News

New colleague Alice Stijsiger joined ELS per September 2024

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September 11, 2024

Personal story Alice Stijsiger
PhD Candidate

My name is Alice Middelkoop-Stijsiger. I am currently serving as a Teacher Educator at Hogeschool Driestar, where I specialize in training second career vocational teachers. I am delighted to have the opportunity to combine this role with a PhD project at Wageningen University & Research. This research, which is closely aligned with my daily work, offers a valuable opportunity to gain deeper insights into the education of second career teachers and to bridge the gap between practice and research. My PhD project is being supervised by Piety Runhaar and Harm Biemans, and is funded by the NWO (Teacher Doctoral Scholarship).

My PhD project focuses on the education of second career teachers working at Dutch Vocational Education and Training (mbo) since this sector is currently grappling with significant challenges, including teacher shortages and a high attrition rate among second career teachers. Recognizing that the development of a positive professional identity is crucial for teacher retention, this project investigates second career teachers’ transition into teaching through the lens of professional identity development.

The primary aim of this research is to understand second career teachers’ professional identity development during the Alternative Certification Programme, taking into account their personal and prior professional identities, as well as other factors that either facilitate or hinder this development. The insights gained from this study will be instrumental in informing teacher education programs on how to better support professional identity development. Additionally, this project will contribute to the theoretical framework of the identity verification process, particularly in the context of developing multiple professional identities.

I have been a teacher educator for about ten years at a teacher training college. Earlier, I taught courses in English at secondary vocational education as a second career teacher, and before that, I completed an MA degree in Linguistics in Leiden and English in Lancaster. I live in Gouda with my husband and three children, enjoying nature, some sports, reading books, and various creative activities in my free time.

Contact: alice.stijsiger@wur.nl