Toward Learning Societies for Digital Aging

The global aging population presents significant challenges for societies worldwide, particularly in an increasingly digitalized era. The Learning Society is crucial in preparing different societies and their people to address these challenges effectively. This paper extends this concept and proposes a new conceptual framework, Learning Societies for Digital Aging, empowering all members across various sectors from different ages to acquire and develop the necessary knowledge, skills, and competencies to navigate and thrive in an increasingly digital world. It presents seven guiding principles for developing this conceptual framework: 1) Centering Humanistic Values, 2) Embracing Digital, 3) Cultivating Learning Societies, 4) Advancing Inclusiveness, 5) Taking Holistic Approaches, 6) Encouraging Global Knowledge Sharing, and 7) Fostering Adaptability. By integrating these guiding principles into the design, implementation, and evaluation of formal, nonformal, and informal learning opportunities for people of all ages, stakeholders can contribute to creating and nurturing learning societies that cater to aging populations in the digital world. This paper aims to provide a foundation for further research and action toward building more inclusive, adaptive, and supportive learning environments that address the challenges of digital aging and foster more empathetic, informed, and prepared societies for the future of aging

Digital Journeys: A Narrative Inquiry Into The Experiences Of Third- Grade Through Fifth-Grade General Education Teachers Implementing Instructional Technology In Northern California

The problem studied was the utilization of instructional technology in elementary classrooms, from third-grade through fifth-grade, and how teachers experience the use of technology in teaching methods and student learning. The purpose of this qualitative narrative inquiry was to understand the experiences of third-grade through fifth-grade teachers regarding the implementation of instructional technology in their classrooms. The study\u27s timing captured teachers\u27 views on technology before, during, and after the 2020-2021 academic year, which was heavily impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic and distance learning. Qualitative narrative inquiry allowed for a rich exploration of the teachers\u27 experiences, with results of the study informing future decisions and research related to instructional technology implementation in upper elementary settings. Purposeful sampling identified five participants meeting specific criteria. Virtual interviews provided detailed accounts of their encounters with instructional technology. The analysis involved restorying interview data, coding, and member-checking each narrative for accuracy. Four distinct themes emerged from this process: the evolutionary journey of technology integration, collaboration as a mode of professional learning, adaptability to change, and the personalization of learning experiences. The findings of this study underscore the necessity to empower teachers with ample time, resources, and collaborative platforms, enabling effective implementation of instructional technology that significantly enhances their teaching practice and fosters meaningful student learning outcomes

Operationalizing the circular city model for naples' city-port: A hybrid development strategy

The city-port context involves a decisive reality for the economic development of territories and nations, capable of significantly influencing the conditions of well-being and quality of life, and of making the Circular City Model (CCM) operational, preserving and enhancing seas and marine resources in a sustainable way. This can be achieved through the construction of appropriate production and consumption models, with attention to relations with the urban and territorial system. This paper presents an adaptive decision-making process for Naples (Italy) commercial port's development strategies, aimed at re-establishing a sustainable city-port relationship and making Circular Economy (CE) principles operative. The approach has aimed at implementing a CCM by operationalizing European recommendations provided within both the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) framework-specifically focusing on goals 9, 11 and 12-and the Maritime Spatial Planning European Directive 2014/89, to face conflicts about the overlapping areas of the city-port through multidimensional evaluations' principles and tools. In this perspective, a four-step methodological framework has been structured applying a place-based approach with mixed evaluation methods, eliciting soft and hard knowledge domains, which have been expressed and assessed by a core set of Sustainability Indicators (SI), linked to SDGs. The contribution outcomes have been centred on the assessment of three design alternatives for the East Naples port and the development of a hybrid regeneration scenario consistent with CE and sustainability principles. The structured decision-making process has allowed us to test how an adaptive approach can expand the knowledge base underpinning policy design and decisions to achieve better outcomes and cultivate a broad civic and technical engagement, that can enhance the legitimacy and transparency of policies

Anti-Exclusionary Leadership: Increasing the Achievement of Marginalized and Minoritized Students in an Ontario High School

