This summer, Mirjam van der Sprong is continuing her research into how primary school teachers manage the diverse needs of their students. In addition to writing articles, she also dons her beekeeping suit, works on a holiday cottage located behind the dunes, and spends as much time as possible on Goeree-Overflakkee.
Every pupil is different
Van der Sprong trains teachers at The Hague University of Applied Sciences and pursues her PhD at Radboud University’s Behavioural Science Institute. Her research stems from questions she asked herself while teaching: How does a teacher know what a child needs? And perhaps even more importantly, how do you teach future teachers to make good choices in this area? “I want to find better ways to guide future teachers so they can provide better education to children,” she says. This curiosity led her to study differentiation: deliberately adapting teaching to the differences between pupils. In practice, this means the hundreds of small decisions teachers make every day. Who works better alone? Who learns best in a group? Who needs extra explanation? Which task suits which child?
Little time to involve pupils
Van der Sprong notices that teachers mainly rely on what they observe in the classroom, the pupils’ work, and information from tests and teaching methods. She sees that pupils themselves are rarely used as a source of information. “Teachers say they want to involve pupils more, but in practice, this does not happen often,” she explains. Sometimes, this is due to a lack of time, but also because teachers think it takes too much time or is too complicated. According to her, involving pupils more can actually bring many benefits. After all, pupils often know very well what they find difficult, what challenges they face, or how they prefer to learn.
Giving pupils a voice
For this reason, Van der Sprong develops a method to help teachers more actively involve pupils in decisions about their own learning process. Sometimes, it starts with a simple question or a quick check to see how they are doing, but it can also grow into pupils helping to set learning goals or choosing how they show what they have learned. Ten teachers tested this approach for six weeks. They experimented with different forms of participation and reflected on their experiences. Van der Sprong now analyses these results during her holiday.
Data and a view of the dunes
“But my summer is certainly not just about analysing data and writing articles,” she says. Last year, she and her family bought a small holiday cottage on Goeree-Overflakkee. “The cottage was quite basic at the time,” she laughs. Now, it has insulation and a proper floor, and it can be used outside the summer season. She spends a lot of time there this summer, cycling through nature, surfing, doing odd jobs around the cottage, and occasionally working on an article.
A beehive of her own
Yet another activity will likely demand even more of her attention: bees. Van der Sprong completed a beekeeping course last year and will receive her own beehive this summer. “The calm, but especially the wonder, really appeal to me in beekeeping,” she says. “It is amazing how everything in a beehive works together. You must look and work calmly. If you are calm, the bees usually are too.” She recognises this fascination with interconnectedness in her research as well. Both in a classroom and in a beehive, it is all about relationships, interactions, and understanding the bigger picture.
Fun first, then productivity
So, her summer schedule is full: writing a scientific article, processing research data, renovating a holiday cottage, and learning to care for her own beehive. Her advice to other summer researchers is surprisingly simple: “Do what you enjoy most. If your heart is not in it, you won’t be happy, and it’s better to do something else for a while.”
Advice that probably works just as well for scientists as it does for holidaymakers.
