Systems thinking: critical thinking skills for the 1990s and beyond

This pdf article discusses the need for teaching systems thinking and critical thinking skills. Systems thinking and systems dynamics are important for developing effective strategies to close the gap between the interdependent nature of our problems and our ability to understand them. This article calls for a clearer view of the nature of systems thinking and the education system into which it must be transferred. Educational levels: Graduate or professional

Don't look north through rose tinted spectacles: tensions, struggles and guiding lights in Scotland - a reflection

‘Scotland has been developing a remarkable adult literacy and numeracy strategy….[it is]…..one of the most dynamic and exciting places in the world right now to be an adult literacy or numeracy practitioner’ (‘Why England should look North for inspiration’. Merrifield, J. 2005, pp 21 and 22). Juliet’s and three other articles in the Reflect journal, October 2005, collectively paint a wonderfully rosy picture of policy, strategy and provision north of the border though Juliet herself recognises the ‘frustration, confusion, dissatisfaction and resistance’ (p 22) that inevitably accompany radical change on the scale that Scotland is striving to implement. Whilst not intending to counter the key tenets of these articles, nor to deny the innovative work that is undoubtedly happening, I want to talk about the flip side of this ‘remarkable’ coin; to balance the hype a little and to offer what I see as a more grounded perspective of ALN in the country. I do this because I believe that whilst we justifiably celebrate the ‘moment of opportunity’ (Hamilton, Macrae and Tett, 2001. p 39) we are presented with, if we cannot publicly debate the tensions, contradictions and shortcomings that we encounter in our literacies’ work, we may be in danger of losing the direction, the ideals and ultimately the opportunities that currently excite and spur us forward

Creating new stories for praxis: navigations, narrations, neonarratives

This paper considers differing understandings about the role and praxis of studio-based research in the visual arts. This is my attempt to unpack this nexus and place it in a context of credibility for our field. Jill Kinnear (2000) makes the point that visual research deals with and intensifies elements of research and language that have always been part of the practice of an artist. Presented is a way to conceptualise and explain what we can do as researchers in the visual arts. I am recontextualizing notions of research, looking at the resemblances, the self-resemblances and the differences between traditional and visual research methods as a logic of necessity. I am investigating how we can decode and recode what we do in the language of appropriation and bricolage. In mapping the processes and territories, I am interested in the use of autobiography as a way to incorporate a deep sense of the intricate relationships of the meaning and actions of artistic practice and its embeddedness in cultural influences, personal experience and aspirations (Hawke 1996:35). This is a study that explores possible parameters for visual research, questioning in what sense is it the best way to understand our relationship with traditional research fields

Social Effectiveness of Tertiary Education for Adults in Mid-life

No abstract available

Quality in MOOCs: Surveying the Terrain

The purpose of this review is to identify quality measures and to highlight some of the tensions surrounding notions of quality, as well as the need for new ways of thinking about and approaching quality in MOOCs. It draws on the literature on both MOOCs and quality in education more generally in order to provide a framework for thinking about quality and the different variables and questions that must be considered when conceptualising quality in MOOCs. The review adopts a relativist approach, positioning quality as a measure for a specific purpose. The review draws upon Biggs’s (1993) 3P model to explore notions and dimensions of quality in relation to MOOCs — presage, process and product variables — which correspond to an input–environment–output model. The review brings together literature examining how quality should be interpreted and assessed in MOOCs at a more general and theoretical level, as well as empirical research studies that explore how these ideas about quality can be operationalised, including the measures and instruments that can be employed. What emerges from the literature are the complexities involved in interpreting and measuring quality in MOOCs and the importance of both context and perspective to discussions of quality

Investing in Broadband Evaluation: Guiding Policy & Innovation for the Future

How we address the broadband challenge has been called the most important infrastructure challenge of the new century by the National Broadband Plan. High-speed Internet can connect remote communities, help coordinate and streamline health care services, enable our children with unparalleled access to learning opportunities, and spark and support innovation in numerous fields. The challenge, however, is understanding what works and why across all of these important uses of broadband technology. Program evaluation can answer this need, especially if it is built into new programs and policies from the start

Excellence in teaching and learning: A review of the literature for the Higher Education Academy

The Higher Education Academy commissioned a review of the literature on excellence in learning and teaching in higher education to enhance the higher education sector’s understanding of the varied conceptualisations and usages of the term ‘excellence’ and consider the implications for future policy and practice in relation to promoting and developing excellence. The literature searched included published research in the form of journal articles; books; reports from UK policy bodies and other agencies; as well as ‘grey’ literature. It covered conceptual studies, academic critiques and research studies on learning and teaching, as well as policy documents. Within a diverse and expanding system of higher education, such as in the UK, discourse on teaching and student learning highlights the tensions between different notions of excellence – for example, excellence as a positional good for students, as an aspirational target for continuous quality enhancement, as a form of reputational advantage for higher education institutions or as a means for achieving governmental economic and social goals. The review addressed questions of conceptualisations and usage at different (but interlinked) levels: system-wide; institutional; departmental; individual, and from two different perspectives, teaching and student learning

Creative and performativity practices in primary schools: a Foucauldian perspective

A number of policy texts are present in educational settings at any one time and each influences the power and significance of others. Policy discourses are one of the main means whereby policy texts, in the settings in which they operate, influence the value, the implementation and the embedding of those policies. However, a number of discourses operate at the same time in any given context and they also they influence the interpretation and implementation of them through the way in which practitioners manage policy processes. This research focuses on two such discourses in education, that of performativity and creativity and investigates how primary teachers manage these policies and how they are influenced by them