Blockchain Technologies: A Study of the Future of Education

This paper provides insights into the possible, plausible and desirable futures of using blockchain technologies in education. While several universities and education providers are already beginning to use blockchain technologies for complex record manipulations, accounting, and certification of credentials, a whole-systems approach provides a broader view of the issues, promises and challenges associated with using blockchain technologies in education. The study uses social inquiry and causal layered analysis (CLA) to explore impacts across social, economic, environmental, policy, and values dimensions. Findings suggest the needs for new driving metaphors and myths about the purpose and value of education and its place in society as a public good, challenging traditional narratives of the importance and value of formal education and degrees. The implications of this study include a consideration of wider social factors that become important for implementing transformative change in education, presenting challenges to traditional K-12 and higher education curriculum, outcomes, and infrastructure

A Social Inquiry Analysis of Post-Pandemic Higher Education: A Futures Perspective

This paper explores higher education futures post the Corona virus pandemic. It uses futures and social inquiry approaches to explore how post-pandemic times will impact higher education. As a research method, social inquiry connects across social systems to explore complex relationships and impacts, providing a broader perspective of potential influences and synergies of social phenomenon. Social inquiry research shifts focus away from causal affects to explore patterns of connectivity and is therefore an appropriate methodology for futures inquiry. An examination of 141 trends associated with COVID-19 impacts provided the data for futures analyses through a Causal Layered Analysis approach. Three guiding questions including how we can address the challenges and embrace the opportunities of post-pandemic times to create more equitable, inclusive and sustainable higher education futures were explored. Results point to the need to rethink our social metaphors for more equitable and desirable higher education futures. Implications of this research suggest the need to examine and revision the purpose and values of higher education to meet the needs of individuals and society

Curriculum Clearings as Being-With-Mathematics Experiences: Authentic Learning through a Heideggerian Lens

The article focuses on the study conducted by the authors in order to understand the nature of authentic learning experience of math students. Authentic learning experience is characterized by the ability of the student to integrate and use disciplinary concepts with real life experience. The authors note that authentic learning experience of math students is influenced by individual perception towards math and expectation on the practical benefits of math education

DATA SHARING TO DRIVE THE IMPROVEMENT OF TEACHER PREPARATION PROGRAMS

Background/Context: Teacher preparation programs (TPPs) face increasing pressure from the federal government, states, and accreditation agencies to improve the quality of their practices and graduates, yet they often do not possess enough data to make evidence-based reforms. Purpose/Objective: This manuscript has four objectives: (a) to present the strengths and shortcomings of accountability-based TPP evaluation systems; (b) to detail the individual-level data being shared with TPPs at public universities in North Carolina; (c) to describe how data sharing can lead to TPP improvement and the challenges that programs will need to overcome; and (d) to detail how three TPPs are using the data for program improvement. Setting: North Carolina public schools and schools of education at public universities in North Carolina. Importantly, this individual-level data sharing system can be instituted among TPPs in other states. Population/Participants/Subjects: Teachers initially-prepared b

Labour supply and skills demands in fashion retailing

If, as Adam Smith once famously suggested, Britain was a nation of shopkeepers then it is now a nation of shopworkers. Retail is now a significant part of the UK economy, accounting for £256 billion in sales and one-third of all consumer spending (Skillsmart, 2007). It is the largest private sector employer in the UK, employing 3m workers, or 1 in 10 of the working population. For future job creation in the UK economy retail is also similarly prominent and the sector is expected to create a further 250,000 jobs to 2014 (Skillsmart, 2007). The centrality of retail to economic success and job creation is apparent in other advanced economies. For example, within the US, retail sales is the occupation with the largest projected job growth in the period 2004-2014 (Gatta et al., 2009) and in Australia retail accounts for 1 in 6 workers (Buchanan et al., 2003). Within the UK these workers are employed in approximately 290,000 businesses, encompassing large and small organizations and also a number of sub-sectors. This variance suggests that retail should not be regarded as homogenous in its labour demands. Hart et al. (2007) note how skill requirements and the types of workers employed may differ across the sector. This chapter further opens up this point, providing an analysis of the labour supply and skills demands for the sub-sectors of clothing, footwear and leather goods, which are described by Skillsmart (2007: 48) as being 'significant categories in UK retailing'

Fleener, M. Jayne, Curriculum Dynamics, pp. 163-180 in her Curriculum Dynamics: Recreating Heart. New York: Peter Lang, 2002.

Draws implications from postmodern logics for ways of seeing curriculum in line with Doll\u27s (1993) conceptions; a following chapter deals with related issues in curriculum studies and research