In the Netherlands, and in many other countries, teacher policy and teacher education are strongly focused on ensuring that teachers meet certain minimum standards. As all student teachers need to meet these standards, teacher education programmes might put the main emphasis on the ‘average’ student …

Key elements within honors teaching and learning

One of the factors that differentiate honors from regular teaching at the Faculty of Geosciences at Utrecht University, the Netherlands, is the freedom that honors students enjoy, a freedom that evokes excellence because it is focused and targeted. This targeted freedom takes three different shapes in …

Pedagogy for gifted and talented students in higher education is the main topic of this study. Teachers of educational programmes designed for talented or highly motivated students in higher education (here called honours programmes) are challenged to stimulate students to increase the quality of their …