Jantien Smit is professor within the Research group Multilingualism and Education. Her research focuses on multilingualism in primary education, language-oriented mathematics and science education, scaffolding and teacher professionalisation.
Jantien obtained her doctorate In 2013, with a dissertation entitled Scaffolding language in multilingual mathematics classrooms. Her research yielded theoretical insights as well as products for educational practice. She has written several scientific and professional publications on multilingualism (in Dutch) and on language-oriented mathematics and science education (both in Dutch). One example is an article concerning students' language development in learning about line graphs.
"By paying attention to language use in subject lessons, a teacher can tackle two issues at the same time."
After finishing her PhD, Jantien conducted design-based implementation research on the topics of language-oriented mathematics and science education. Her projects yielded practical output for primary mathematics teachers on Leraar 24, a database with language-oriented science lessons as well as a video about integrating language in science education. Jantien also contributed to the Fostering newcomer talent in education guide (all links in Dutch).
Fields of expertise
- Scaffolding language
- Multilingualism
- Design-based research
Publications
- Inclusive STEM teaching from a language perspective Teacher learning in a professional development program
- Scaffolding genre-based writing in the subjects Lecturers’ learning processes in a design-based research project
- Practicalizing principled knowledge with teachers to design language-oriented mathematics lessons A design study