ReMa Internship Report Mieke Breukelman August 2020

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ReMa Internship Report Mieke Breukelman

August 2020

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Research Internship Report

NHL Stenden University of Applied Sciences, Multilingualism and Literacy

February 2020 – July 2020

Mieke Breukelman, s2732335

h.z.breukelman@student.rug.nl

ReMa Language and Cognition

University of Groningen

Res. Master’s Res Internship Linguistics (LTR011M20)

Supervised by Prof. Dr. A.J. Koole (internal, University of Groningen)

& Dr. Frans Hiddink (external, NHL Stenden University of Applied Sciences)

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1. Introduction

This report provides a description of my research internship at the NHL Stenden University of Applied Sciences, which took place between February and July 2020. When I started my internship in February, I could not – and I believe nobody could – have anticipated the form this internship has taken. The reason for this is – and this will probably be mentioned in a lot of internship reports in the time to come – the COVID-19 pandemic. Fortunately, leaving a few changes and challenges aside, this pandemic has not influenced my internship in extremely radical ways, as my internship institution was not abroad, but only a one-hour (train and bus) journey from home. This home, moreover, appeared to make up a decent workplace in times of pandemic.

In retrospect, therefore, I am relieved that I have let go of my initial plan to search an internship in Germany. This plan had originated from my predilection for the German language, my desire to experience ‘something exciting abroad’ and the pleasant experience I had while visiting Mannheim for the IIEMCA conference in 2019. However, when I seriously started thinking about possible internship places, together with Prof. Dr. Tom Koole, I decided to look for an internship in the Netherlands. This choice was largely motivated by the fact that when I think of my future career, I like to imagine it in the Netherlands.

Since my main research interest lies in the educational field, particularly in interaction in education, my aim was to find an internship in that domain. On 1 November 2019, I attended a VIOT Symposium on ‘Taalbeheersing en Onderwijs’ in Utrecht, where I did a short pitch in which I told the attendees that I was looking for a research internship for the coming semester. I received a lot of enthusiastic reactions and offers in response, including a reaction from Mario Veen and Marije van Braak, both working as educational researchers at Erasmus MC in Rotterdam. Furthermore, I had in other contexts spoken with Dr. Myrte Gosen about my research internship, and she told me that Dr. Frans Hiddink (NHL Stenden) was also interested in providing me an internship place. I planned and had a telephonic conversation with both Marije van Braak and Frans Hiddink, and after a short period of being indecisive, I chose to do my internship at NHL Stenden. The decisive factor in this choice was the fact that I was curious to experience the research environment of a university of applied sciences. I am interested in practice-oriented research, and universities of applied sciences are known to have a more direct link to the practice that is studied. In the case of Dr. Frans Hiddink: he studies educational contexts such as interaction in primary schools and teacher training, while he also works as a teacher in the teacher training program. Such a diverse working environment caught my interest, as I aspire a similar practice-research combination for my own future.

On 11 February, my internship at NHL Stenden started. The internship was planned for three days a week, from 11 February to 21 July, adding up to 560 hours, i.e. 20 ECTS. The initial plan was to work at the location of NHL Stenden in Leeuwarden, in the room of the research group ‘Meertaligheid & Geletterdheid’ (M&G; ‘Multilingualism & Literacy’) on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays. In practice, I also worked a few days at the location of NHL Stenden in Groningen, when Dr. Frans Hiddink was also working there. Moreover, from 16 March, my working environment was of course shifted to home. From that moment on, the days on which I was working on the internship became less ‘fixed’, but rather depended on my tasks and responsibilities during the week.

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2. Description of organization & projects

2.1. NHL Stenden University of Applied Sciences

NHL Stenden is a university of applied sciences that has locations in the Netherlands, Qatar, South Afrika, Thailand and Bali. The primary locations in the Netherlands are in Emmen, Leeuwarden,

Groningen and Meppel, but there are also locations in Zwolle, Terschelling, Assen and Amsterdam. The university is a “brand-new organization” (NHL Stenden, n.d.) as it arose as such in 2018, from a merger of two separate universities of applied sciences: NHL and Stenden. Still, the history and experiences of both institutions, dating back to the year 1845, are being retained (NHL Stenden, n.d.).

NHL Stenden advocates to be “opening up new horizons”, and focuses on ‘real-world learning’, ‘applied research’ and ‘international opportunities’ (NHL Stenden, n.d.). A significant part of NHL Stenden’s mission consists of its new educational concept ‘Design Based Education’. In practice, this means that students work in ‘ateliers’ on current questions or problems from the work field. They are prompted to look for innovative solutions and ideas for real-life issues from practice.

At NHL Stenden, education and research are said to go hand in hand. Therefore, NHL Stenden has 44 research groups (‘lectoraten’), in which practice-oriented research is conducted in collaboration with regional and international partners (NHL Stenden, n.d.).

2.2. Research group: Multilingualism and Literacy

The research group in which I was involved during my internship is the research group ‘Meertaligheid & Geletterdheid’, i.e. ‘Multilingualism and Literacy’. Members of this research group include members (i.e. researchers, teacher trainers and students) of the earlier research groups ‘Taalgebruik en Leren’ (‘Language Use and Learning’) and ‘Fries en Meertaligheid in Onderwijs en Opvoeding’ (‘Frisian and Multilingualism in Education and Parenting’). Other parties involved in the research group are the teacher training programs at NHL Stenden (for both primary and secondary schools), several experts from practice (such as teachers, directors and boards), several organizations (such as Fryske Akademy, Afûk and Cedin), policy makers (Province of Friesland, Province of Drenthe) and members of other research groups within and outside of NHL Stenden.

The general aim of the research group is to investigate and gather knowledge and experiences concerning multilingualism and literacy, and to offer solutions and recommendations to the

educational practice. This aim is particularly relevant in the context in which NHL Stenden is active, i.e. schools in the North of the Netherlands. In these schools, the challenge to design education in

multilingual classrooms is the order of the day, as there are multiple languages (Frisian and its dialects, Dutch, Low Saxon and its varieties, modern foreign languages and the increasing amount of home languages from pupils of diverse backgrounds) that should be taken into account (Meertaligheid & Geletterdheid, n.d.).

The interventions designed by the research group are aimed at:

- the development and implementation of a didactics of multilingualism, that stimulates the appreciation and use of multilingualism in education and simultaneously takes into account regional, migrant and school languages (Meertaligheid & Geletterdheid, n.d.);

- the development of dialogic multilingual interaction, in which pupils construct new knowledge and simultaneously improve their oral and written language skills (Meertaligheid &

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- decreasing functional illiteracy in primary and secondary school pupils (Meertaligheid & Geletterdheid, n.d.).

