Search

Traditional engineering education (Eng. Ed) has received criticism for restricting student learning and experiences to practical skills development while ignoring the significance of fostering cognitive skills that encourage higher order thinking, criticality, and self-reflexivity. Imaginative education (IE) has emerged as a consideration for replacing such skills focused engineering curricula with interactive, engaging, and student-centered pedagogical approaches. However, existing literature on the topic as well as Egan's (1997) own explanation of the five stages of understanding (somatic, mythic, romantic, philosophic, and ironic) are mainly focused on K-12 contexts, leaving limited resources and insights for higher education contexts. This calls for theoretical and practical expansion of the topic where development and implementation of IE-informed Eng. Ed for adult engineering students remain the focus. To respond to this call, this conceptual paper focuses on two main points. First, it attempts to unpack the theoretical underpinnings of the five stages of IE to understand what each stage means for educators and learners in higher education engineering contexts. Second, after outlining the challenges that traditional Eng. Ed is facing in a globalized world today and the initiatives from the field to address them, it discusses the promises IE can bring to make Eng. Ed more effective, inclusive, and relevant. Overall, the intention in this paper is to turn to the theoretical tensions that may emerge when considering IE as an approach to re-imagine and expand Eng. Ed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The field of artificial intelligence (AI) is presently having a substantial influence on the advancement of career counseling education by enabling tailored guidance and evidence-based decision-making for learners. This paper aims to provide an overview about the utilization of AI in Bangladesh's early career planning education. The utilization of AI has already been deployed in many first world country, however this is quite new to the third world country like Bangladesh. Significantly, artificial intelligence (AI) has surpassed its traditional function in professional growth and extended its reach to encompass social and emotional education. The examination of AI studies in Bangladesh requires the careful examination of several elements, such as cognitive advancement, parental engagement and oversight, and cultural heritage. This paper reveals overall all the facets of implementing AI in career planning in context of Bangladesh. Although there are several limits associated with the utilization of artificial intelligence for career assessment, it has undeniably yielded a multitude of benefits and discoveries. In the result, the two areas of data-informed making choices and career exploration are where the phenomena mentioned above are most frequently seen. Additionally, there is a growing need for cultural competency in the educational sector for both the delivery of individualized career counseling and AI-assisted employment suggestions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This document provides a summary of a collection of research articles focused on the intersection of education and technology. The articles cover a range of topics, including the integration of IoT in higher education, a tool to improve programming instruction, the impact of COVID-19 on education, and the use of virtual reality and augmented reality in online learning. The research presented in these articles aims to enhance educational experiences, address the needs of diverse learners, and provide recommendations for future research and implementation. [Extracted from the article]

Online education is popular for its flexibility and high accessibility. The transactions of educational multimedia data resources can effectively promote the development of educational informatization and solve the island situation of educational resources. However, educational resources may be facing severe illegal redistribution. And the copyright is not well protected. In most of existing transaction schemes for educational multimedia data, there is always a centralized third party, which may lead to dispute, distrust, or privacy issues. In this paper, we propose a fair and accountable trading scheme for educational multimedia data based on blockchain. We combine anti-collusion code named BIBD-ACC and asymmetric fingerprinting technology to achieve a relatively strong copyright protection. To realize a fair trading, we implement a smart contract with a reasonable pricing model. In addition, we leverage TEE to solve the privacy issues of public chain and IPFS to mitigate the storage cost of the blockchain. We implemented and evaluated the scheme in Ethereum. The results show that our scheme can achieve well copyright protection and preserve the users' privacy. The overall overhead is reasonable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the development of mobile communication technology and the widespread popularization of mobile devices, mobile learning (m-learning) as a new learning model has achieved rapid development in many fields. Therefore, it is essential to clearly describe the knowledge development trajectory and research topics in the field of m-learning. This paper reviews 1396 articles associated with m-learning since 1992 to explore the knowledge trajectories. The global main path and the key-route main path reveal that higher education has become the leading research field of m-learning. The majority of researches focus on personalized guidance and acceptance and adoption of m-learning. Multiple main paths obtain three subareas, including design and development of m-learning, factors affecting the acceptance and adoption of m-learning, and comprehensive application of m-learning. This paper contributes to the m-learning domain by providing research directions and making implications for future researchers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cultural capital is vital for equitable educational development. This paper studies the effect of family cultural capital on the performance of middle school students with regard to gender, using a multiple linear regression model. Participants from four representative middle schools, totalling 1036 students, were selected during the online learning period. The study found that institutionalised and objectified cultural capital had a pronounced positive effect on students' school outcomes, but cultural capital that was embodied had both positive and negative effects. Significant differences in the effects of cultural capital on school success were found between male and female students. The educational level of a mother has a significant impact on the school attainment of female students in Chinese, English, math and overall achievement, whereas a father's education level has a significant effect on male students' English achievement and overall achievement. The results of the study showed that cultural capital contributed to the academic success of middle school students in different ways. The results presented above contribute to a better comprehension of the mechanisms of the influence of cultural capital on the school performance of middle school students, which has important implications for students' educational equity. This study recommends improving the mechanism of collaborative education among schools, families and society, by paying attention to vulnerable groups that lack cultural capital, improving the methods of educational evaluation and providing tailor-made education for all types of students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Predicting student performance is a critical aspect of educational systems. Although forecasting a student's future performance is essential in many applications, it is a challenging process due to various factors. Previous research in this area has mainly focused on comparing machine learning methods to automate student evaluation and predict their final performance. However, there have been limited studies that thoroughly explore the issue of class imbalance using a deep learning approach. Moreover, the large dataset targeting university students makes it well-suited for in-depth analysis and increases the likelihood of obtaining more accurate results. This study presents a deep learning model based on convolution and introduces a comprehensive exploration of oversampling and undersampling methods to address the issue of imbalanced classes. The paper investigates various features and characteristics of undergraduate students at the University of Jordan, utilizing a large dataset collected from the university's registration unit. These features include demographic information, attributes related to