This Organizational Improvement Plan (OIP) seeks to address the underachievement of marginalized and minoritized students at an Ontario secondary school. Using critical theory, the OIP recognizes that systemic barriers, the pervasive neoliberal performativity agenda, and educator biases and practices combine to reinforce stubborn inequities that negatively impact students who are racialized, poor, and/or identified as having special educational needs. The term anti-exclusion is used to propose an activist stance that challenges inclusion’s connotations of assimilation into a dominant culture. Addressing inequities in a publicly funded, top-down school district context requires adaptive leadership to foster collaborative professionalism while interrogating the status quo, ensuring alignment with system directives, and leveraging competing priorities in support of the change vision. Therefore, the Change Path Model is identified as an appropriate framework to guide the structuring, implementation, communication, monitoring and evaluation of change due to its open systems perspective that views organizations as complex entities that interact with their environments. Department head leadership is selected as the change solution, and the OIP suggests that if department heads fulfil the potential of their roles in support of anti-exclusionary education, the resulting changes in professional culture will lead to increased achievement for marginalized and minoritized students. As such, the change implementation plan focuses on building department head capacity, both individually and as a team. The interrogation of implicit biases is central to the plan, as are mechanisms for student input. Keywords: adaptive leadership, anti-exclusion, collective teacher efficacy, department head leadership, equity, school cultur

NMC Horizon Report: 2017 Higher Education Edition

The NMC Horizon Report > 2017 Higher Education Edition is a collaborative effort between the NMC and the EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative (ELI). This 14th edition describes annual findings from the NMC Horizon Project, an ongoing research project designed to identify and describe emerging technologies likely to have an impact on learning, teaching, and creative inquiry in education. Six key trends, six significant challenges, and six important developments in educational technology are placed directly in the context of their likely impact on the core missions of universities and colleges. The three key sections of this report constitute a reference and straightforward technology-planning guide for educators, higher education leaders, administrators, policymakers, and technologists. It is our hope that this research will help to inform the choices that institutions are making about technology to improve, support, or extend teaching, learning, and creative inquiry in higher education across the globe. All of the topics were selected by an expert panel that represented a range of backgrounds and perspectives

A roadmap to develop dementia research capacity and capability in Pakistan: a model for low- and middle-income countries

Objective To produce a strategic roadmap for supporting the development of dementia research in Pakistan. Background While global research strategies for dementia research already exist, none is tailored to the specific needs and challenges of low- and middle-income countries (LMIC) like Pakistan. Methods We undertook an iterative consensus process with lay and professional experts to develop a Theory of Change-based strategy for dementia research in Pakistan. This included Expert Reference Groups (ERGs), strategic planning techniques, a “research question” priority survey, and consultations with Key Opinion Leaders. Results We agreed on ten principles to guide dementia research in Pakistan, emphasizing pragmatic, resource sparing, real-world approaches to support people with dementia, both locally and internationally. Goals included capacity/capability building. Priority research topics included raising awareness and understanding of dementia, and improving quality of life. Conclusion This roadmap may be a model for other LMIC health ecosystems with emerging dementia research cultures

Adaptive Leadership Practices: High School Leadership in Maine During the COVID-19 Crisis

This research focuses on leadership decisions by high school administrators in Maine in response to school closures and subsequent reopening plans due the Covid-19 pandemic. The purpose of this study was to learn the degree to which adaptive leadership was used as a leadership approach in response to a unique, complex and dynamic set of challenges, and to discover how the theories of constructive development influenced administrators’ comfort with adaptive work. Adaptive leadership is identified as the focus for this study based on the unprecedented magnitude of adaptive challenges caused by the Covid-19 pandemic for school systems throughout the state of Maine. High schools were intentionally chosen as the environment for inquiry due to organizational dynamics this study identifies as a barrier to adaptive leadership (Bowles & Gintis, 1978). To understand how high school administrators led during the Covid-19 crisis, the researcher interviewed fourteen principals throughout Maine using a two-part interview protocol. The first part focused on the administrator’s professional history and development as a school leader, while the second part was conducted to better understand how administrators implemented collaborative and adaptive leadership strategies from the months of March 2020 to the reopening of schools. Interviews were transcribed and coded for emerging themes related to adaptive leadership and cognitive development theory