One of the members of the research group that comes from the previous research group ‘Taalgebruik en Leren’ is Dr. Frans Hiddink, who was my external supervisor during the internship. Frans is a teacher Pedagogy/Didactics in the Primary School Teacher Training Program at NHL Stenden, and he is a researcher in the M&G research group. The focus of his PhD research, which he completed in 2019, was on investigating and improving young children’s discourse during small-group work in primary school. Currently, he is involved in several projects, such as the 3M-project (‘Meer kansen Met

Meertaligheid’, i.e. ‘More chances With Multilingualism’) and a project on practice-oriented education on sustainability. Furthermore, he is working on a study on how students in teacher training analyze their own interactions, within the framework of the Comenius Program for Teacher Fellows (NRO). Finally, another task of Frans during the past semester, was organizing the EARLI SIG 10, 21 & 25 conference 2020, that would have taken place in Groningen at 1-3 July, but was eventually organized online, due to the COVID-19 pandemic. A more elaborate description on these last two projects (the Comenius Project and the EARLI SIG conference) will be provided in the next section, as these were the two projects that I was concerned with during my internship.

2.3. Projects

1. Comenius Project

The Comenius program is a program of the Netherlands Initiative for Education Research (NRO). Its aim is to “help teaching staff put their ideas to innovative education into practice” (NRO, n.d.). In 2018, Dr. Frans Hiddink received a grant within this Comenius program for his proposal ‘Leerzame

gesprekken in de stageklas’ (i.e. ‘Instructive conversations in the placement class’). The aim of this proposal was to improve the course ‘Communication’ in the teacher training program at NHL Stenden. The motivation for this consisted of several components. First, research has repeatedly shown that dialogic classroom interaction, either among pupils or between a pupil and a teacher, is vital for knowledge construction (cf. Mercer & Littleton, 2007; Walsweer, 2015). However, in practice, such valuable dialogic interactions rarely occur, while teacher-led conversations are still dominantly prevalent (Howe & Abedin, 2013; Walsweer, 2015). In order to stimulate teachers to elicit more dialogic interactions, students in teacher training should already learn how to effectively do that. Moreover, Frans stated in his proposal that students in teacher training should not only be taught certain skills in class, but they should also be prompted to individually explore and acquire these skills in their own placement practice. Furthermore, students should learn skills by practicing and analyzing them in authentic conversations, rather than only in simulation or role play, as these are quite different from real-life interactions (see Stokoe, 2014). Finally, teacher training should focus less on merely teacher behavior, and should also take into more account pupil practices that do or do not contribute to dialogic interaction.

Stimulated by the Comenius grant, some changes have been made in the course ‘Communication’ in the teacher training program at NHL Stenden. The adjustment of the course consisted of three components:

1. First, students are now familiarized with results from recent research on efficient interaction by means of principles of CARM (Stokoe, 2014), which is an effective method for improving professional interaction.

2. Furthermore, students conduct Educational Design Research (EDR, cf. Collins, Joseph & Bielaczyc, 2004; Plomp & Nieveen, 2009) in small groups, for which they need to design either an instruction or an observation form for teachers regarding efficient interaction. In order to

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do that, they need to indicate good and bad interactional practices, by means of Prominent Feature Analysis (Swain, Graves, & Morse, 2010).

3. Within their research, in order to indicate good and bad practices, the students analyze video recordings of their own interactions with pupils in their placement practice. Such video recordings enable students to make very specific and focused analyses (Rosean, Lundeberg, Cooper, Fritzen & Terpstra, 2008).

In the school year of 2018-2019, these changes have been implemented in the course. In that same year, three groups of students have been video recorded while conducting their Educational Design Research. These video recordings can be used to investigate how students interactionally analyze their own interactions. Ultimately, such an analysis could lead to valuable insights for the Teacher Training practice. It is this analysis that formed the main task of my internship, which I will describe further in the section on my tasks and responsibilities (i.e. 3. Description of tasks and responsibilities).

2. EARLI SIG 10, 21 & 25 conference 2020

Another task of Dr. Frans Hiddink that I was involved in during my internship, was the organization of the EARLI SIG 10, 21 & 25 conference 2020. Before the COVID-19 pandemic, the plan was that the conference would take place in Groningen, organized by the University of Groningen and NHL Stenden. In March, it was decided that the conference would be transferred into an online one. EARLI stands for European Association for Research on Learning and Instruction, and is an international networking organization for researchers in education. EARLI has 27 Special Interest Groups (SIGs), which have as their aim to encourage communication between its members. In 2018, SIG 10 (‘Social Interaction in Learning and Instruction’) and SIG 21 (‘Learning and Teaching in Culturally Diverse Settings’) jointly organized a conference at the University of Luxembourg. At that conference, the idea arose to organize the next biennial conference in Groningen.

A group of people from the University of Groningen (both from the Faculty of Arts and the Faculty of Behavioural and Social Sciences) and NHL Stenden came together to organize the EARLI SIG

conference 2020. Moreover, it was decided that SIG 25 (‘Educational Theory’) would join the conference as well. The theme of the conference was formulated: ‘Process-oriented research on learning in contemporary society’. The objective behind this theme was to look at methodological and theoretical approaches for tracing learning in interaction. Furthermore, ‘contemporary society’ refers to the use of digital technologies on the one hand, but also to a multicultural and multilingual society on the other hand.

A description of my tasks and responsibilities in the organization of the conference will be provided in the next section.

3. Description of student’s tasks and responsibilities

3.1. Comenius Project

The video recordings that were collected in the school year 2018-2019 formed the starting point of my research task during the internship. The corpus consists of 11 EDR sessions of three groups of

students: group 2a (4 recorded sessions), group 2ab (3 recorded sessions) and group 2b (4 recorded sessions). My general task in the internship was to investigate how students analyze their own interactions during EDR sessions. For this, I made use of Conversation Analysis (CA), which is a qualitative method used to uncover regularities in human interaction, by making use of the

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2017). In practice, my research task consisted of several ‘subtasks’, which I will now describe in more detail.

1. Making an ‘activity list’

The research process started out by making an ‘activity list’. This means that I watched all video recorded EDR sessions, while keeping track of the general ‘activities’ the students engaged in. In an Excel file, I noted down the time frames in the videos and the things students did, such as ‘watching video’, ‘analyzing video’, ‘discussing theory’, ‘intervention with teacher’, ‘planning’ and ‘off-topic chatting’. Furthermore, I noted down notable details about parts of the videos (see Figure 1 for an example). The task of making an activity list served two purposes. First, it got me acquainted with the data in a detailed and systematic manner. Second, it constituted the first step in making a meaningful collection, as it helped distinguishing fragments in which students were analyzing video data from fragments in which other activities were done.