students' majors, faculties, registrations, courses taken (such as passed, repeated, and completed), as well as their high school averages and performance in the first four semesters. The results demonstrate that the model performs exceptionally well in terms of gmean when predicting students' excellence. This research project has significant implications and provides valuable insights to the research community and higher education managers, aiding in the development of improved strategies to enhance educational performance. Future researchers can utilize the methods employed in this paper during the data preprocessing stages and implement the demonstrated balancing strategies for further advancements in this field of study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The vocational experiences and skills of young adolescents could be infused into formal education by identifying career competencies to be taught within the academic curriculum. Such curriculum practices that embed educational and career pathways must also include the perspectives of students and the community, particularly those from marginalised groups. Drawing on data from 111 teachers, principals, carers and students, this paper presents research undertaken to co-design career education lesson plans within an infused model of the curriculum for early Middle Year students from regional, rural, and remote Australia. The lesson plans and activities were designed to allow for meaningful self-reflection and goal-setting that could be seamlessly infused into the formal curriculum and help embed early-stage career education. The paper concludes by projecting opportunities and challenges for seamless curriculum integration, while pertinent to the Australian context, can also be read with broader relevance to other educational systems and schools. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines Bauhaus School (1919–1933) innovation and relevance today. The School is a landmark in the history of design as a discipline and the development of design education. The School was also a workplace, commercialising Bauhaus-designed products. While drawing global interest in its innovations, the School faced resistance in Germany because it challenged conventions. This problem raises the questions: How did the School-workplace generate innovations amid the calamity of post-war Germany, and what is the significance of the Bauhaus for post-pandemic education and workplaces one hundred years on? The concept of 'transgression' is used to understand innovation at the Bauhaus School-workplace. Haraway discusses transgressive practices that disrupt established knowledges, moving ways of thinking and doing in new directions. Analysis of workplace learning research reveals that three interfacing dimensions make up innovation: (1) workplace environments, (2) the culture-order that facilitates innovation, and (3) learning in practice in authentic settings. This qualitative case study reports on how Bauhaus innovation emerged at the intersection of these key dimensions. There are surprising commonalities between the Bauhaus approach to innovation in challenging times and contemporary thinking about supporting innovation which are relevant to education, particularly STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Mathematics) education, and workplaces in a world affected by the COVID 19 pandemic. Thus, encouraging people who challenge boundaries, rules or 'the way things are' can support innovation. This paper addresses a gap in workplace learning research on interrelated dimensions of innovation which the Bauhaus recognized. The study also offers an innovative approach to the examination of innovation across time and space whereas most contemporary studies of innovation focus on the present. Further, conceptualizing innovation as transgression offers a new way of thinking about innovation in design and in the workplace. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a report on the activities and the proposed action plan of the Education and Public Outreach Working Group (EPO WG) of Square Kilometre Array–India Consortium (SKAIC). Details of a set of flagship programs as well as supporting activities are presented, in consonance with the scale of India's involvement in Square Kilometre Array Observatory (SKAO), as well as the educational and science literacy contexts in the country. Ongoing independent EPO activities by some of the member institutions are also included. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Digital fabrication technologies are revealing new ways of dealing with design processes. Robotic fabrication technologies are generally dismissed at the undergraduate level, especially in first-year design education. This is due to the common belief that novice design students have insufficient skills for designing with a robotic arm. This paper presents an experiment that took place in a first-year basic design studio at a faculty of architecture. The studio investigates the utilization of a robotic arm as a design and production tool. Students without robot programming and operation skills were encouraged to transfer a priori skills of hand tools and techniques learned in successive assignments to utilize the robotic arm. This experiment revealed the educational potential strategies for the integration of robot technology in first-year design studios. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A number of commentators have recently called for a re-examination of the purpose and value of undergraduate education, arguing that change is required if universities are to deliver the value in educational outcomes that students and communities now require for a changing and challenging world (for example, Aoun, 2017; Bok, 2020; Davidson, 2017; Fischman & Gardner, 2022). Indeed, some have argued that such change is necessary to stem an emerging crisis in universities' 'social license to operate' (Bok, 2020). In this paper, we review the case for undergraduate curriculum change and present a case study of one Australian university's engagement with this challenge, describing the reasons for change, the desired outcomes, and some early impacts on students' study patterns. The change took place at the University of Sydney over the period from 2014 to 2021 with a new undergraduate curriculum introduced for commencing students from 2018. Intended to prepare students for a changing world, the new curriculum sought a balance between graduates' expertise in a primary field of study and a set of broader capabilities that would support their capacity for future learning and for creative and effective engagement in life and career, including an understanding of broader intellectual landscapes; the skills for collaboration, invention, and influence; and the integration of knowledge with professional and personal ethics and values. The aspiration to develop such capabilities is shared with many universities around the world, and we describe here how the available evidence base was used to guide whole-of-University curriculum redesign in this case. We also identify areas where further research would be of value. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper evaluates how the July 2005 London terrorist attacks affected Muslim teenagers' education plans and decisions. The attacks triggered a violent backslash against the Muslim community, which could have affected their incentives to continue in full-time education. I examine panel data on educational attitudes from the "Next Steps" Survey in England and use the month the survey was administered to divide individuals into treatment and control groups. I find that the attacks negatively affected the education plans of Muslims, but not those of any other major religious group. The probability of planning to continue in non-compulsory full-time education decreased by around 4.4% points for Muslims after the attacks. This corresponds to a 69% increase in individuals who were not sure whether to continue or drop out of full-time education. However, this change in plans appears to be a temporary reaction, since it did not affect students' actual decisions two years later. