1. Purposes of the study Teacher training institutes have been developing intensive co-operation in teacher training together with schools [These schools will from now on be called Professional Development Schools, although the Dutch Professional Development Schools differ in some ways form the English or American Professional Development Schools (Kallenberg & Rokebrand, 2006). In this article Professional Development School will be abbreviated as PDS.] for primary and secondary education in the Netherlands. As a consequence more attention is being paid to the learning and training of student teachers within the schools. This also means there is an increasingly higher demand on the quality of professional development schools as a place of training and teaching teacher trainees. Within the development towards PDS, training activities and responsibilities are being transferred from the teacher training college to the PDS. Unfortunately, the learning potential of the workplace (i.e. the school) itself has not been fully investigated. One is led to believe that by transferring these typical training institute activities and responsibilities to the PDS, the quality of learning by the student teachers will be guaranteed. This investigation has been carried out to find answers to the question as to how the quality of the PDS can be guaranteed. To answer this question it is necessary to investigate the learning potential of the school in supporting the learning and teaching of student teachers. An exploratory study was set up to explore two questions: What kind of activities and interactions does the workplace (i.e. school) have to offer the student teacher? And what activities and interactions do the student teachers actually choose to participate in? 2 Theoretical framework Several studies show that three groups of characteristics influence workplace learning and training. First of all there are workplace characteristics, like the content of the job, the social environment and the information environment (Onstenk, 2002, 2003; Kwakman, 2003; Ashton, 2004), secondly characteristics of the learner, such as motivation and learning style (Poortman, 2007, Blokhuis, 2006, Van Woerkom, 2003) and thirdly there are vocational education and training characteristics, like personal guidance and support and pedagogical and didactical interventions (Blokhuis, 2006, Onstenk, 2002, 2003). In these studies the characteristics are defined in various ways, depending on the perspective of the researcher, with the emphasis either on the goals of vocational training, or on the goals of workplace processes. Onstenk (2002) as well as Billett (2004) and Ashton (2004) underline the role and type of every day working activities, interaction and learning possibilities within the regular working processes. It is remarkable that in Dutch studies concerning the characteristics and qualities of PDS these results on workplace learning and the potential of the workplace are hardly taken into account (Deinum, Maandag, Hofman & Buitink, 2005; Geldens, 2007). In this research the results as well as the characteristics found in studies on workplace learning will be used to investigate the quality of the PDS and to explore the research questions. The ideas of Billett, including the criticisms on his ideas, are central in this study. Billett (2001, 2004) defines workplace learning as the participation in regular workplace processes; by doing the job the learner will develop his vocational competences. It is the learner himself who can influence what he actually learns by his own engagement in the process. A basic assumption is that workplace learning is a reciprocal process shaped by the interaction between workplace characteristics (affordance) and characteristics of the learner (i.e. agency). The quality of the learning is a result of both.

3 Methodology This study is one of the projects within a larger research project on the quality of the PDS. The research was carried out in twenty schools for primary (12 schools) and secondary (8 schools) education. These schools are developing towards PDS in collaboration with the HAN University. The student teachers working in the schools were also included in the research. The study is exploratory and describes successively what the PDS has to offer and the extent to which the student teachers make use of the possibilities offered by the PDS in which the student teachers actually participate. The workplace affords activities and interactions that are common within the working processes of the school. Those activities and interactions are offered to the student teachers in different ways (more or less open, more or less intensively, more or less guided). They can subsequently decide in which activities and interactions they wish to participate and to what extent. The affordance by the PDS is investigated through a questionnaire that is filled in by all employees of the PDS. The student teachers are also asked to fill in a similar questionnaire regarding the frequency of the activities and interactions and the way they participate. The analysis of the data is aimed at describing the affordance of the various PDS and mutually comparing the PDS on the one hand and at obtaining information on what part of the affordance the student teachers participate in on the other.

4 Conclusions We expect the PDS to differ in what they afford the student teachers. Similar results are reported in other research studies (Onstenk, 2002; Billett, 2004). The first results of our research underline the expectations (Timmermans, van Lanen & Klarus, 2007). Some PDS allow student teachers to participate in all activities and interactions possible in their school, while other PDS offer activities and interactions exclusively in the placement group. This also influences the range of activities and interactions the student teacher can elect from and based on that they will most likely make their own choices. The definitive results and conclusions will be reported in September.