Figure 1: Part of an Excel file with an 'activity list'

2. Compiling a collection

In order to do conversation analytic research on students’ analyses of their own interactions, a

collection had to be made. Most CA studies, after all, are collection studies (Gosen & Koole, 2017). That is: before being able to investigate a particular phenomenon, all instances of that phenomenon should be found in the data and accumulated in a collection. When I started gathering fragments for my collection, the exact focus of analysis was not entirely clear yet (see the next paragraph on defining a focus of analysis). However, the general research topic, i.e. ‘students’ analyses of their own

interactions’, was already clear, so that formed the starting point for compiling a collection.

For the collection, I started out by gathering video extracts of group 2ab. The reason for starting with group 2ab is that in all three recordings of this group, the same three students are working on the same project. For the other groups, there are also recordings of class sessions, where several groups are analyzing a video together with a teacher, or EDR sessions where only half of the group is present. Therefore, the videos of group 2ab form the most consistent corpus of data.

The data corpus of group 2ab consists of three recorded EDR sessions, one of week 47-2018, one of week 49-2018, and one of week 03-2019. In the first session (week 47-2018), the students are planning their research: they discuss when they should record their interactions in the placement class, and what the focus of their EDR should be. In that first session, the students do not yet have video recordings to analyze. All extracts in the collection therefore come from the sessions of week 49-2019 and week 03-2020.

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By using the activity list I had made for group 2ab, I could easily extract all video fragments in which the students discuss and analyze their own videotaped interactions. Subsequently, I collected transcripts of those video fragments. For the EDR session of week 49-2019, this meant searching, checking and improving transcripts that had already been made for that session by a student assistant of Dr. Frans Hiddink. For the EDR session of week 03-2019, it meant transcribing the video fragments myself, following the CA transcription conventions as developed by Jefferson (1984).

In practice, compiling a collection went hand in hand with a first exploratory analysis. I quickly noticed that all video fragments in which students analyze interactions contains one or several assessment(s) of observed interactional practices. It appeared that the video fragments with the activity ‘analyzing video’ could be divided into extracts that consisted of a collaborative construction of a topic of assessment and an evaluation of that topic: extracts which we refer to as ‘assessment interactions’. Eventually, the compiling of a collection and analyzing the data went together, as the analysis exposed more and more the exact character of the phenomenon that needed to be ‘collected’. Ultimately, the collection consisted of ± 25 assessment interactions.

3. Defining a focus of analysis

The initial aim of the analysis was to “trace learning” in the EDR sessions, and to take a developmental approach to the data. That is: Frans and I started out by comparing the EDR sessions of week 49-2018 to the EDR sessions of week 03-2019, to see if we could identify a development over time. With this approach at the back of my mind, I started reading literature on tracing learning in interaction. Melander & Sahlström (2009), for instance, showed how three children collaboratively construct a perception of a topic, i.e. the size of the blue whale, and how this topic construction evolves

throughout the activity. The authors argue that this development in the way the topic is constituted can be understood as learning. Their research ties in with a body of literature that considers learning as changing participation in interaction, which can therefore be studied with CA (cf. Lave, 1993; Wootton, 1997; Martin, 2004).

While analyzing the data, however, it appeared difficult to find differences between the EDR session of week 49-2018 and the session of week 03-2019 that could be considered learning. I did get a feeling of some sort of development: it appeared that students’ analyses in week 03-2019 were often longer, more focused on pupil behavior, and more elaborately substantiated than in week 49-2018. However, finding empirical evidence in the data for this turned out to be difficult. In week 49-2018, there were also a few longer and more elaborate assessments, and in week 03-2019, some assessments were short and unsubstantiated as well. Moreover, Frans pointed out to me what Sidnell (2010) wrote, namely that not every difference in behavior should immediately be seen as development. Differences between two situations can also arise from certain different interactional contingencies.

Frans and I therefore decided to (temporarily) let go of the developmental approach. First, I should investigate the different manners in which students analyze their own interactions, before being able to validly compare those different manners (over time). I let go of the distinction between the EDR session of week 49-2018 and that of week 03-2019, accumulated all fragments in one collection and continued the analysis.

Another issue I ran into while analyzing, is that I found it difficult to decide on which ‘order of interactional organization’ I should start the analysis. Should I start the investigation in terms of sequence organization? Or in terms of topical organization? Or in terms of turn-taking organization? Ultimately, Frans advised me to read literature on the ‘overall structural organization’ of interaction, which concerns more of a “supra-sequential coherence” (Robinson, 2012, p. 258). Moreover, I read some studies on the overall structural organization of interactions in different institutional settings, such as professional meetings (Huisman, 2001), kindergarten (Gosen, Berenst, & De Glopper, 2015) and primary-care medical visits (Robinson, 2012). These studies all showed that the way in which

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participants in interaction construct certain activities can influence the overall structure of interaction. This overall structure and the potential link to the way in which smaller activities are constructed therefore became the focus of our own analysis.

4. Analyzing the data

‘Analyzing the data’ meant looking for regularities and patterns, so that I could divide all extracts among different categories, i.e. subsets (cf. Sidnell, 2011). At first, the analysis advanced with difficulty, as I saw several patterns and differences in the collection, but I could not decide which observation to take as a starting point for making subsets. Should I look at the different practices that precede or follow the construction of a topic of assessment? Should I look at the different practices that students use to construct a topic or to assess a topic? Should I look at the different ways in which students agree or disagree on a topic construction or on an evaluation? Every week, I discussed the possibilities and struggles with Frans, and although it felt like the analysis did not advance, it was in these

“troublesome” weeks and discussions that the eventual analysis was beginning to take shape. Eventually, we found that there are different ‘overall structures’ that an assessment interaction can take. In one structure, the students construct a topic of assessment, after which they immediately agree on an assessment of that topic (see Figure 2). The other possibility is that an exploration follows the topic construction, before the students agree on an assessment (see Figure 3). Moreover, there are also assessment interactions in which the agreement on an assessment is (also) followed by an

exploration. Continuing the analysis, we found that the different overall structures seem to be linked to different patterns in the construction of a topic of assessment. After a student’s initiation of a topic, the other students can either start an agreement on an assessment or they can start an exploration, leading to different overall structures.

Figure 2: Slide from my SIG presentation, showing the structure where topic construction is immediately followed by agreement on an assessment of that topic

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Figure 3: Slide from my SIG presentation, showing the structure where topic construction is first followed by exploration before agreement on an assessment

5. Presenting the research process and results (orally)

Before the COVID-19 pandemic, the plan was that Frans and I would orally report on the state of our research on three different occasions: the ‘Velon Congres’ in Leeuwarden (16 & 17 March 2020), the ‘Onderwijs Research Dagen’ (ORD) in Utrecht (24-26 June 2020), and the ‘EARLI SIG 10, 21 & 25 conference’ in Groningen (1-3 July 2020). Frans would be the presenter at the Velon Congres, and I would be the presenter at the ORD and the EARLI SIG conference. This way, I could gain experience in presenting in both Dutch and English.