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper utilises selective writings by John Dewey and Maurice Merleau-Ponty as the conceptual basis for considering how an enhanced synergistic focus on habit and embodiment could support practice gains in schools. The paper focuses on Dewey's belief that established habits can help students to incorporate experiences into evaluations of educational progress and Merleau-Ponty's spotlight on the body-subject, and how it provides a holistic way of conceiving relations that avoid over privileging abstraction and cognition and under-representing the centrality of the body in human experience. We then evaluate the role of language and reflection in relation to habit, embodiment, and education before discussing some of the general educational practice considerations which might improve the quality of students learning experiences. In conclusion, we consider the possibilities for Dewey's pragmatism to function as a theoretical bridge to Merleau-Ponty's phenomenology of perception and the nature of experience. We argue that while it is important to recognise points of difference, in relation to philosophical treatments of habit and embodiment, it is also important to consider the overlap and new connections between Merleau-Ponty and Dewey which are valuable to take forward in contemporary education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many approaches have been employed in the creation of educational technologies. One of the lesser explored approaches is that of participatory design when it includes children as direct contributors. In such cases, specific strategies for supporting the effective participation of software developers and children are necessary. This article discusses a participatory design project that was initiated to support the learning of music students, aged 11 through 17, as they practiced the piano. To design this educational technology, these students worked with a team of piano teachers, their parents, researchers, and software developers over a two-year period. This paper describes challenges that arose as the developers and students worked together to create a new application that supported student learning. The findings include practical strategies that were adopted throughout the design process for building trust, balancing power, and aligning values. Implementation of these strategies is discussed as a way to provide effective support for software developers to empower them to work successfully as part of a participatory design team that includes children. The implemented strategies and suggestions should help others to integrate children and developers as active contributors to the design of educational technologies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Report: Zeitschrift für Weiterbildungsforschung is the property of Springer Nature and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Notably, the authors of this study do not contextualise the focus of micro-credential development in regional terms, where there is an emphasis on micro-credentials to support the transition from secondary schooling to further and higher education. References 1 Brown M, Mhichil MNC, Beirne E, Mac Lchlainn C. The global microcredential landscape: Charting a new credential ecology for lifelong learning. At the Micro-Credential Summit, held in Barcelona, Spain in March 2023, a representative from the European Commission borrowed the tagline of a global sports brand in his presentation on micro-credentials, urging those present to "Just do it".[1] In this Special Issue of the ETHE, we sought to uncover what was both being done and why in order to unpack micro-credentials in the so-called next "new normal" in higher education ecosystems. [Extracted from the article]

Universities of applied sciences (UAS) have a strong mandate to carry out research, development and innovation (RDI) activities in collaboration with local stakeholders. Geographical proximity is one of the key factors for the creation and success of RDI activities because of the positive balance between costs and benefits of local knowledge transfer, but they also depend on the networks of individual staff members. This paper aims to explore how maintaining and developing purpose-built and individual RDI partnerships during the COVID-19 pandemic has been managed. An enhanced conceptual framework for assessing contextual dimensions of the RDI activities beyond academic entrepreneurship as business ventures has been developed. The paper focuses on a single case study drawing on semi-structured research interviews investigating how the swap to remote working have affected RDI activities at Tampere University of Applied Sciences, one of the biggest UAS in Finland with intense regional linkages. The contribution of the study is twofold; firstly, the paper introduces an expanded theoretical approach for assessing the external and internal factors having an impact on the RDI activities beyond academic entrepreneurship. Secondly, by testing the proposed framework, it shares insights and good practices derived from empirical evidence, namely binary data and semi-structured interviews revealing experiences of RDI personnel and project managers involved with different phases of RDI process, for optimising high-quality innovation support, knowledge transfer activities and co-creation of new knowledge in exceptional circumstances. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many educational institutions have partially or fully closed all operations to cope with the challenges of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. In this paper, we explore strategies that such institutions can adopt to conduct safe reopening and resume operations during the pandemic. The research is motivated by the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign's (UIUC's) SHIELD program, which is a set of policies and strategies, including rapid saliva-based COVID-19 screening, for ensuring safety of students, faculty and staff to conduct in-person operations, at least partially. Specifically, we study how rapid bulk testing, contact tracing and preventative measures such as mask wearing, sanitization, and enforcement of social distancing can allow institutions to manage the epidemic spread. This work combines the power of analytical epidemic modeling, data analysis and agent-based simulations to derive policy insights. We develop an analytical model that takes into account the asymptomatic transmission of COVID-19, the effect of isolation via testing (both in bulk and through contact tracing) and the rate of contacts among people within and outside the institution. Next, we use data from the UIUC SHIELD program and 85 other universities to estimate parameters that describe the analytical model. Using the estimated parameters, we finally conduct agent-based simulations with various model parameters to evaluate testing and reopening strategies. The parameter estimates from UIUC and other universities show similar trends. For example, infection rates at various institutions grow rapidly in certain months and this growth correlates positively with infection rates in counties where the universities are located. Infection rates are also shown to be negatively correlated with testing rates at the institutions. Through agent-based simulations, we demonstrate that the key to designing an effective reopening strategy is a combination of rapid bulk testing and effective preventative measures such as mask wearing and social distancing. Multiple other factors help to reduce infection load, such as efficient contact tracing, reduced delay between testing and result revelation, tests with less false negatives and targeted testing of high-risk class among others. This paper contributes to the nascent literature on combating the COVID-19 pandemic and is especially relevant for educational institutions and similarly large organizations. We contribute by providing an analytical model that can be used to estimate key parameters from data, which in turn can be used to simulate the effect of different strategies for reopening. We quantify the relative effect of different strategies such as bulk testing, contact tracing, reduced infectivity and contact rates in the context of educational institutions. Specifically, we show that for the estimated average base infectivity of 0.025 ( R 0 = 1.82 ), a daily number of tests to population ratio T/N of 0.2, i.e., once a week testing for all individuals, is a good indicative threshold. However, this test to population ratio is sensitive to external infectivities, internal and external mobilities, delay in getting results after testing, and measures related to mask wearing and sanitization, which affect the base infection rate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Design education as a field is growing rapidly due to its potential to develop the capacity of students to become creative and imaginative thinkers. In addition to these key twenty-first century skills, design education can also equip students with problem solving skills and innovative capabilities. The purpose of this paper is to build an understanding of how design is represented within the Australian Curriculum: Technologies document and critically explore effects of these representations within and between Key Learning Areas. The paper makes a contribution to design education in school contexts through an empirical analysis of curriculum