Teacher educationHigher educationOpen learning

Steven Verjans

Researcher and lecturer in teacher education at UCLL

A teacher educator who read digital learning and education policy with a steady bias toward evidence, context and professional judgement.

595posts
8topics
2languages
The curator

Steven Verjans, a teacher educator reading innovation critically

Steven Verjans is a Belgian researcher and lecturer in teacher education whose Scoop.it activity formed a long, reflective archive on digital learning, higher-education change and the professional life of teachers. Built mainly between 2011 and 2023, the collection reads less like a news feed than a working notebook: research-led, policy-aware and alert to the gap between educational promises and classroom reality.

The strategic reader

Verjans often followed ideas at the point where research becomes institutional decision-making. Topics on networked learning, open education and university strategy showed a habit of using literature and public debate as evidence for action.

The anti-reductionist

His strongest voice emerged when measurement threatened to flatten education. In the quality topic, he repeatedly pushed back against tunnel vision around tests, rankings and standardised evaluation, while still taking accountability seriously.

The network-minded educator

Co-selected topics with Peter Sloep, Wilfred Rubens and MOOC participants suggest an academic who thought in networks as well as about them. The record itself mirrors his interest in professional communities and shared knowledge building.

What defines this body of work

A substantial education archive

Across the analysed topics, Verjans built a 595-post record of educational change, teacher professionalism, open learning and institutional strategy. The work began from higher education and teacher education, but repeatedly crossed into policy, research and public debate.

Skepticism with purpose

The strongest topics shared a habit of testing innovation against evidence. MOOCs, blended learning, lecture recordings, rubrics and teacher registers were not taken at face value; they were placed beside research, policy and professional judgement.

A bridge between systems

The curation moved between English-language edtech scholarship and Dutch or Flemish education debates. That bilingual range made the work useful as a bridge between international research conversations and local institutional choices.

Commentary from practice

The notes, when present, were concise but revealing: reflective, evaluative and often practical. They showed a teacher educator’s instinct to ask what a source means for design, quality, governance or professional learning.

Topics

◍ Networked learning

This was the central topic in the archive: a broad, research-rich exploration of social, collaborative and professional learning online. It followed MOOCs, personal learning networks, open networks and the theory behind connected practice.

174 postsen
EducationInternet
↑ Hoger Onderwijs 3.0

This topic followed Dutch and international debates on higher-education innovation, from MOOCs and blended learning to policy, quality and teaching design. It was practical, critical and closely tied to institutional change.

135 postsnl
EducationInnovationE-Learning
☲ open course on Technology Enhanced Learning - ocTEL

Built around participation in the ocTEL MOOC, this topic gathered resources on open education, open badges, OER and online learning design. It later included material on the COVID-era online pivot, but its core was the open-learning ethos.

93 postsen
E-LearningEdTech
⚑ Open Universiteit in de 21e eeuw - Naar een nieuw Instellingsplan

This topic functioned as a strategic reading file for the future of the Open Universiteit. It linked open and distance learning, lifelong learning, student flexibility and university governance to questions of institutional planning.

52 postsnl
EducationInternetTechnology
❖ Lerarenregister - Registerleraar.nl

This dossier followed the Dutch Lerarenregister as a contested policy instrument. It tracked resistance, legitimacy concerns, administrative burden and the tension between professionalisation and bureaucracy.

51 postsnl
Education
▦ Kwaliteit van Onderwijs

This topic examined educational quality through assessment, inspection, school culture and teacher professionalism. Its most distinctive line was a sustained resistance to reducing quality to scores, rubrics or rankings.

42 postsnl
EducationResearch
♫ Social media for distance teaching and learning

This early topic focused on social media for distance teaching and learning. It combined practical guides, research articles and institutional examples around Twitter, learning communities, collaboration and online engagement.

36 postsen
E-LearningEducationSocial media
♥ Motivation of teachers at work

This smaller topic connected teacher motivation, professional learning and self-determination theory. It bridged academic motivation research with accessible material on workplace meaning, autonomy and teacher well-being.

12 postsen
EducationPsychology

Deep dives

Learning as a network, not a delivery channel

The networked learning topic formed the backbone of Verjans’s Scoop.it work. It treated professional learning as something built through connections, communities and open networks, not simply through platforms or courses.

The Architecture of Productive Learning Networks (Paperback) - Routledge

MOOCs appeared often, but rarely as a craze to celebrate. The selections tested them against pedagogy, institutional purpose and the wider practice of online and distance education.

A Pedagogical Look at MOOCs

A recurring strength was the attention to personal learning networks, open networks and knowledge work. The topic read as a professional bibliography for educators who wanted to understand how learning changes when people, tools and institutions are linked.

@edmorrison & @hjarche: "7 guidelines for managing open networks"

Against the narrow measurement of quality

The topic on quality of education showed Verjans at his most explicit and critical. Its central concern was the danger of reducing educational quality to tests, rankings, rubrics or narrow indicators.

Vlaamse toetsen: kwaliteit met tunnelvisie

The selections returned to context, school culture, professional judgement and broader educational aims. Assessment mattered, but it was repeatedly placed inside a richer picture of learning, inclusion and teacher expertise.

Een onderwijsevaluatie past niet in een vragenlijst

This was also where his Flemish and Dutch policy sensibility came through most clearly. Public debates about Vlaamse toetsen, inspection and central exams were read through an academic lens, but with a teacher educator’s concern for practice.

De eenzijdige blik op meetbaarheid is in het onderwijs onverminderd sterk

Higher education innovation, tested against practice

In Hoger Onderwijs 3.0, Verjans and his co-selectors followed the long wave of higher-education innovation: digital transformation, blended learning, open education, institutional change and the recurring promise of MOOCs.

Expected and unexpected outcomes of study into impact of lecture recordings | @scoopit via @verstelle

The topic did not simply collect tools. It asked whether models such as ADDIE, SAMR and blended learning frameworks actually helped teachers design better learning.

Is the ADDIE model appropriate for teaching in a digital age?

Dutch higher-education policy gave the topic its edge. Questions of quality, professional space for teachers and institutional purpose sat beside international edtech debate, making the topic both local and outward-looking.

Of kwaliteit, of rendement -> Kwaliteit, mogelijk gemaakt door professionele ruimte voor de docent

Selected posts