For the Velon Congres and the ORD, Frans had already written the proposals, as the submission deadlines for those events were before the start of my internship. However, Frans did give me the chance to read the ORD proposal and provide feedback and questions before my internship started. This immediately formed a great opportunity for me to get acquainted with the project. In the first week of my internship, I wrote a proposal for the EARLI SIG conference myself, which can be found in appendix 2. At the end of March, we received the message that our proposal for the EARLI SIG conference had been accepted.

Due to the coronavirus, both the Velon Congres in March and the ORD in June have been postponed to 2021. The presentation on the EARLI SIG conference, however, could still take place, as the

conference was transferred into an online one. To assure that I would still get to present our research in Dutch as well, Frans suggested that I could also submit a proposal for the VIOT congress in Gent (planned for 20-22 January 2021). Even though a presentation on the VIOT congress would not be within the time span of my internship, it would still give me an experience quite similar as the one planned. Therefore, in May, I wrote and submitted a proposal for the VIOT congress, which can be found in appendix 3. In July, it was announced that this proposal has been accepted. However, at the same time, it was also communicated that the VIOT congress has been postponed from January 2021 to January 2022. At this point, it is somewhat difficult to estimate whether I will be in the position to present by then, since I will most likely no longer be a student in 2022. However, I am confident that Frans and I will keep in touch about this matter during the coming year.

The one presentation that could still take place during my internship, was the presentation at the EARLI SIG 10, 21 & 25 online conference. The preparation for this presentation consisted of making a

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PowerPoint presentation, discussing the content of the presentation with Frans, and practicing my presentation with and without Frans. We decided to present the preliminary results concerning the different overall structures we found in the data, and the fact that these seem to be linked to different ways in which students construct a topic of assessment. For the presentation, I made use of different colors and shapes to illustrate the patterns found (see Figures 2 & 3). I also made a visualization of the EDR sessions, in order to make the form of these sessions clearer for the audience (Figure 4).

Figure 4: Visualization of an Educational Design Research session

My presentation at the online conference was nominated for the ‘Best JURE Paper Award’, a

competition organized by some of the conference organizers. The three proposals that had received the highest scores from the reviewers were nominated (see Figure 5). The nomination meant that my presentation was mentioned and promoted in the opening talk on 1 July, and it meant that a panel visited and assessed my presentation. For that aim, my presentation has also been recorded, so that panel members who could not attend the session, could still watch and assess the presentation afterwards.

Figure 5: Slide of the opening talk that promoted the three nominated presentations

Then, on 2 July, at 11:45 CEST, it was my turn to present in a single paper session at the online conference. The session was chaired by Dr. Frans Hiddink, and the other presentation in the session was the presentation of Laura Nap, in collaboration with Albert Walsweer, both researchers at NHL

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Stenden. The presentation went well. I barely tripped over my words, and the presentation evoked interesting (discussion) questions. Fortunately, Frans was also very satisfied with the presentation, and he said that I handled the questions really well. Furthermore, I received positive reactions from other organizers of the EARLI SIG conference, as well as positive words in the closing ceremony when it was announced that the ‘Best JURE Paper Award’ was won by Varpu Mehto. Finally, I also got some positive feedback on the visual part of my presentation, both from Frans and from another organizer of the conference (see Figure 6).

Figure 6: Feedback on my presentation - via Blackboard Collaborate chat

6. Presenting the research process and results (in writing)

Besides the oral report on our research at the EARLI SIG conference (and possibly the VIOT congress), part of my internship plan was to write a report as well. In the course of the internship, when the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic became clearer, a written report became the focus of my internship more and more. Firstly, this was because the planned oral presentations had been or would be cancelled or postponed. Moreover, in times of working at home, without having direct contact with colleagues of the M&G research group, an own writing project was very welcome in terms of

motivation and productivity. Frans and I decided that I would write an article about our research, with the aspiration of eventually submitting it to a scientific journal.

At the beginning of May, I was still busy analyzing the data, but simultaneously began with actively writing down the findings. Every week, I discussed the written paragraphs with Frans, and twice with my internal supervisor Prof. Dr. Tom Koole as well. In the meantime, I searched the internet for appropriate scientific journals to which I could eventually submit the completed article. This way, I got acquainted with both a wide arrange of journals in education, linguistics and discourse analysis, and with the dilemmas and considerations involved in choosing a journal to submit a paper to. Should we, for instance, write an article for fellow CA researchers, fellow educational researchers, or fellow teachers in teacher training? And should we write an article in English or in Dutch? Eventually, I decided to write an article in English, with the readers of the journal ‘Linguistics and Education’ as the intended audience.

Unfortunately, the completion of an article did not turn out to be feasible within the time frame of my internship, especially in combination with organizing the online EARLI SIG conference. However, Frans and I are still planning to complete the article together, after the completion of my internship. In any case, the writing and the searching for scientific journals has already within my internship given me insight into the actual practices of a researcher.

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The second task within my internship was to help organizing the EARLI SIG 10, 21 & 25 conference. Before the start of my internship, Dr. Frans Hiddink had together with Dr. Marjolein Deunk and dr. Myrte Gosen already started organizing the conference. In February, I joined this ‘local organizing team’ and attended three meetings before the outbreak of COVID-19 in the Netherlands. The tasks that I was concerned with at that time, were: brainstorming about potential social activities during the conference, looking for locations for the conference dinner, contacting potential dinner locations to request information on possibilities and prizes, contacting NHL Stenden to request items for the conference bag, and checking and testing the conference registration tool.

In March, my tasks within the conference organization changed rapidly and strongly, as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. Whereas the initial idea of the local organizing team was to cancel the

conference, international colleagues from different SIGs insisted on transferring the conference into an online one. The local team eventually agreed, but withdrew as the ‘main’ organizers. Frans, Marjolein and Myrte all have young children, who were constantly at home due to the closing of schools, and they had due to the closing of their own institutions much work to do themselves. These reasons in addition to the fact that none of them had experience with online conferencing made them see no way to still be the main organizers of the conference.

The organizers and SIG members started to put together a new organizing team, i.e. an ‘online organizing committee’. Frans, Marjolein and Myrte asked me to join the meetings of this team, as a ‘representative’ of the local team, in order to keep abreast of the organization process. However, this relatively passive task eventually evolved into me being an active and full member of the online organizing committee. More than that, there have been weeks within my internship that I was almost full-time occupied with my tasks in the conference organization. An overview of my tasks and activities in the conference organization is provided in the table below.

Table 1: Overview of my tasks and activities in the EARLI SIG conference organization Management of the

conference mailbox and list of presenters

At the end of March, an email was sent out to all authors of accepted proposals to inquire whether they were inclined to present their research at an online conference. At this point, it became my task to manage the mailbox, i.e. to respond to questions and comments, and to keep track of the list of presenters who did (not) want to present.