documents to illuminate the complexity of the concept of design and the pedagogical implications of its multiple representations in this curriculum document. The analysis includes identification of the Key Learning Area in which design is most frequently represented across the Australian Curriculum. Content analysis with concept mapping are used to interrogate how design is represented within and throughout curriculum documents. We also undertake a critical examination of how design is positioned in the curriculum and the implications of such positioning. The paper argues the need for strong, unambiguous representations of design to inform curriculum and pedagogy. Clarity of the representation of design will contribute to the development of innovative capabilities in students and help to prepare them for an uncertain future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Prior research looking at Arab experiences in media education, despite its importance, did not provide a comprehensive evaluation of the curricula and study plans in Arab media colleges and departments but rather treated media education in a narrow and partial way. Therefore, this study fills this research gap by analysing the curricula of 21 media colleges, departments and institutes in 10 Arab countries from a perspective related to pressing issues of the Arab world, namely, the issues of diversity, pluralism, rights and freedoms. Three levels of content analysis were adopted to evaluate media education in the Middle East and North Africa—specifically, the learning objectives for managing diversity and differences based on UNESCO's Media and Information Literacy Curriculum for Educators and Learners. The results showed that 33.2% (79 out of 238) of the total number of learning objectives in the UNESCO curriculum were specific to the skills of managing diversity. The study classified them into five main areas: promoting human rights, equality, pluralism, the culture of dialogue, and the commitment to ethics. Emphasis on adherence to media ethics was the most evident in all of the Arab academic plans, followed by, to a lesser extent, the emphasis on promoting the culture of dialogue, peace, and understanding, and finally promoting human rights. The weaknesses were represented in the lack of clarity on the items related to pluralism, democratic practice, equality, and the empowerment of women. The paper concludes with a discussion of the importance of adopting deeper methods of analysis to evaluate the items on enhancing diversity management in all Arab education curricula, in addition to the importance of establishing a practical discussion among decision-makers and experts to integrate new media education into the curricula of media students in line with advanced international experiences and take into account the notion of cultural privacy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Entrustable Professional Activities (EPAs) are defined as a process of gradually entrusting key tasks to specialty fellows during their training. EPAs are an important component of competency-based medical education; the concept of entrustment is also familiar and intuitive to clinical faculty, even inexperienced evaluators even if not termed as such. In this paper, we describe the process of how the authors adopted an established EPA framework for gastroenterology training, using EPAs to guide curriculum and faculty development and assessment in ten steps: (1) adopting an established framework, (2) mapping EPAs to relevant competencies, (3) specifying expected behaviors for competency of each EPA, (4) training faculty and fellows to have a shared mental model, (5) designing the training curriculum and educational strategies based on EPAs, (6) determining the assessment strategy, (7) designing the assessment tool, (8) ensuring clarity in how assessment data are used to make summative decisions, (9) changing feedback culture of fellows, and (10) using a longitudinal coaching system to improve EPA performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article, which is related to a longer piece to be published in 2023, starts from the point of view that, despite some issues, there may be borrowable ideas in how South Korea and Japan developed their education systems, especially at the outset of their modern periods of educational development. However, in the popular press, and even among some specialists, such as development agency officials, there is perhaps not enough realization of some of the features of these systems that recommend them, such as their world-best degree of learning outcomes equality, and there is perhaps too much emphasis on the idea that students in these countries are stressed much more than students in other countries, and that most of the learning is rote learning. This Viewpoint uses numerical indicators of equality to show just how commendably equal those systems are, in terms of learning results, especially compared to systems in developing countries. It also examines official and comparative data on stress and on rote learning, to present an alternative view. While it is undoubtedly the case that students in these systems are stressed, and that the systems could put more emphasis on creativity, these countries are hardly outliers in these respects, even as compared to countries whose systems have a reputation for being more relaxed or more creative. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this editorial, three Advances in Health Sciences Education editors argue for the importance and impact of adaptive expertise on the future of health professions education and work. They present a sample of the broad range of theory-informed research currently contributing to understanding and applying adaptive expertise in health professions education. They reflect on the unique opportunities that interdisciplinarity offers this endeavour. Finally they offer potential ways forward for continued efforts to advance collective understanding of education, expert development and health professions practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we review algorithmic bias in education, discussing the causes of that bias and reviewing the empirical literature on the specific ways that algorithmic bias is known to have manifested in education. While other recent work has reviewed mathematical definitions of fairness and expanded algorithmic approaches to reducing bias, our review focuses instead on solidifying the current understanding of the concrete impacts of algorithmic bias in education—which groups are known to be impacted and which stages and agents in the development and deployment of educational algorithms are implicated. We discuss theoretical and formal perspectives on algorithmic bias, connect those perspectives to the machine learning pipeline, and review metrics for assessing bias. Next, we review the evidence around algorithmic bias in education, beginning with the most heavily-studied categories of race/ethnicity, gender, and nationality, and moving to the available evidence of bias for less-studied categories, such as socioeconomic status, disability, and military-connected status. Acknowledging the gaps in what has been studied, we propose a framework for moving from unknown bias to known bias and from fairness to equity. We discuss obstacles to addressing these challenges and propose four areas of effort for mitigating and resolving the problems of algorithmic bias in AIED systems and other educational technology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Self-handicapping strategies refer to the set of choices and attitudes adopted to minimize blame for failure and increase the value of success in achievement situations. This paper aims to describe the stages of construction and the psychometric analysis of a scale to measure the self-handicapping strategies of university students. In study 1, the major steps for the construction of the scales and initial results are reported. The internal consistency indices were acceptable and the principal component analysis revealed factors with little explanation of data variance. In study 2, data from a sample of 834 students from several undergraduate courses of different Brazilian universities were subjected to exploratory factor analysis using the minimum rank factor analysis (MRFA) method and the matrix of polychoric correlations. The parallel analysis criterion for factor retention indicated the one-factor solution as the best fit to data. The importance of having a valid and reliable measure to assess self-handicapping strategies in educational contexts and the promising use of the scale in actions to improve learning in higher education are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Identity has been widely understood in Western societies as a specular construction that operates simultaneously both from within and from outside oneself. However, this process is fiercely changing in a world in which almost every human action is mediated by information and communication technologies. This paper, from a theoretical perspective, aims to discover the main educational implications of this change. For that purpose, we first consider the traditional meaning and process of forming the self in Western culture. Afterwards, we identify and describe the mechanisms for the construction of the self in our current context, highlighting the fact that technologies, in themselves and regardless of the use we make of them, hide implications. Taking this into account, we show to what extent the current development of the self presents shades, conflicts and tangible risks from an educational perspective. We finally conclude that it is essential to promote an education on technology that goes beyond the use regulation in which, up to now, it has been solely focused on. