Special issue Onderzoek van Onderwijs focused on adaptive expertise

Since 2022, the Hogeschool van Arnhem en Nijmegen (HAN) runs a semester of Praktijkinnovatie Zorg & Welzijn (Practice Innovation in Care and Welfare, PZW), in which students from 10 programmes within the (para)medical and welfare domain participate.

The aim of PZW is for students to get to know the complexity of the work field and adopt an inquisitive attitude. In this way, they can establish sustainable connections with the professional field, learn to lifelong develop themselves and become global citizens. Reality shows that PZW challenges students to develop adaptive expertise. Students themselves find it special to work together across disciplinary boundaries and to take in the perspective of the other.

This contribution from Utrecht University describes how lecturers in teacher education preside over adaptive expertise to support students' development of adaptive expertise.

Being a role model was identified as a distinctive feature of the programme for the purpose of strengthening students' adaptive expertise. What being a role model requires of teachers was explored. For example, it includes making skills such as flexibility explicit and being able to deal with unexpected events, which is crucial for adaptive expertise.

An interesting case for the development of adaptive expertise is the long-standing European Workshop offered within several life sciences master's programmes at Wageningen University and Research.

Within this course, students frequently switch between groups that can differ greatly in how they work together. This contributes to adaptive expertise development because students learn to value their own input, overcome their prejudices and make compromises.