Communication with the local team

As the ‘local team’ became less involved in the organization, it was my task to pass on information and requests between them and the online committee. Fortunately, in the course of the

organization process, Dr. Mayra Mascareño Lara, also from Groningen, became more and more involved as well, which meant that the communication between both teams became our shared task.

Communication with the online committee

The communication with the online committee was a task that took a lot of time, as there were multiple emails to read and respond to every day. The organization of an online conference appeared to involve much more than expected. Fortunately, there were a lot of active organizers, so that not all tasks came down to one person.

Meetings In total, we had nine meetings with the online organizing committee, via Zoom. I was present at all meetings, in which we discussed matters such as different virtual environments to host

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the conference at, safety issues, questions from participants, and registration dates and fees. The most active members in these meetings were Jasmiina Leskinen (University of Helsinki), Nina Bonderup Dohn (University of Southern Denmark), Antti Rajala (University of Helsinki), Mayra Mascareño Lara (University of Groningen) and myself. Other members of the committee were Sylvi Vigmo (University of Gothenburg), Rebecca Bergman (Chalmers University of Technology) and Nathalie Muller Mirza (University of Geneva).

Organization of social events Together with Nina Bonderup Dohn, I took on the responsibility to organize the social events during the online conference.

Eventually, we decided to organize an ‘introduction round’ in which participants could show pictures of their home/university town on Wednesday afternoon, and a ‘virtual show and tell’ in which participants could show objects from their (home) office and tell about them on Thursday evening. On Wednesday, I was moderating the session, i.e. helping participants with technical issues, and on Thursday, I chaired the social event. Moreover, I was in charge of the communication with participants regarding the social program.

Communication with NHL Stenden colleagues

Since I more or less formed the link between NHL Stenden and the EARLI SIG organization, I passed on updates and information to the M&G research group members, and I responded to their questions about the EARLI SIG conference which were sent to me by email directly or via Frans.

Moderating and chairing During the conference on 1-3 July, I moderated several sessions. This meant that I helped participants with technical issues, I recorded presentations when necessary, I muted microphones, lowered hands and distributed presenter rights. I also chaired a poster session, although that was not planned. Due to technical difficulties with the microphone of the original chair, I was asked to take over his role. This meant that I had to introduce the speakers, keep track of the time, and lead the discussion. Additional smaller tasks Besides my main tasks, there were a lot of smaller tasks that I

volunteered for. If something on the website or in the program needed to be checked, I was often the one who did that. Moreover, I fixed some technical issues concerning restricted access to the mailbox and I cut a clip from the recording of the keynote in which there were technical difficulties. Finally, I made an extensive overview of the conference program with all chair and moderator tasks, so that all organizers could fill in their names. This file eventually helped in seeing which tasks still needed to be taken care of, and proved to be an indispensable document during the conference.

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Figure 7: Slide from the opening session of the conference, in which Dr. Marjolein Deunk showed the city of Groningen to the participants, by using pictures and suggestions of the local organizing team.

The conference was organized in Blackboard collaborate, in a Nestor environment of the University of Groningen. This environment worked fine, without many technical issues. In my opinion, the

conference was a success. Over 200 people from all over the world registered, and at each moment, approximately 40-90 participants were online and present. There were a lot of active discussions, and people were enthusiastic about the interactive options such as the social events and the possibility for ‘breakout groups’ during the workshops. The organization of an online conference was strange and challenging, but also very nice and instructive. I am happy that in times of pandemic, I got the chance to meet so many people from all over the world, and I am proud to have been part of the organization of such an innovative and successful event.

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16 3.3. Additional research activities

Besides my research within the Comenius project and my tasks in organizing the EARLI SIG conference, there were two other small activities that I was involved in during my internship. The first one was attending the monthly ‘Kenniskringbijeenkomst’, which is a meeting with the entire M&G research group, were members get the chance to report on their (research) activities and to discuss plans, ideas and difficulties. At the beginning of March, I attended one meeting at the NHL Stenden location in Leeuwarden, at which Frans gave a presentation on his PhD research. In April, May and June, the meetings were organized via Microsoft Teams. Of course, this resulted in a completely different context than ‘real-life’ meetings, but it still gave me the possibility to get acquainted with the group members and their research and activities. Moreover, I got the chance to update the members on the organization of the EARLI SIG conference. Finally, the monthly meetings provided me with much exposure to the Frisian language, which is something I had actually missed quite a lot since the COVID-19 outbreak.

A second additional activity is that I tried to keep abreast of the research activities of M&G research group members. Sometimes, I could in fact help a little in some projects. For instance, in the project ‘Taalplan Frysk’, help was needed in filling in a questionnaire, in order see whether it was suitable, complete and effective enough to send to primary schools. I filled in the questionnaire and sent feedback to the researchers of the project. This enabled me to have a little peek at another research project of the M&G research group that I was not further involved in.

4. Evaluation of the internship

4.1. Evaluation of learning outcomes

In the placement work plan that I submitted before the start of my internship, I noted down 10 of the 12 learning outcomes from the OER (Teaching and Examination Regulations) of the ReMa Linguistics. The only outcomes I did not copy, were the outcomes 2.1 (independently formulating an academic problem) and 2.3 (independently formulating a research proposal), as it was clear from the start that I would be involved in a study that already existed. I will now self-evaluate the learning outcomes of the internship by reflecting on the ‘learning outcomes of the degree programme’ that I copied from the OER.

Knowledge and understanding

1.1 have general knowledge and understanding of several subdisciplines in linguistics, their interpretations, methodologies and techniques

1.2 have a thorough knowledge of at least one theoretical and methodological approach within linguistics

During the internship, my knowledge and understanding of Conversation Analysis have been

enhanced and broadened. Firstly, by reading studies in which CA was employed to investigate learning in educational contexts, I got acquainted with a more ‘applied’ or ‘practical’ side of CA. Furthermore, Frans introduced me to Applied Conversation Analysis (Antaki, 2011), which denotes the use of CA to investigate and improve institutional talk. Moreover, he introduced me to the CaiTE project, which stands for ‘Conversation Analytic innovation for Teacher Education’. In this project of University College of Southeast Norway and Loughborough University, CARM is used to improve teachers’ assessment practices (see University of South-Eastern Norway, n.d.). While gaining this new knowledge on CA in the educational domain, I also deepened my existing knowledge on CA as a method, by

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reading literature on ‘overall structural organization’ and by applying this and other CA concepts to my analysis.

Applying knowledge and understanding

2.2 be able to make an original contribution to knowledge in at least one subdiscipline in linguistics With my presentation at the EARLI SIG 10, 21 & 25 conference, I made an original contribution to knowledge in both the field of CA and the field of educational research. On the one hand, I showed how CA was used and thus can be used to uncover students’ actions and practices in EDR contexts. On the other hand, I simultaneously showed how students analyze their own interactions and how

different ways of constructing a topic of assessment are linked to different overall structures of assessment interactions. Such a detailed study into ways in which students analyze interactions had not been conducted before.