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Evolution is a key concept of biology, fundamental to understand the world and address important societal problems, but research studies show that it is still not widely understood and accepted. Several factors are known to influence evolution acceptance and understanding, but little information is available regarding the impacts of the curriculum on these aspects. Very few curricula have been examined to assess the coverage of biological evolution. The available studies do not allow comparative analyses, due to the different methodologies employed by the authors. However, such an analysis would be useful for research purposes and for the development of appropriate educational policies to address the problem of a lack of evolution acceptance in some countries. In this paper we describe the steps through which we developed a valid and reliable instrument for curricula analysis known as FACE: "Framework to Assess the Coverage of biological Evolution by school curricula." This framework was developed based on the "Understanding Evolution Conceptual Framework" (UECF). After an initial pilot study, our framework was reformulated based on identified issues and experts' opinions. To generate validity and reliability evidence in support of the framework, it was applied to four European countries' curricula. For each country, a team of a minimum of two national and two foreign coders worked independently to assess the curriculum using this framework for content analysis. Reliability evidence was estimated using Krippendorf's alpha and resulted in appropriate values for coding the examined curricula. Some issues that coders faced during the analysis were discussed and, to ensure better reliability for future researchers, additional guidelines and one extra category were included in the framework. The final version of the framework includes six categories and 34 subcategories. FACE is a useful tool for the analysis and the comparison of curricula and school textbooks regarding the coverage of evolution, and such results can guide curricula development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper builds on a range of traditions in educational research and design to argue, with empirical evidence, that constructing powerful instructional materials and approaches that work at scale requires a grounding in theory and a commitment to engineering practice, including rapid prototyping and multiple development cycles. Specifically, we claim that improving practice within a reasonable timescale requires replicable materials that integrate: (1) grounding in robust aspects of theory from prior research, (2) design tactics that combine these core ideas with a design team's creativity, along with (3) flexibility in the draft materials that affords adaptation across contexts, (4) rapid prototyping, followed by iterative refinement cycles in increasingly realistic circumstances, with (5) feedback from each round of trials that is rich and detailed enough to inform revision, and (6) continued refinement on the basis of post-implementation feedback 'from the field'. Examples of successful implementation are analysed and related to the various roles that research-based theory and programmatic research-based methods of development can and should play in the complex process of turning insights from research into improvements in practice. In contrast, we shall argue that materials which are written and published without the development processes (4) to (6)—still the great majority—lack research validity for use at scale. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article reflects on the complexity of co-generative learning processes between a university and regional actors, drawing on the author’s experience facilitating an action research course. The course engages students in collaborating with regional practitioners on real-life territorial development challenges. Through glimpses into the co-generation process from student exam papers, the article highlights the challenges students face in navigating ambiguity and complexity when exposed to real-life territorial issues. Concepts such as regional complexity, Bildung, interiority, and democratic dialogue are used to analyze how structured reflection and facilitation through participation with regional actors can enhance students’ critical capacities for reflection and action. The main theoretical contribution is extending the concept of co-generative learning of Morten Levin and action research for territorial development by integrating students as reflective, facilitative actors in educational and regional development processes. Action research for territorial development provides a framework for accompanying the social transformations needed to address complex challenges. The article shows that by engaging in real-life issues through participatory, reflective processes, students develop crucial skills for facilitating collective territorial development efforts. Despite limitations related to geographic context and the course structure, the insights gained offer valuable implications for applying Levin’s legacy in other contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Digital equity is imperative for realizing the Sustainable Development Goals, particularly SDG9 and SDG10. Recent empirical studies indicate that Design for Digital Equity (DDE) is an effective strategy for achieving digital equity. However, before this review, the overall academic landscape of DDE remained obscure, marked by substantial knowledge gaps. This review employs a rigorous bibliometric methodology to analyze 1705 DDE-related publications, aiming to delineate DDE's research progress and intellectual structure and identify research opportunities. The retrieval strategy was formulated based on the PICo framework, with the process adhering to the PRISMA systematic review framework to ensure transparency and replicability of the research method. CiteSpace was utilized to visually present the analysis results, including co-occurrences of countries, institutions, authors, keywords, emerging trends, clustering, timeline analyses, and dual-map overlays of publications. The results reveal eight significant DDE clusters closely related to user-centered design, assistive technology, digital health, mobile devices, evidence-based practices, and independent living. A comprehensive intellectual structure of DDE was constructed based on the literature and research findings. The current research interest in DDE lies in evidence-based co-design practices, design issues in digital mental health, acceptance and humanization of digital technologies, digital design for visually impaired students, and intergenerational relationships. Future research opportunities are identified in DDE's emotional, cultural, and fashion aspects; acceptance of multimodal, tangible, and natural interaction technologies; needs and preferences of marginalized groups in developing countries and among minority populations; and broader interdisciplinary research. This study unveils the multi-dimensional and inclusive nature of methodological, technological, and user issues in DDE research. These insights offer valuable guidance for policy-making, educational strategies, and the development of inclusive digital technologies, charting a clear direction for future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Master's degree-level graduates in Subject Teaching (Geography) (hereinafter referred to as STG) in Chinese normal universities form a valuable pool of pre-service secondary school geography teachers. These graduates provide a comprehensive picture of the quality, focus and outcomes of current geography teacher training programs. However, there is a relative dearth of research appertaining to their