Preparing adolescents attending progressive and no-excuses urban charter schools to analyze, navigate, and challenge race and class inequality

Background/Context: Sociopolitical development (SPD) refers to the processes by which an individual acquires the knowledge, skills, emotional faculties, and commitment to recognize and resist oppressive social forces. A growing body of scholarship has found that such sociopolitical capabilities are predictive in marginalized adolescents of a number of key outcomes, including resilience, academic achievement, and civic engagement. Many scholars have long argued that schools and educators have a central role to play in fostering the sociopolitical development of marginalized adolescents around issues of race and class inequality. Other scholars have investigated school-based practices for highlighting race and class inequality that include youth participatory-action research, critical literacy, and critical service-learning. Objective of Study: The present study sought to add to the existing scholarship on schools as opportunity structures for sociopolitical development. Specifically, this study considered the role of two different schooling models in fostering adolescents' ability to analyze, navigate, and challenge the social forces and institutions contributing to race and class inequality. Setting: The six high schools participating in the present study were all urban charter public high schools located in five northeastern cities. All six schools served primarily low-income youth of color and articulated explicit goals around fostering students' sociopolitical development. Three of these high schools were guided by progressive pedagogy and principles, and three were guided by no-excuses pedagogy and principles. Research Design: The present study compared the sociopolitical development of adolescents attending progressive and no-excuses charter high schools through a mixed methods research design involving pre-post surveys, qualitative interviews with participating adolescents and teachers, and ethnographic field notes collected during observations at participating schools. Results: On average, adolescents attending progressive high schools demonstrated more significant shifts in their ability to analyze the causes of racial inequality, but adolescents attending no-excuses high schools demonstrated more significant shifts in their sense of efficacy around navigating settings in which race and class inequality are prominent. Neither set of adolescents demonstrated significant shifts in their commitment to challenging the social forces or institutions contributing to race and class inequality. Conclusions: Both progressive and no-excuses schools sought to foster adolescents' commitment to challenging race and class inequality, but focused on different building blocks to do so. Further research is necessary to understand the pedagogy and practices that show promise in catalyzing adolescents' analytic and navigational abilities into a powerful commitment to collective social action-the ultimate goal of sociopolitical development

Disrupting the Status Quo: Leveraging collective teacher efficacy for the achievement and wellbeing of BIPOC and low socioeconomic students

Abstract At Mel Morgan Middle School (MMMS) a high percentage of students are of low socioeconomic status (SES). Compounding this problem is data which shows that students at MMMS also experience significant academic challenges. Educational challenges for students of low SES are like those experienced by Black, Indigenous, and People of Colour (BIPOC). Faculty beliefs and assumptions about how to effectively educate students from low SES and BIPOC communities are posited as a problem beyond their control. Despite the Legacy Regional Centre for Education’s (LRCE) commitment to student success through policies and documents such as student success planning, inclusive education, and culturally responsive pedagogy, challenges still exist. As a solution to the problem of practice (PoP) this Organizational Improvement Plan (OIP) presents a solution to disrupt the status quo by leveraging collective teacher efficacy (CTE) for the success and wellbeing of all students. Explored through an Indigenous lens and highlighting the Indigenous principles of respect, responsibility, relevance and reciprocity, interconnection and collective action propel the solution to the problem. Essential to collective teacher efficacy is an environment which promotes strong relationships and collaborative teacher inquiry (CTI). As an administrative leader, continuous school improvement through the student success planning process and CTI will be explored through transformational, transformative, and adaptive leadership approaches. Guided by an ethic of care, collective teacher efficacy has significant potential to impact the education of all students. This is especially true for BIPOC and students of low socioeconomic status. Keywords: culturally responsive pedagogy, collective teacher efficacy, relationships, transformational leadership, adaptive leadership, ethic of car