In the near future, I hope to complete an article on the conducted research, together with Dr. Frans Hiddink. Ideally, this article can be published in a scientific journal, so that it can be read by both fellow researchers of (educational) interaction and by people from the educational practice, such as teachers in teacher training programs.

Making judgments

3.1 to make use of the research results of others and evaluate these critically

3.2 be able to make connections between their own specialist knowledge of a subdiscipline of linguistics and other subdisciplines of linguistics or and other related disciplines, for example, psychology, neurology or information science

For the proposals I wrote, the presentation I gave and the article I am writing on, I have read literature on both educational concepts and CA. Whenever I wanted to know more about something or if I did not entirely understand a concept, I would always ask Frans or look for answers in other articles or online. When analyzing the data, I often went back to the literature, for theoretical support or inspiration. For instance, when I got stuck, I repeatedly read the studies of Robinson (2012), Huisman (2001) and Gosen, Berenst & De Glopper (2015), to see how they did their analysis and how they reported on it. During the weekly conversations with Frans, moreover, we did not only discuss the written paragraphs, but we also talked about theoretical concepts, methodology and findings from other studies. Frans told me at the end of the internship that he thinks I am very critical, and that he valued that I sometimes questioned his suggestions.

With regard to learning outcome 3.2, I believe that this internship has brought me the perfect chance to explore the borderline between linguistic and educational research. In my entire Master program so far, I have been interested in this boundary, and in the future, my ideal career would be exactly in that domain. Especially at the EARLI SIG 10, 21 & 25 conference, the overlapping between both areas became clear to me. I visited a couple of sessions on “pure” educational research, which gave me new insights and inspiration that could also be used in linguistic research. And vice versa, I simultaneously saw how CA research and other linguistic research can be meaningful to the educational field as well. Communication

4.1 be able to participate actively in a research group working on an academic project 4.2 be able to work with other students and lecturers on an academic project

4.3 be able to participate in international academic debate in the chosen area of specialization and to present an academic problem convincingly in appropriate English, both orally and in writing During the internship, I have actively participated in the organizing team of the EARLI SIG conference. When I first joined the online organizing committee, I was quite nervous and shy. However, over time, I

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became more and more confident and familiar with both the people involved and my tasks and responsibilities. This experience has made it easier for me to communicate in English and with people I do not know. Simultaneously, the communication with the ‘local’ team from Groningen provided a glimpse into the working lives of researchers more nearby.

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, I unfortunately got less of a chance to be entirely immersed in the M&G research group. However, I believe I have gotten familiar with the research group and its activities as much as was possible under these circumstances. I attended all monthly plenary meetings of the research group, I visited the (pre-corona) breakfast with all interns, and I attended an online meeting with all interns to conclude the semester. Moreover, I read information on all research projects of the M&G research group, Frans told me about several research projects, and I helped as much as I could with projects in which assistance was needed.

For the Comenius project that I worked on, I mostly had contact with Frans. Sometimes, I also spoke to Prof. Dr. Tom Koole about the project, or to both Frans and Tom. Apart from that, I have not involved other people in the project. One reason for this is that due to the COVID-19 pandemic, I was not in an office where I could easily invite people to look at my data, or casually discuss some ideas and

findings. Moreover, I have to admit that I often felt discontent with the progress of the analysis, and I felt an urge to “first be content” before sharing preliminary findings with others. This is also something that I received feedback on from Frans. He observed that I was often pursuing some state of certainty, and that this sometimes seemed to slow down my process, whereas it would be good to just start writing or sharing findings, also in times of doubt. Looking back, it would have been useful if I had taken more initiative to involve other people in the project, in order to get more perspectives and ideas. This is something I will take along for the future.

For more information on learning outcome 4.3, please see the description under learning outcome 2.2 and the description of my presentation at the EARLI SIG conference in section 3.1.

Learning skills

5.1 be able to keep abreast of the latest developments in linguistics and broaden en deepen their own knowledge and understanding

5.2 be able to reflect on the implications of one’s work for the development of linguistic theories By reading relatively recent literature, I got acquainted with recent developments in CA and

educational research. Both the CARM method and Antaki’s book on Applied CA, for instance, which are matters I got acquainted with during my internship, came about in the last decade. Moreover, Frans often told me about relatively new studies and insights that could be meaningful for the field of CA. For instance, he repeatedly pointed out to me the discussion whether CA could be combined with qualitative methods. He recommended the work of Stivers (2015) to me as a starting point to explore this matter. Furthermore, I attended sessions on interaction research in education during the EARLI SIG conference, in order to broaden and deepen my knowledge. And finally, in my own presentation, I discussed the implications of my work for both CA research and the educational field by explaining what the use of CA and its results can mean for educational practice.

4.2. Evaluation of supervision

The main supervision during my internship was done by Dr. Frans Hiddink. There have been very few weeks in which I have not spoken to him, and I have experienced that as very positive. During the entire internship, I had the feeling that Frans was always willing to make time for me. Even in weeks that were very busy for him, I could always email or call him. Despite this positive experience, our communication did not go smoothly at all times. Especially at the beginning, I think we had to get used to each other’s way of communicating and doing research. There have been times that I did not

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know what to do or expect, and times in which I felt like I did not do things the way that Frans wanted me to do them. At the same time, there must have been times that Frans felt like he had told me the same thing multiple times, but I still did not seem to grasp it. This concerned both matters regarding planning and matters regarding the analysis. Fortunately, we always expressed these feelings to each other. The phrases “I don’t understand what you’re doing” and “I don’t understand what I have to do now” have come out of my mouth several times, and the phrases “I have said this multiple times” and “I feel like you don’t understand my point” have been used much by Frans. Eventually, I have come to really appreciate these obstacles, as they have taught me to think outside of my comfort zone, and to adapt to approaches that are different than what I was used to. In the course of the internship, Frans and I grew to understand each other better, and the analysis became a collective process more and more. I think a helpful realization on my side was that I did not have to do things exactly the way that Frans would do them, but that I could take more initiative myself. This is also something Frans told me at the end of the internship. He said that the less I asked for validation and gave accounts for

everything I did, and the more I took initiative, the more efficient it went. Frans has often pushed me to stop looking for certainty, and to “just start writing”. This was very helpful, as it brought me out of the doubt that kept me from continuing. Moreover, Frans prompted me to make concrete time plans, and to set boundaries, both in the EARLI SIG organization and for myself. This eventually helped me to work more efficiently. Therefore, I am very thankful for the supervision of Frans and for everything that I have learned from both his knowledge and his advice concerning my way of working and

communicating. I am also thankful for the trust he has put in my research, and in my presenting skills during the EARLI SIG conference.