research capabilities and the quality of their educational development. To address this gap, the present study adopts bibliometric and comparative analysis to shed light on the overall trends and specific characteristics of STG master's theses from 2016 to 2022. The findings indicate that universities with divergent levels of subject assessment prioritize different research emphases, leading to variations in the depth of investigation into new teaching materials and the level of alignment with frontline geography teaching. Furthermore, in comparison with cutting-edge international and domestic research, the master's theses of STG students are characterized by microscopic scale and insufficient depth. A three-pronged collaborative framework has therefore been advocated with the aim of enhancing the quality of STG graduates as pre-service geography teachers. This comprises close interactions among on-campus and off-campus tutors and learners, a partnership between universities and secondary schools, and inter-university cooperation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the last four decades, studies have investigated the incorporation of Artificial Intelligence (AI) into education. A recent prominent AI-powered technology that has impacted the education sector is ChatGPT. This article provides a systematic review of 14 empirical studies incorporating ChatGPT into various educational settings, published in 2022 and before the 10th of April 2023—the date of conducting the search process. It carefully followed the essential steps outlined in the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA 2020) guidelines, as well as Okoli's (Okoli in Commun Assoc Inf Syst, 2015) steps for conducting a rigorous and transparent systematic review. In this review, we aimed to explore how students and teachers have utilized ChatGPT in various educational settings, as well as the primary findings of those studies. By employing Creswell's (Creswell in Educational research: planning, conducting, and evaluating quantitative and qualitative research [Ebook], Pearson Education, London, 2015) coding techniques for data extraction and interpretation, we sought to gain insight into their initial attempts at ChatGPT incorporation into education. This approach also enabled us to extract insights and considerations that can facilitate its effective and responsible use in future educational contexts. The results of this review show that learners have utilized ChatGPT as a virtual intelligent assistant, where it offered instant feedback, on-demand answers, and explanations of complex topics. Additionally, learners have used it to enhance their writing and language skills by generating ideas, composing essays, summarizing, translating, paraphrasing texts, or checking grammar. Moreover, learners turned to it as an aiding tool to facilitate their directed and personalized learning by assisting in understanding concepts and homework, providing structured learning plans, and clarifying assignments and tasks. However, the results of specific studies (n = 3, 21.4%) show that overuse of ChatGPT may negatively impact innovative capacities and collaborative learning competencies among learners. Educators, on the other hand, have utilized ChatGPT to create lesson plans, generate quizzes, and provide additional resources, which helped them enhance their productivity and efficiency and promote different teaching methodologies. Despite these benefits, the majority of the reviewed studies recommend the importance of conducting structured training, support, and clear guidelines for both learners and educators to mitigate the drawbacks. This includes developing critical evaluation skills to assess the accuracy and relevance of information provided by ChatGPT, as well as strategies for integrating human interaction and collaboration into learning activities that involve AI tools. Furthermore, they also recommend ongoing research and proactive dialogue with policymakers, stakeholders, and educational practitioners to refine and enhance the use of AI in learning environments. This review could serve as an insightful resource for practitioners who seek to integrate ChatGPT into education and stimulate further research in the field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Educational strategies have undergone significant transformations in an era marked by rapid globalization, advancements in communication technologies, and challenges like the COVID-19 pandemic. Amid these changes, Citizen Science (CS) has gained prominence as an innovative educational approach, particularly in fostering complex thinking skills necessary to navigate contemporary global trends. This study aims to fill the knowledge gap regarding the effectiveness of CS projects in developing complex thinking competencies within higher education. Through a bibliometric analysis of 28 Scopus-indexed articles from 2000 to 2022, this research maps the landscape of CS as an educational strategy and evaluates its alignment with complex thinking development. The analysis indicates a strong link between CS projects and the enhancement of complex thinking and its sub-competencies. It demonstrates that CS initiatives have successfully achieved their educational objectives, substantially enriching the learning experience. Furthermore, the research highlights a growing trend in applying CS for educational purposes. These findings suggest that CS can be a valuable component of higher education curricula, offering a practical method for developing critical competencies in students. The study underscores the potential of CS to contribute meaningfully to the evolution of pedagogical practices and provides a foundation for future research to build upon, particularly in the context of higher education's response to global educational demands. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Seeking to improve strategies and practices turned to education for sustainability, this research aimed to identify how the process of building sustainability conceptions in elementary school students takes place in a Brazilian institution. The present qualitative research complies with interpretive paradigm assumptions, and its main research method is the phenomenography analysis using drawings. The educational institution investigated in the study was the Pessoense Institute of Integrated Education (IPEI), in which students from the second, third, and fifth grades of elementary school participated in the research. As for the results, the students identified five different ways to understand sustainability, going from more external or superficial to broader. We were also able to notice that the process of creating these conceptions over elementary school years works progressively, that is, these conceptions expand along the school years. The findings in the research cooperate to improving practices of education for sustainability that is aimed at the teaching level studied for, when explaining the dynamics in the process of creating these sustainability conceptions from the students investigated, it supports a bolder choice of educational strategies, models and methods for such audience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article we review the research on the flexible or adaptive use of solution strategies in school mathematics, with a focus on the most recent work in the field. After a short introduction, we provide an overview of the various ways in which strategy flexibility has been conceptualized and investigated in the research literature. Then we review the research that has looked at the relationship between strategy flexibility and task proficiency, followed by studies that analyzed the association of strategy flexibility and other learner variables, including learners' age, general mathematical ability, prior knowledge, executive functions, gender, and affect. Studies addressing the socio-cultural and educational embeddedness of strategy flexibility are reviewed next, and, finally, we discuss the intervention studies that have tried to stimulate learners' strategy flexibility by means of various instructional approaches. While this review reveals that strategy flexibility is increasingly recognized as an important and valuable construct in research and practice of mathematics education, and that recently substantial progress has been made in our understanding of this construct, there are many aspects of it that are still not well-understood and that need further investigation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent studies have shown that the knowledge of society about the functioning of the brain does not correspond to neuroscience data. The high prevalence of neuromyths can become a problem in the development of educational technologies. The goal of this study is to identify