An increasing number of learners worldwide follow some or all of their secondary education in a second language. In the Netherlands, two contexts in which this commonly occurs are bilingual education programs, which promote the acquisition of English, and Dutch-medium reception classes for newly-arrived migrant students. In these contexts, teachers have the additional responsibility to scaffold language learning in their content-based lessons. However, very few studies focus on the type of language scaffolds that teachers employ. This study provides an overview of form-focused language scaffolding strategies used by teachers teaching citizenship-related subjects in both contexts. The inquiry focused on scaffolding strategies reported and employed by seventeen teachers across 33 interviews and 44 lessons. The investigation identified thirteen different strategies. Findings reveal that both contexts used forms-focused scaffolding: word-level strategies targeted productive demands, while sentence- and text-level scaffolding addressed both receptive and productive needs. In reception classes, word-level strategies predominated in frequency and variety, whereas Dutch bilingual secondary education teachers focused most extensively on text-level scaffolding to support productive demands. The transitional nature of reception programs and the enriching nature of bilingual education can help us understand this distribution. Understanding language scaffolding repertoires can help to realise multilingual education's central promise.

In deze discussiebijdrage bespreken we hoe de artikelen in dit themanummer agency positioneren als een relationeel en contextueel fenomeen. Vervolgens onderscheiden we op basis van een vergelijking van drie terugkerende dynamieken hoe agency in de bijdragen wordt geconceptualiseerd en onderzocht: (1) agency als handelen binnen bestaande kaders versus agency als het transformeren van die kaders, (2) agency als individuele capaciteit versus agency als collectieve praktijk, en (3) agency in relatie tot ongelijkheid in kansen en voorwaarden. Ten slotte bespreken we welke implicaties deze inzichten hebben voor de onderwijspraktijk en voor toekomstig onderzoek naar leerling-, student- en docentagency.

This study investigated how pre-service music teachers’ (PMTs) attitudes toward improvisation relate to their self-efficacy. A questionnaire was completed by 123 PMTs from ten music teacher education programs, followed by semi-structured interviews with ten participants. A PLS-SEM indicated that attitude toward studying and teaching significantly predicted self-efficacy for improvisation, whereas the attitude toward inclusion of improvisation showed no significant effect. Mediation analysis further confirmed that improvisation self-efficacy served as a key variable linking attitudes and self-efficacy for teaching improvisation. Qualitative analyses provided explanatory depth by revealing how mastery experiences gradually transformed fear into enjoyment, how teaching-oriented motivation stimulated both personal learning and classroom application, and how endorsing the inclusion of improvisation did not automatically lead to confidence without sufficient preparation. This study contributes to understanding how attitudes and self-efficacy interact and offers pedagogical insights for strengthening pre-service teachers’ readiness to incorporate improvisation into their learning and teaching.

ABSTRACT This special issue examines how the teaching profession is being reshaped by rapid societal, technological, and cultural change. It argues that teaching is shifting from knowledge transmission to fostering adaptive expertise, including critical thinking, creativity, and intercultural competence. Teacher education faces the dual challenge of preparing educators to navigate uncertainty while addressing systemic inequities. The contributions highlight key themes such as teachers as agents of change, inclusive and culturally responsive pedagogy, the role of emerging technologies (e.g., AI and virtual reality), and the importance of research‐informed practice, digital literacy, and well‐being. Studies also explore evolving teacher identities and the status of teaching within institutions. Overall, the issue emphasizes that the future of teaching depends on balancing innovation with enduring human values, and on preparing resilient, reflective professionals.

Understanding why academics exercise teacher agency is essential because university teaching takes place within complex, dynamic, and often constraining contexts that require purposeful decision-making. Teacher agency can be understood as the capacity to act purposefully and make informed choices within particular teaching practices. Using an ecological lens, we distinguish between what agency is and what agency is for. Scenario-based interviews with 12 university teachers from a Scottish university revealed why academics enact agency in university teaching. Findings show that academics use teacher agency to pursue a range of purposes: 1) navigating contextual structures; 2) moral and ethical purposes; 3) negotiating personal and institutional goals; 4) care and connection purposes; and 5) directing professional growth. This study also provides empirical insight into the relational, interpretive, and value-laden nature of teacher agency in a university.

Research on mobile-assisted language learning has mainly focused on teacher-initiated learning, instead of student-initiated learning outside of class. In self-directed language learning with mobile technology, students' satisfaction with and persistence in learning are conditionafor making self-directed learning effective. This study examined how university learners' persistence and satisfaction towards self-directed language learning using mobile technology are predicted by mobile readiness, teacher support, and engagement. Survey data from 446 language learners in different disciplines attending Chinese universities were analyzed using structural equation modeling. Learners' satisfaction was found to be significantly and positively related to their mobile readiness and persistence to both mobile readiness and engagement. Additionally, learners' mobile readiness was found to make a strongly significant contribution to engagement in self-directed learning using mobile technology. And teacher support was significantly and positively linked to learners' mobile readiness yet negatively to learners' engagement. However, the findings showed an indirect and positive impact on learners' engagement with a mediating role for mobile readiness. Considering the importance of learners' mobile readiness and the critical impact of teacher support in our context, further research should explore learners' characteristics and teacher support in mobile self-directed learning settings.