Besides the supervision of Dr. Frans Hiddink, I have had seven meetings with Prof. Dr. Tom Koole during the internship. The first three meetings were short individual meetings, in which Tom asked how I was doing and what I was working on. Although I felt like I had nothing significant to say, I really appreciated these talks and the interest Tom showed for my internship. The last four meetings were meetings with both Frans and Tom, consisting of one interim evaluation, two meetings in which we discussed my written paragraphs, and one practical discussion about the completion of my internship. During the two meetings in which we discussed the paragraphs I had written, Tom also provided feedback and new insights to use in our research. I am thankful for the effort and time that Tom has taken to be involved in my internship.

4.3. Evaluation in terms of career development

The mandatory research internship in the Research Master Linguistic provides an excellent opportunity to experience the daily life of a researcher. For many ReMa students, as I hear from them and as I read in their internship reports, the internship is seized as the last confirmation of their ambition to pursue a PhD position, and with that an academic career. For me, as someone who is in doubt whether such a career would be suitable for me, the internship served a somewhat different but equally meaningful goal. The internship provided me not only with an insight in the life of a researcher, it also gave me insight into a university of applied sciences, in several research projects, and in the life of researchers that also teach in “non-academic” subjects. I think it is very valuable that I have done my internship at an institution that is not a scientific university, but which still actively engages in research. This

experience has added to my already existing feeling that I love doing research, but might pursue doing that in a non-academic environment. The combination of teaching non-academic subjects and doing practical research really appeals to me. It is a shame that I could not experience the actual daily context of a researcher at NHL Stenden due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but I still got acquainted with many tasks and responsibilities of members of the M&G research group at NHL Stenden. They made me see how many interesting projects and collaborations there are possible, and the enthusiasm with which they involved me in projects was contagious. Moreover, I learned a lot about myself and my

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confident that all knowledge and skills acquired will prove useful in any possible career path my future brings.

5. Conclusion

My internship has been a bumpy road, but I have no regrets of taking this route whatsoever. The

unforeseen circumstances in which my internship took place, have definitely caused a difficult challenge at times. Especially in March and April, I had difficulty with converting to the new situation and concentrating on my tasks. Particularly when my sister was diagnosed with COVID-19 in April, it became a challenge to focus on the internship in between all worries. However, things got better, and I slowly got more used to the “new normal”. Moreover, the situation has forced me to develop my perseverance and flexibility, and I think that is a very good thing. Furthermore, the research project and conference organization that I was involved in have boosted my English skills and my confidence, and they have taught me that I can take more initiative and that I can be less uncertain about my own skills and findings. These are all things I will take with me in my coming years of doing research. Finally, I want to stress that this internship report does not mark the definite end of my involvement with NHL Stenden. Firstly, Frans and I will work on completing an article, and secondly, I hope to return to NHL Stenden sometime in the future, with whichever end that may be.

6. References

Antaki, C. (2011). Applied Conversation Analysis: Intervention and Change in Institutional Talk. Basingstoke:

Palgrave Macmillan.

Collins, A., Joseph, D., & Bielaczyc, K. (2004). Design research: Theoretical and methodological issues. Journal of the Learning Sciences, 13(1), 15-42.

Gosen, M., & Koole, T. (2017). Conversation Analysis. In D. Wyse, N. Selwyn, E. Smith, & L.E. Suter (Eds.), The BERA/SAGE Handbook of Educational Research (Vol. 2, pp. 791-811). London: SAGE Publications Inc.. Gosen, M., Berenst, J., & de Glopper, C. (2015). Problem-solving during shared reading at kindergarten. Classroom Discourse, 6(3), 175-197.

Howe, C., & Abedin, M. (2013). Classroom dialogue: A systematic review across four decades of research. Cambridge Journal of Education, 43(3), 325-356.

Huisman, M. (2001). Decision-making in meetings as talk-in-interaction. International Studies of Management & Organization, 31(3), 69-90.

Jefferson, G. (1984). Transcript notation. In J.M. Atkinson & J. Heritage (Eds.), Structures of Social Action. Studies in Conversation Analysis (pp. ix-xvi). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Lave, J. (1993). The practice of learning. In S. Chaikin & J. Lave (Eds.), Understanding practice: Perspectives on activity and context (pp. 3-32). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Martin, C. (2004). From other to self: Learning as interactional change. Uppsala, Sweden: Acta Universitatis

Upsaliensis.

Melander, H., & Sahlström, F. (2009). In tow oft he blue whale: Learning as interactional changes in topical

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Mercer, N., & Littleton, K. (2007). Dialogue and the development of children’s thinking: A sociocultural approach.

London: Routledge.

NHL Stenden (n.d.). Meertaligheid & Geletterdheid. Retrieved from

https://www.nhlstenden.com/onderzoek/lectoraat/meertaligheid-geletterdheid

NHL Stenden (n.d.). NHL Stenden University of Applied Sciences. Retrieved from https://www.nhlstenden.com/en NRO (n.d.). Comenius programme. Retrieved from https://www.nro.nl/en/comenius-programme/

Plomp, T., & Nieveen, N. (2009). An Introduction to Educational Design Research. Enschede, The Netherlands: SLO. Robinson, J.D. (2012). Overall structural organization. In J. Sidnell & T. Stivers (Eds.), Handbook of conversation analysis (pp. 257-280). Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.

Rosean, C.L., Lundeberg, M., Cooper, M., Fritzen, A., Terpstra, M. (2008). Noticing noticing: How does investigation

of video records change how teachers reflect on their experiences? Journal of Teacher Education, 59(4),

347-360.

Sidnell, J. (2010). Questioning repeats in the talk of four-your-old children. In H. Gardner & M. Forrester (Eds.), Analysing interactions in childhood: Insights from conversation analysis (pp. 103-127). Oxford: Wiley-

Blackwell.

Sidnell, J. (2011). Conversation Analysis: An Introduction. London: Wiley-Blackwell.

Stivers, T. (2015). Coding Social Interaction: A Heretical Approach in Conversation Analysis? Research on Language and Social Interaction, 48(1), 1-19.

Stokoe, E. (2014). The Conversation Analytic Role-play Method (CARM): A method for training communication skills as an alternative to simulated role-play. Research on Language and Social Interaction, 47(3), 255-265. Swain, S.S., Graves, R.L, & Morse, D.T. (2010). Prominent Feature Analysis: What It Means for the Classroom. The English Journal, 99(4), 84-89.

University of South-Eastern Norway (n.d.) Conversation Analytic innovation for Teacher Education (CAiTE).

Retrieved from https://www.usn.no/english/research/our-research/kindergarden-schools-and-higher-

education/conversation-analytic-innovation-for-teacher-education-caite/

Walsweer, A. (2015). Ruimte voor leren: Een etnografisch onderzoek naar het verloop van een

interventie gericht op versterking van het taalgebruik in een knowledge building environment op kleine Friese basisscholen. Groningen: University of Groningen. (Dissertation).

