Ruth Frans, a teacher at Wolfert Tweetalig in Rotterdam, asked herself, 'how can I prepare students to actively contribute to society?' Last month, she received a grant from the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science, allowing her to study this question. For the next five years, she will work as a PhD student at the Erasmus School of Social and Behavioural Sciences while continuing her work as a teacher. Her "Teaching for Purpose" project aims to develop and evaluate a method to prepare secondary school students to actively contribute to society.
"There is growing recognition that schools need to equip students with the skills and knowledge to play an active role in society," Frans explains. Schools frequently use add-on programs that focus on social-emotional development to reach this goal. Frans observed that the effectiveness of these add-on programs is limited. "With my research project, I want to use co-creation methods involving both students and teachers to develop and test a novel, integrated method: Teaching for Purpose, leading to a new purpose-driven approach in education."
Co-creation MethodÂ
Following SYNC lab's work for a longer period, Frans reached out to prof. Eveline Crone and dr. Lysanne te Brinke in writing her research proposal. The lab approach of societal engaged research methods is especially applicable to this project. Te Brinke explains: "This research project fits very well within our overall vision that science becomes better when conducted together with societal partners, like schools." Also, Crone is excited to start with the collaboration: "Ruth is one of those brilliant scientists-in-practice who asks deep and important questions about adolescent motivation and at the same time easily applies this in practice. It will be a true joy to help oversee this project in the coming years."
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The NWO Doctoral Grant for Teachers is designed to strengthen the connection between universities and educational institutes by supporting teachers to conduct PhD research.