In het hoger onderwijs is steeds vaker sprake van leeromgevingen waarin studenten zelf regie hebben over hun leren en samenwerken aan authentieke vraagstukken uit het werkveld. In dergelijke open leeromgevingen is student agency nodig: de capaciteit om doelbewust en reflectief eigen leergedrag en leeromgeving te beïnvloeden. Doel van dit onderzoek is profielen van student agency te ontwikkelen op basis van de persoonlijke, relationele en contextuele bronnen en ervaringsbronnen die effectief kunnen zijn voor agentic gedrag. In totaal hebben 315 eerste- tot en met vierdejaarsstudenten in negen opleidingen met een open leeromgeving in drie Nederlandse hogescholen een vragenlijst ingevuld. Deze vragenlijst is gevalideerd met een exploratieve en een confirmatieve factoranalyse. De profielen zijn ontwikkeld met behulp van een clusteranalyse, die vier profielen opleverde: 1) studenten met weinig brongebruik; 2) studenten met gemiddeld brongebruik, maar weinig ervaringsbronnen; 3) studenten met intensief brongebruik; en 4) studenten met intensief brongebruik, maar weinig ervaringsbronnen. Geconcludeerd wordt dat de ervaringsbronnen een grote invloed hebben op het onderscheid tussen de profielen. Interventies gericht op bewust reflecteren op ervaringen met agentic gedrag, het kiezen van een leeraanpak en deze continu evalueren, kan student agency in een open leeromgeving bevorderen.

This systematic review synthesizes empirical research on factors associated with student engagement in higher education blended learning. Drawing on 81 peer-reviewed studies published since 2016, we distinguished between four factors affecting student engagement: individual, instructional, interactional, and learning-environment factors. The synthesis shows that instructional factors, particularly learning support, assessment and feedback, course delivery, and learning materials, and individual factors, particularly intrapersonal competencies, were most frequently examined across studies. Interactional and learning environment factors were less frequently studied. In addition, behavioral, emotional, and cognitive engagement were the most commonly investigated dimensions, whereas social and agentic engagement received comparatively limited attention. We also identified substantial reliance on one-time self-report measures, with relatively limited use of longitudinal or digital-trace data to capture the dynamic nature of engagement. These findings highlight the need for more nuanced research on social and agentic engagement, improved operationalization of factors using longitudinal and digital-trace approaches, and greater attention to how adaptable instructional factors interact with less adaptable individual differences when designing blended learning environments.

In blended learning, pre-tutorial learning lays the foundation for in-tutorial learning but also presents challenges due to its emphasis on self-regulated learning. To understand the relationship between pre-tutorial and in-tutorial learning, this study examined variations in pre-tutorial behaviors using both online and offline learning data, identified students’ pre-class learning patterns, and investigated how these patterns relate to both tutorial engagement and learning outcomes. Our quantitative data were collected from 51 first-year bachelor students. Our qualitative data were collected from a subset of 20 students through interviews. The findings show an overall declining participation in pre-tutorial activities. Instructional aspects, such as pedagogy and course format, were reported in interviews as primary reasons for not participating in pre-tutorial learning activities. Three learning behavior profiles have been identified through Latent profile analysis, but neither tutorial engagement nor learning outcomes differed significantly across these profiles according to ANCOVA. However, self-regulation was found to be a predictor of tutorial engagement. This study extends previous blended learning analytics research, which has primarily focused on online learning, by integrating both online and offline pre‑tutorial data and examining their relationship to tutorial engagement and outcomes. Future research should focus on refining methods for identifying learning profiles that comprehensively represent students’ engagement and learning outcomes, for example, by including students’ self-regulation skills in the profile analysis. In addition, future research should investigate the pedagogical design of blended learning to more effectively support students’ learning, using tools such as AI-driven dashboards and learning analytics.

Across European and OECD countries, the number of migrant students is rising. In the Netherlands, reception classes offer intensive programs to newly arrived migrant students who cannot yet use the Dutch language sufficiently to follow mainstream secondary education. In reception classes, an important role is attributed to language scaffolding, which supports learners to engage with content in a language they only partially know. Through an exploratory descriptive design this study investigated language scaffolding strategies reported by nine teachers across nine interviews and observed in a combined total of 21 lessons. The results show that language scaffolds on the word, sentence, and text-levels were applied to support students in meeting both receptive and productive demands. In total 23 different language scaffolding strategies were identified across the three levels and two types of demands. Language scaffolding occurred most often on the word-level and teachers scaffolded the word-level in 13 different ways. Language scaffolding on the word-level should thus neither be regarded as a monolith, nor should the 10 different strategies that occurred on the sentence and text-level be disregarded. These findings can offer teachers approaches to supporting multilingual learners, inform their professional development, and guide policymakers' decisions about curriculum requirements.