the prevalence of neuromyths among pre-service teachers and students of other faculties. The prevalence of neuromyths among 958 university students was studied using an anonymous survey. It was found that the specialty influenced the results: chemistry and biology students, as well as physics, mathematics, and computer science students, answered better. The effect of education is weak. Nevertheless, it has led to an alignment of results between the specialties in the older group. Self-education has a significant positive effect on students' recognition of neurofacts. The study confirms that certain neuromyths are especially popular among students and allows us to draw conclusions about the prevalence of neuromyths among future teachers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examined challenges and coping strategies among distance education learners and their implications for human resources managers. The quantitative and descriptive survey design was adopted, and a sample of 1358 university students pursuing distance programmes was drawn from a study population of 44,458 distance undergraduate and postgraduate students. The data collection instrument was a questionnaire, and the data obtained was analysed with Partial Least Square Structural Equation Modelling (PLS-SEM). The study found that instructional challenges, psychlogical challenges, socio-religious challenges and institutional challenges had a statistically significant relationship with coping strategies and educational output among distance learners. Coping strategies also obtained a statistically significant relationship with educational output. The four main effective coping strategies identified among distance learners were problem-focused, emotion-focused, preventive and proactive coping strategies. It was recommended that human resource managers provide orientation, counselling on coping strategies, decent and suitable teaching and learning facilities, supply modules and communicate assessment feedback on time, and provide competent and committed course tutors to help reduce challenges faced by distance learners. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How to improve students' problem-solving skills and creativity and adapt them to the new situation of the twenty-first century is a rather important educational objective at present, and is expected to be for a long time to come. Project-based learning (PBL) is considered to be an approach that can develop students' higher-order thinking skills, while peer assessment is a strategy that helps students to interact and reflect. To improve the quality of peer assessment in PBL and to further promote learning by using the feedback of peer assessment, this study proposes an online progressive peer assessment (OPPA)-based PBL approach using constructivism as the theoretical framework for instructional design. The aim of the proposed approach is to organise progressive peer-assessment activities for students as they complete the project, thereby promoting high-quality peer evaluations and continuous reflective improvement of the project. To test the effect of the OPPA-based PBL approach, a quasi-experiment was carried out in an educational game development course with 49 university students from two classes. Students in the experimental group used the OPPA-based PBL approach to develop their game projects, while students in the control group used the conventional PBL approach to develop their game projects. The findings show that the OPPA-based PBL approach significantly improved students' learning achievement, self-efficacy, collective efficacy, problem-solving, and creativity awareness, while also reducing their anxiety levels compared to the conventional PBL approach. The results of this study provide a reference for improving project-based learning, and further demonstrate the importance and validity of constructivist learning theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aims to bridge the gap between extended reality (XR) and digital literacy (DL) in popular science education and further develop a DL–XR framework. XR includes augmented, virtual, and mixed reality (AR, VR, and MR), which has received increased attention and has been used for educational purposes in recent years. However, the studies of XR in popular science education and its impact on students are scant. It is also challenging to find studies entailing XR and DL in education. This study not only offers an overview of the status quo of XR education but also is the first research presenting a referential framework that systematically integrates the many dimensions of XR and DL for future research and educational practices. XR has been extensively used in museums, benefiting users with immersive, authentic, hands-on, and interactive experiences. In the DL–XR framework, based on the variations of "individual-group" and "passive consumption-active creation", eight dimensions of DL linked to XR are proposed, including "access and understanding", "evaluation", "ethics and well-being", "interaction", "collaboration", "creation", "problem-solving", and "civic engagement and responsibility". In the nurturing of DL, evidence revealed that XR is mostly used for learners to access knowledge/information and interact with virtual items; nonetheless, its applications for active creation, problem-solving, and collaboration are seldom prioritised. This study further proposes integrating project-based learning into XR pedagogical practices, which can maximise its impact on learning and empower the learners to achieve advanced levels of DL. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: For an adequate educational strategy of ESD in non-Asian settings with prevalence-based indication it is essential to define adequate lesions, suitable for the beginner without on-site expert-supervision. Aims: We analyzed possible predictors for outcome parameters of effectiveness and safety during the initial learning curve. Methods: The first 120 ESDs of four operators (n = 480), performed between 2007 and 2020 in four tertiary hospitals, were enrolled. Uni-/multivariable regression analysis was done with sex, age, pretreated lesion, lesion size, organ, and organ-based localization as possible independent predictors for en bloc resection (EBR), complication, and resection speed. Results: Rates of EBR, complication, and resection speed were 84.5%, 14.2%, and 6.20 (± 4.45) cm2/h. Independent predictors for EBR were pretreated lesion (OR 0.27 [0.13–0.57], p < 0.001) and non-colonic ESD (OR 2.29 [1.26–4.17] (rectum)/5.72 [2.36–13.89] (stomach)/7.80 [2.60–23.42] (esophagus), p < 0.001), for complication pretreated lesion (OR 3.04 [1.46–6.34], p < 0.001) and lesion size (OR 1.02 [1.004–1.04], p = 0.012) and for resection speed pretreated lesion (RC – 3.10 [− 4.39 to – 1.81], p < 0.001), lesion size (RC 0.13 [0.11–0.16], p < 0.001) and male patient (RC − 1.11 [− 1.85 to − 0.37], p < 0.001). We found no significant difference in the incidence of technically unsuccessful resections in esophageal (1/84), gastric (3/113), rectal (7/181), and colonic (3/101) ESDs (p = 0.76). Technical failure was mainly caused by complication and fibrosis/pretreatment. Conclusion: During the initial learning curve of an unsupervised ESD program with prevalence-based indication, pretreated lesions and colonic ESDs should be avoided. In contrast, lesion size and organ-based localizations have less predictive value for the outcome. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Progress in remote educational strategies was fueled by the advent of the COVID-19 pandemic. This pilot RCT explored the efficacy of a decentralized model of simulation based on principles of observational and peer-to-peer learning for the acquisition of surgical skills. Methods: Sixty medical students from the University of Montreal learned the running subcuticular suture in four different conditions: (1) Control group (2) Self-learning (3) Peer-learning (4) Peer-learning with expert feedback. The control group learned with error-free videos, while the others, through videos illustrating strategic sub-optimal performances to be identified and discussed by students. Performance on a simulator at the end of the learning period, was assessed by an expert using a global rating scale (GRS) and checklist (CL). Results: Students engaging in peer-to-peer learning strategies outperformed students who learned alone. The presence of an expert, and passive vs active observational learning strategies did not impact performance. Conclusion: This study supports the efficacy of a remote learning strategy and demonstrates how collaborative discourse optimizes the students' acquisition of surgical skills. These remote simulation strategies create the potential for implantation in future medical curriculum design. Trial Registration: NCT04425499 2020-05-06. