingual kindergartners. Nineteen classrooms were followed for one school year. On three occasions teacher and children were observed for teacher-child interactions and the children were assessed on engagement, early literacy and executive functioning. Research findings: The results show that learning outcomes of both multilingual and monolingual children were positively associated with high engagement in large groups and frequent interactions with the teacher. Furthermore, monolingual children’s favorable academic outcomes were predicted by complex interactions; multilingual children’s favorable outcomes were predicted by low classroom organization. Practice or policy: The present study emphasizes the importance of recognizing the differences between monolingual and multilingual children in their needs in the classroom, as well as recognizing that these groups might be unjustifiably exposed to different educational experiences, in order to optimize the learning opportunities for all children, regardless of their language background.

Teacher–child interactions are the most important factor that determines the quality of early-childhood education. A systematic review was conducted to gain a better understanding of the nature of teacher–child interactions that multilingual children are exposed to, and of how they differ from teacher–child interactions of monolingual children. Thirty-one studies were included. The included studies (a) mainly focused on multilingual children with low language proficiency in the majority language and (b) hardly compared between monolingual and multilingual children. The review shows that teacher–child interactions of multilingual children are comparable to the interactions of monolingual children, although teachers do adopt different strategies to facilitate the development of multilingual children, such as the use of the home language and nonverbal communication to support understanding. Worryingly, several studies indicate that multilingual children are exposed to unequal learning opportunities compared with their monolingual peers.