Project-based learning is a student-centered problem-driven approach that can motivate students in higher education to learn and collaborate, and strengthen their learning outcomes. This study examined how students' motivation and collaborative learning were related to their self-reported outcomes of online collaborative project-based learning. An 8-week online project-based mental health course at a Chinese university was implemented. In addition to lectures and workshops during the course, students collaboratively created a final product (i.e., a film analysis report) with group members using WeChat as the communication tool. Survey data were collected from 81 students from 25 groups. Results from a partial least squares analysis showed that students' motivation was positively related to students' perceived outcomes. With respect to students' collaborative learning, four strategies were distinguished. The more students considered others' opinions and challenged others, the more positively they evaluated the outcomes of their collaboration. For the other two strategies, no significant relationships with perceived outcomes were found. Practical implications for teachers and suggestions for further research are provided.

Feedback is an important element in the development of students' L1-oral language skills. The current study focused on teachers' perceptions of feedback in L1-oral language teaching in secondary education. The findings are based on 19 interviews in which teachers provided their ideas on how they value feedback, their own classroom experiences with feedback, and their aspirations in this respect. To analyse the interview data, a framework with feed-up, feedback, and feed-forward was used, distinguishing between teacher, peer, and learner feedback. Findings show that the teachers strongly valued and used teacher feed-up, and teacher and peer feedback in the classroom. They used feed-forward to a lesser extent and the integration of peer and learner feed-up in class was hardly mentioned. This study suggests several improvements, such as implementing more practice, feedback rounds, and feedback training to support student feedback skills, investing in a safe learning environment, and giving more attention to feedback effectiveness in teacher training.

Co-creation in higher education (HE) involving students, teachers, and working field professionals can lead to innovative solutions for complex issues. In seven cases, equitable multistakeholder co-creation has been examined. Participants (N=52) completed a survey with open-ended questions and participated in interviews. We found that equitable co-creation led to a strong feeling of involvement, a better understanding of other perspectives, ideas for solutions, and the professionalization of all stakeholders. Students felt heard, experienced growing self-confidence, gained deeper insights into their future professional field, and expanded their professional network. Teachers gained inspiration to enrich and rewrite their curricula content and lesson activities. Working field professionals found innovative ideas for their practice, discovered new possibilities to find partners with whom sustainable development plans could be set out, and experienced feelings of satisfaction by contributing to the development of students. Supporting and hindering factors for equitable co-creation and implications for HE are discussed.

This study employs network analysis to investigate the underexplored dimensional interrelationships among teachers' self-directed learning (SDL) beliefs, self-efficacy, and teaching quality. The analysis involved questionnaire data collected from 531 school teachers in Shanghai, China, which recorded teachers' self-reported SDL beliefs and self-efficacy, as well as 11,698 students' perceived ratings of their teachers' teaching quality. The findings revealed strong connections between the teachers' SDL beliefs and self-efficacy but weaker links to teaching quality. Notably, teacher self-efficacy in instructional strategies was key to bridging SDL beliefs and teaching quality. These results inform programs aimed at enhancing teachers’ psychological resources and instructional effectiveness.

This study examines teacher noticing in the context of information technology education in China. Using qualitative methods, it investigates how pre-service teachers (PSTs) perceive, interpret, and make decisions about critical classroom events through a multi-level framework integrating the perception-interpretationdecision-making (PID) model with micro-level frameworks for perception and interpretation. Seventy-two PSTs participated, observing video recordings of instructional practices and identifying 366 critical events. Video-stimulated recall interviews were conducted to understand their interpretation levels, decision-making, influencing factors, and interrelationships among noticing components. The findings show that PSTs primarily focus on cognitive aspects, provide mainly semi-interpretive explanations, and suggest alternative instructional methods while considering student characteristics. Developmental analysis further suggests non-linear relationships among perception, interpretation, and decision-making across stages of teacher preparation. Insights into teacher noticing can inform teacher preparation programs, equipping PSTs with the competence to navigate complex classroom situations.

Improvisation is widely recognised as a musical creative activity, yet it remains infrequently used in classroom practice. This qualitative study examines how eight Dutch primary music teachers understand, implement, and evaluate improvisation. Drawing on semi-structured interviews, classroom observations, and field notes, two themes emerged: implementation, including commonly used improvisation activities, perceived effectiveness of improvisation activities, and feedback, and evaluation, including perceived benefits, challenges, and reflections for improvement. Findings show teachers value improvisation for fostering creativity and confidence but face considerable challenges, including managing classroom dynamics and limited pedagogical training, suggesting that teachers' engagement with improvisation is shaped by both pedagogical beliefs and contextual constraints.