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The development of modern educational systems radically altered the way knowledge and skills were transmitted. Yet, while elementary schooling rapidly expanded in late 19th and early twentieth centuries, secondary education struggled to find its way. This was also the case in Spain where, despite a growing demand, the provision of public secondary education during the second half of the 19th century was rather limited. As a result, private education, and especially that promoted by the Church, rushed to fill in the gap. Using a new database with municipal-level data, we examine what drove the expansion of private schools. As expected, demand-pull factors were critical. Still, the interplay between local forces and private agents should not be overlooked, especially as the State lacked the financial muscle and political will to broaden access to secondary education, whereas the Church was searching for a niche from which to consolidate its position in the nascent liberal society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is an increasing emphasis on assessing student learning outcomes from study abroad experiences, but this assessment often focuses on a limited range of outcomes and assessment methods. We argue for shifting to assessing student learning processes in study abroad and present the critical incident technique as one approach to achieve this goal. We demonstrate this approach in interviews with 79 students across a range of global engineering programs, through which we identified 173 incidents which were analyzed to identify common themes. This analysis revealed that students described a wide range of experiences and outcomes from their time abroad. Students' experiences were messy and complex, making them challenging to understand through typical assessment approaches. Our findings emphasize the importance of using a range of assessment approaches and suggest that exploring students' learning processes in addition to learning outcomes could provide new insights to inform the design of study abroad programs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This case study of large-class teaching at a UK university focuses on the place of large-scale lectures in academics' approaches to teaching, their use by students in their studies, and their relationship to institutional quality assurance policies. The case is a second-year module comprised of 180 students, and it includes two-hour lectures as the primary mode of teaching. The data is drawn from a range of sources including observations, interviews, focus groups, institutional documentation, and a student survey. Observations revealed largely transmissive lectures with little student interaction. The analytic framework of constructive alignment and outcome-based education is used to examine the promoted educational values and the practice experienced by students. The results are further explored in relation to two texts celebrating 50 years since publication: Donald Bligh's What's the Use of Lectures and Benson Snyder's The Hidden Curriculum, Both highlight the dissonance of espoused approaches to teaching, and the realities of large-class environments. While the institutional literature foregrounds student-centred, 'active learning' approaches, the teacher-centred practice observed would have been very familiar to Bligh and Snyder; the principles of constructive alignment were visible only at the policy level. The implicit reward mechanisms of the hidden curriculum ensure that the majority of students succeed and are satisfied with the educational offering. The students who attended the lectures appeared to enjoy them and indicated that the primary benefits are the structure offered by live lectures and the support of the peer networks which develop as a result of attendance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the effects of economic growth, economic freedom, institutional quality, tertiary education level and financial development on environment pollution levels in 74 low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) through 1996–2018. We employ panel-data techniques such as Westerlund's cointegration test, quantile regression and system generalized methods of moments to investigate the relationship among the variables. The findings of the study suggest that the emission levels in the developing countries rise with the increase in the economic growth and freedom, higher education levels and sound financial development. Moreover, with a 1% increase in institutional quality, the level of pollution is seen to decrease by 0.9–4.6% in these countries. Similarly, a 1% rise in economic freedom is associated with 0.18–0.4% increase in pollution levels in the countries under consideration. The empirical findings can be broadly explained by the pollution-haven hypothesis and do not stand in conformation with the Environment Kuznets Curve hypothesis. Hence, stringent environmental regulations, along with encouragement for the production of cleaner technologies, and suitable information dissemination, would be instrumental in the LMICs to abate pollution. The government authorities worldwide do not just need to spend more, on education; they need to spend better and efficiently, ensuring that allocation of resources is effective and equitable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An applied research proposal for integrated learning based on the use of educational robotics has been proposed. The design has been implemented with a sample of 21 four-year-old students applying twenty-first-century competencies (collaboration, creativity, critical thinking, and communication) to learn the curricula related to the development of lexical relations. This research aims to apply data directly derived from the application of educational robotics in the classroom. The research aims focus on two fundamental questions: on the one hand, to verify whether the use of educational robotics in teaching practice is related to greater conceptual achievement and, on the other hand, to validate whether students apply transversal competencies through educational robotics. The results allow us to affirm that the didactic application of robotics activities achieves a high degree of conceptual integration when establishing lexical relationships and allows students to put into practice key transversal problem-solving and critical thinking competencies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The childhood national policy in Colombia recognizes the importance of quality in early childhood education (ECE). In this context, the government of the district of Bogota (2012–2016) proposed the program "Quality preschool in the Public Educational System" to expand the coverage of early education and provide comprehensive care to children aged 3–5 years within the public educational system. This article explores the ways in which the policy program is implemented in schools. Employing an ethnographic approach, this study focuses on the experiences of teachers from five schools that have faced the challenges of integrating the two new grades of early childhood education in formal school settings. By analyzing the educational strategies designed and implemented by teachers in their daily routines and the meaning they assign to these strategies, this study provides evidence that teachers do not simply reproduce the institutionalized discourses; instead, teachers negotiate, resist, adapt, and recreate experiences in relation to school times, spaces, activities, and materials by developing strategies more responsive to children's needs. The concept of agency is central to understand how teachers end up generating practices that lead to new forms of individual and social transformation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The UNESCO International Commission on the Futures of Education imagines a positive future in which skills development can be harnessed for the benefits of people and planet, in line with the loftiest vision of the Sustainable Development Goals. However, skills systems often remain marginalized within educational debates and plans, with vocational learning often dismissed as low quality and low status. Reflecting on the work done for the commission on future skills, this article considers the nature of the challenges of the present in building better skills futures for Africa. It argues that we must be clear-sighted regarding the failings of past theory and practice if, together, we are to construct better futures for learning, working, and living. Only then can we develop institutions, programmes, and curricula that can meet the challenges and realize the opportunities of the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]