Smarter learning software: Education and the big data imaginary

Big data and smarter learning software systems are beginning to impact on education, particularly within the schools sector. This paper traces the emergence of a ‘big data imaginary,’ a vision of a desirable future of education that its advocates believe is attainable through the application of big data technologies and practices. Firstly, it identifies a ‘first wave of big data’ in nineteenth-century education exhibitions and its continuities with the visualization of large-scale educational data today. Secondly, it details the emergence of ‘educational data science’ as an exemplar of how ‘second wave big data’ has entered the imagination of many actors within education. Thirdly, it then demonstrates how education is being reimagined in relation to ‘smart cities’ that depend on big data for their functioning, before fourthly detailing the recent appearance of ‘startup schools’ that are being established by Silicon Valley entrepreneurs to run as testbeds of smarter learning software systems. A concluding section discusses how the future of education may be governed by the production and circulation of the ‘data and algorithms of the powerful.

Transforming the Education Sector into a Learning System: Perspectives from the Field and Recommendations for Action

Carnegie Corporation of New York and EducationCounsel address a critical question of how to accelerate a shift from our current educational system to a new learning system. An ambitious vision for what is possible is outlined, along with starting points for making this shift. Executing on these ideas will require comprehensive plans that, among other things, enumerate specific actions, clarify roles, and identify needed resources.

The Process of Innovation at Oakton High School

This project studied the implementation of 21st century teaching and learning within a leading progressive Virginia high school. The study incorporated literature research, observational studies, interviews, surveys of teachers, and dialogue with administrators and other institutions. Overall, we found widespread acceptance of 21st century principles and learning outcomes within the institution because of their alignment with established values. Faculty exhibited strong comfort levels within their own academic subjects and were likely to collaborate with those within their own or similar disciplines. Constraints included diverse conceptions of projects, perceptions of constraints imposed by standardized testing, and the need for updated technology

Communicationists and Un-Artists: Pedagogical Experiments in California, 1966-1974

A network of experimental workshops, classes, and schools foregrounding interdisciplinary, non-hierarchical, and process-based approaches to teaching and learning emerged in coastal California between 1966 and 1974. These initiatives embodied a new pedagogical approach that I call “communication pedagogy,” in which students were taught to exchange ideas and collaborate, rather than to produce objects. Analyzing three central case studies, Anna and Lawrence Halprin’s Experiments in Environment workshops, Ant Farm’s proposals for learning networks, and Allan Kaprow’s ‘Happenings’ course, I argue that communication pedagogy helped to foster a new paradigm for artistic practice: the artist as facilitator and network-creator. By the mid-1970s the new pedagogy had lost traction in educational institutions—the economic crisis caused severe budget cuts, resulting in restrictions to experimental curriculum. However, I posit that, far from becoming obsolete, the communicator-artist was a precursor to the neoliberal model of the network-driven worker and communication pedagogy anticipated the current proliferation of extra-institutional education initiatives

2003 Fifteenth Annual IMSA Presentation Day

Through the IMSA Student Inquiry and Research (SIR) Program, IMSA\u27s young apprentice investigators open our eyes to what is possible in fields such as cell biology, genetics, computer science, biomedical engineering, science education, economics, bacteriology, archeology, biotechnology and immunology.https://digitalcommons.imsa.edu/archives_sir/1021/thumbnail.jp

Transnational Higher Education in Singapore - Relevance and Sustainability: Can transnational education programmes in partnership with Private Education Institutions continue to be relevant and sustainable in Singapore with the government's drive with SkillsFuture Initiatives?

Globalisation and the advancement of information technology in the 21st century has resulted in the growing worldwide trend of higher education internationalisation and mobility. Coupled with rapid socio-economic changes and technological advances, two mega-trends – massification and mobility – have greatly influenced the higher education landscape. The inclusion of education as a tradable service under the WTO’s GATS treaty in 1995 has ‘dislodged’ education from its traditional public good position to be a quasi-public good negotiated within a typical market structure. Students are treated as “customers” and the programmes are “products or goods”. The global expansion of this tradable service has led to an increasing trend of mobility of students, faculties, programmes and institutions. Transnational education (TNE) has contributed a significant proportion of the international education expansion and growth. The objective of this study is to evaluate the status and sustainability of TNE in Singapore, in the context of the focus on mastery of skills against traditionally degree-based qualifications under the SkillsFuture Initiatives Framework launched by the Singapore government. The study researched on demographic data, facts and statistics and government discourse on university degree. TNE stakeholders, such as overseas university partners, students, graduates and teaching faculties were surveyed and interviewed to draw insights. The findings could be summarised as follows: as Singapore pushes towards a globalised and knowledge-based economy, there is continued appetite for higher education to stay competitive through the acquisition of new skillsets. With the cohort participation rate set at 40% for local public universities with no plans to increase this further, access to TNE as an alternative will cater to the needs of the remaining cohort as well as adult learners who need to upgrade themselves to stay relevant and competitive in the rapidly changing economic environments

The Opportunity Equation: Transforming Mathematics and Science Education for Citizenship and the Global Economy

Discusses recommendations for and promising examples of fundamental reforms to raise math and science levels and increase opportunity, such as clearer, higher standards; better management of teaching talent; and more effective school and system designs