New educational concept for teacher training in February

At the beginning of February, a new cohort of sixteen prospective teachers started the teacher training programme of the Science Education & Communication department. This is the first time that students will be able to start the study programme in February. The new cohort will also be exposed to a new educational concept. 

The aim of the extra intake moment is to be able to help more students get a teaching qualification. "Until now, students who wanted to do the teacher training were limited to one intake moment," says programme director Maartje van den Bogaard of the Science Education & Communication department. "Some students then had to wait so long that they decided to choose something else. That's a shame, of course, because we want to grow as a programme.” In February, schools generally have a lot of internship openings. This ensures that more students can follow the teacher training course.

This very first February cohort is participating in a pilot in which a new educational concept will be tested. "Education for this group is much more 'student-led'", says Van den Bogaard. "This means that the students’ learning question are central and students are much more in control of their own learning process. One of the advantages of this method is that teachers can discuss a certain subject when it becomes relevant for the students to do so.

Another important part of the new concept is what the programme calls a 'professional learning community'. Students from the various subjects are put in the same group and together they shape their own education. What students experience in practice is leading. "Most of our students do an internship at a high school in the region four days a week," says Van den Bogaard. "When they are with us in Delft, they set learning goals in groups, and then they have the whole week to work on those. The following week they come back with their experiences, reflect on them and give each other feedback. Then they set new learning goals for the coming week.

For this pilot, the study load of the programme has also been reduced somewhat. "In a year, we train students for a first-degree teaching qualification, but we also offer the first semester of the programme as a separate programme for a limited second-degree qualification. It is really a pressure cooker," says Van den Bogaard. "By introducing this type of working method and giving our students more choices, we hope that at the end of the semester they will tend to think: I really want to take up this profession, because it is just great fun.”