Wootton, A. (1997). Interaction and the Development of Mind. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

7. Appendix

Appendix 1: Frans Hiddink’s contribution to the M&G newsletter (9 July 2020)

(Inter)nationaal congres online een groot succes- door Frans Hiddink

Vorige week vond van 1-3 juli het EarliSIG10, 21 & 25 congres plaats. Dit congres werd oorspronkelijk georganiseerd door collega’s van verschillende faculteiten van de RUG en mijzelf, namens het Lectoraat Meertaligheid & Geletterdheid, maar werd door de corona-uitbraak naar een online en gratis variant omgezet door een groter internationaal netwerk.

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De titel van het congres luidde ‘Process-oriented Research on Learning in Contemporary Society’ en onderzoek naar manieren waarop kinderen en jongeren in interactie leren, zowel in schoolse en informele settings verbonden met technologische en multiculturele mogelijkheden, stond centraal. De opname van de keynote van Sarah Hennesy, waarin ze ingaat op de rol van technologie om leerzame interactie in de klas te versterken, is overigens te vinden op de conferentiewebsite

https://earli.org/SIG10-21-25 (programme). NHL Stenden was vanuit ons lectoraat goed

vertegenwoordig. Zo hebben zowel Ron en Roelien als Joana op woensdag mooie workshops verzorgd rondom respectievelijk ‘intervisie op een online platform’ en ‘manieren om thuistalen te benutten in het onderwijs’, en heb ik zelf ook deelgenomen aan een symposium van ons Noordelijk Netwerk Interactie in de Klas.

Op deze plek wil ik echter vooral twee presentaties uitlichten, omdat ik ontzettend trots ben op deze jonge collega’s. Allereerst heeft Mieke Breukelman, als stagiair werkzaam geweest binnen ons

lectoraat, haar onderzoek naar manieren waarop pabo-studenten in DBE video-opnames van gesprekken uit de eigen stageklas analyseren, gepresenteerd. Daarin liet ze zien dat de manier waarop studenten een interactiemoment uit de video-opnames tot onderwerp van hun analyses maken, heel veel invloed heeft voor het gespreksverloop en lijkt te bepalen in hoeverre ze daarmee relaties leggen met theorie en andere interactiemomenten. Ook heel interessant voor ons als lerarenopleiders in een nieuw DBE-curriculum dus. Met haar strakke presentatie was ze zelfs één van de drie genomineerde onderzoekers voor beste onderzoek. Daarna mocht Laura Nap, als junior-onderzoeker verbonden aan het 3M-project, de eerste bevindingen delen van haar analyses van interactie en het gebruik van andere talen in de deelnemende klassen in de middenbouw. De resultaten demonstreren een soort nulmeting in ons interventieonderzoek en laten bijvoorbeeld zien dat de complexiteit van de gespreksbeurten in het Nederlands groter lijkt dan in (andere) thuistalen en dat de gespreksdeelnemers hun talen anders lijken te gebruiken. Kinderen lijken Nederlands vaker te benutten om kennis te demonstreren, terwijl leerkrachten Nederlands benutten om de taak te structuren en orde te bewaken. Op basis van de levendige discussie naar aanleiding van beide presentaties, kunnen we concluderen dat ons onderzoek veel interesse opwekt, van belang is voor het onderwijs en naar meer smaakt. Voor meer informatie kunnen jullie beiden benaderen via respectievelijk

h.z.breukelman@student.rug.nl en laura.nap@nhlstenden.com.

Al met al een hele positieve ervaring om zo’n meerdaagse evenement online mede te organiseren. Niet alleen vanwege de laagdrempelige uitwisseling tussen onderzoekers van over de hele wereld, maar ook omdat duidelijk is geworden dat zo’n aanpak goede mogelijkheden biedt op andere terreinen, bijvoorbeeld om vanuit onze Academie online nascholingsavonden/ masterclasses, etc. te verzorgen, die makkelijk toegankelijk zijn voor leraren uit alle uithoeken van de drie Noordelijke provincies.

Laura

Mieke

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23 Appendix 2: Submitted and accepted proposal for the EARLI SIG 10, 21 & 25

conference

Title: Changes in students’ group interactions during design research Proposal SIG 10, 21 and 25 Conference 2020

Short abstract (max 250 words)

Research has repeatedly demonstrated that dialogic classroom interaction, either among pupils or between a pupil and a teacher, is vital for knowledge construction (cf. Mercer & Littleton, 2007). In practice, however, such valuable dialogic interactions rarely occur, while teacher-led conversations are still dominantly prevalent (Howe & Abedin, 2013). It is therefore important that in teacher training, students already learn to elicit dialogic interactions with or between pupils.

For this end, some changes have been made in the course ‘communication’ of the Teacher Training program at NHL Stenden University of Applied Sciences. The adjustment of the course

consists of three components: 1) students are prompted to conduct Educational Design Research (EDR, cf. Collins, Joseph & BIelaczyc, 2004), for which they 2) analyse video-recordings of interactions from their own placement practice. In addition, 3) students are familiarized with results from recent research on interaction by means of CARM principles (Stokoe, 2014).

Three groups of students have been videotaped during three to four EDR sessions in which they discussed and analysed their own recorded interactions. The videotaped EDR sessions have been transcribed and analysed by means of Applied Conversation Analysis (Antaki, 2011). The focus of our study is on how students’ analyses of their interactions change over the course of the EDR. Such changes potentially indicate learning processes (cf. Melander & Sahlström, 2009). Consequently, it is expected that students become more competent in provoking dialogic interactions in their teaching practice.

Extended summary (max 500 words)

Several (inter)national studies have demonstrated how dialogic interactions, in which pupils actively solve problems by discussing multiple perspectives, are of vital importance for knowledge construction (cf. Mercer & Littleton, 2007; Walsweer, 2015). In practice, however, interactions are still prevalently teacher-driven. Valuable dialogic interactions rarely occur in educational practice (Howe & Abedin, 2013; Van der Veen, 2017). It is therefore important that in teacher training, students already learn to efficiently elicit dialogic interactions with or between their pupils. For this end, some changes have been made in the course ‘communication’ of the Teacher Training program at NHL Stenden University of Applied Sciences.

The adjustment of the course consists of three components:

1) First, students are familiarized with results from recent research on interaction by means of CARM (Stokoe, 2014), which is an effective method for improving professional conversations. 2) Furthermore, students conduct Educational Design Research (EDR, cf. Collins, Joseph &

Bielaczyc, 2004; Plomp & Nieveen, 2009) in small groups, in order to find optimal situations for provoking dialogic interactions in their own placement, by analogy with effective training for plenary interaction (Damhuis & De Blauw, 2010).

ReMa Internship Report Mieke Breukelman August 2020