Critical thinking for 21st-century education: A cyber-tooth curriculum?

It is often assumed that the advent of digital technologies requires fundamental change to the curriculum and to the teaching and learning approaches used in schools around the world to educate this generation of “digital natives” or the “net generation”. This article analyses the concepts of 21st-century skills and critical thinking, to understand how these aspects of learning might contribute to a 21st-century education. The author argues that, although both critical thinking and 21st-century skills are indeed necessary in a curriculum for a 21st-century education, they are not sufficient, even in combination. The role of knowledge and an understanding of differing cultural perspectives and values indicate that education should also fit local contexts in a global world and meet the specific needs of students in diverse cultures. It should also fit the particular technical and historical demands of the 21st century in relation to digital skills

Who Am I? Transforming Our Understanding of Identity and Moral Education

When I was invited to edit a special issue of Education Sciences on the theme of “Moral education and identity”, I saw an opportunity both to gain a better understanding of how scholars across a range of disciplines construed the task of moral education in terms of identity and—I can now confess—to defend the claim that moral education, when properly understood, depends upon an account of identity which is quite different from that which dominates the social sciences, the media and popular opinion. My aim here is to provide such an account and, thereby, to suggest how we might construe the challenge of moral education in a world, and at a time, in which self-centered, short-sighted and narrow-minded thinking dominates much of the socio-political landscape. I argue that the dominant view of identity—that our own identities are constituted by those collectives and institutions with which we identify—actually reinforces narratives which bind us to tribal perspectives—in national, religious and cultural terms—in which we increasingly see ourselves and others in terms of who is “in” and who is “out”. I propose a relational view of identity in which each person sees her/himself as “one among others”, where the relationships in question both bind us in familiar and concrete ways to others—i.e., other persons but also other objects in the world—and transcend the boundaries imposed by belonging to this or that nation, religion, culture, or tribe. This idea of what it means to be a person goes hand-in-hand with a framework for moral education which is also both concretely relational and appropriately transcendent. Put briefly, we need to create the conditions in which young people engage one another dialogically in taking responsibility for tackling what I term “the Big Questions”, including: “What do I/we stand for?”, “What/who really matters?”, “What kind of society/world do I/we want to live in (and leave for future generations)?”, and “What is my place in the world?”. (In taking this approach, I aim to address at least some of the questions posed in the original call for submissions for this special issue, as outlined at the Special Issue “Moral Education and Identity”)

Education in Global Health Radiology

Radiologists and radiology professionals have noted the gaps in diagnostic and interventional imaging access worldwide as documented by the World Health Organization. Since global health focuses on issues that transcend national boundaries, emphasizes solutions that often require global cooperation, and is multidisciplinary, then the concept of radiology education in global health should consider this broader context of international partnership and collaboration. There are several models in place for education in the global health setting with emphasis on radiology. This chapter discusses faculty exchanges, scholarly collaboration, partnership, formal education, online education as a tool, integration of global health concepts into radiology curricula, and socially responsible collaboration. Regardless of the type of model used, educational goals and objectives should be based on initial assessment data and address the appropriate needs. Curricula should be established in partnership with all stakeholders and with consideration for ethical best practices, continuous evaluation and improvement of the program, and open communication among stakeholders