Future orientated learning and skills development for employability - book overview

 This book ' Future-oriented learning and skills development for employability: Insights from Singapore and some Asia-Pacific contexts', is edited by A.N. Lee and Y. Nie. The book is open access (via UTS) and published by Springer in 2024.

Most of the chapters report on work undertaken in Singapore, to enact the government's support of continuing skills development to ensure the populace is kept current in the face of rapid change.

The book has 21 chapters, organised into three sections -

- Future oriented learning and the development of graduates' work competencies

- enhancing adult workers' employability through ocntinuing education and training

- supporting workplace learning and skills development for individual and organisational growth

with an opening and closing chapter by the editors.

Some chapters of relevance to my own work:

- Innovative curriculum and instructional approaches for work and learning: Practical pathways and research perspectives by S. Chue, S. Billette, R. Tan, W. Goh, A. Leow and A. S-H. Chen. Postulates, through gathering on the work of the authors, the need to integrate the curriculum which prepares people for work, with career guidance to help them envisage their goals, post higher education. There is also importance in ensuring that the connections between the world of education/school and the world of work are kept current, accessible and effective.

-  Developing adaptibility for workplace preformance by S. Billett and A H. Le discusses the need to ensure that adaptive practices remain central to individual's future employability. Draws on the PIAAC data to argue that all workers need to maintain opportunities and skills to problem solve. In doing, individual workers' are able to maintain agency and continually hone, adapt, and innovate. Cultural and social factors create or limit affordances.

- Knowing in practice in situational sensemaking by R. Mazlan. Argues that sensemaking arises from experiences encountered within context.

All in, a good collection of contemporary chapters on the state of the play, mainly in Singapore, but also across to Australia. 

Guides from Deakin University - Gen AI in work-integrated learning

The Centre for Research in Assessment and Digital Learning (CRADLE) at Deakin University has published a series of guides on Gen AI in work-integrated learning.

The resources are for Higher Education/University staff, students and workplace industry partners. There are four sets of guides:

- for ensuring academic integrity and assessment security with online delivery

- assessing work-integrated learning programmes - a guide to effective assessment design

- inclusive assessments

- reimaging exams - workshop resources.

All in there are good recommendations. Although pitched at the higher education sector, the work-integrated and inclusive assessment sections are easily generalisable to other contexts.

Webinar notes - Trade Routes: Charting new pathways from secondary school to industry

 Attended the webinar organised by the NZ Initiative. 

The event provides an overview of a report on 'Trade routes: charting new pathways from school to industry training'. 

The webinar's description - Drawing inspiration from Germany's successful dual-training model, Josh Williams and Dr Michael Johnston will discuss initiatives in secondary and tertiary education to enhance the status and quality of trades and industry training.

Notes taken:

Oliver Hartwich provided overview, introductions to Dr. Michael Johnston and Josh Williams and chaired the webinar.

Sli.do hosts the Q & A -

Observed that 65,000 Students leave school each year and about 1/3 go to university. Only 6% take up apprenticeship and 7% are NEETs (sigh).

Cultural aspects in NZ mean most take the university as there is lack of visibility of alternatives and much lower esteem for trades work.

Education is not cohesive. The pathways from work into alternatives to university are not easy. Vocational pathways need to attain parity of esteem with higher education. Proposed several ways to bring this to fruition.

It will take time but there is a need to start the pathway at school, rather than post school.

For apprentices, starting on lower pay and moving to full pay will encourage employers to take on apprentices. A bonding system may be useful for apprentices to stay a few years with employer, post completion of the apprenticeship contract.

Also suggested the fee free for degree students be diverted to apprenticeships, which will cover most of the training costs for the 6% of school leavers moving into apprenticeship.

Work Development Councils need to be given wider scope. Instead of appointment by government, they should be appointed by industry and not only be responsible for standards setting but also approval for programmes/ and supporting providers (secondary schools) to set up themselves.

Need to be a progression from school on to tertiary / apprenticeship rather than a abrupt shift.

Josh contributed the Forward for the report. Important to not just 'drag and drop' the German dual system across but to think through the things that will work for us in Aotearoa.

Provided a background on how a decade ago, Youth Pathways was launched, along with Arthur Graves. There are initiatives - STAR, Gateway etc. but they not always well coordinated. Specialising at high school may be difficult later on, but they provide a good start.

Provided some examples of schools that are doing good work in this area. Important that all the ones who are successful have good connections and networks with their local communities, employers and industries.

The ecosystem to support change in this area needs to be undertaken but requires multiple connections and a holistic understanding to work out what will work.

Q & A ensured of the 30+ questions collected on sli.do.

Interesting presentation and some recommendations make good sense. Had to leave to be at another meeting so missed the bulk of the Q & A.

AI in education: The intersection of pedagogy and technology

 This book published 2024 by Springer is edited by P. Ilic, I. Casbourne and R. Wegerif.

It is an open access book which brings together educators, engineers and experts to explore the implications and affordances provisioned through the arrival of Generative Artificial Intelligence (Gen AI).

There are 13 chapters, detailing studies in the higher education context.

The first introductory chapter, by the editors, calls for 'a constructive dialogue' between technology and pedagogy. In doing, the two may contribute more towards enhancing human potential. 

Following on, an interesting selection of chapters:

- AI enhanced ecological learning spaces by P. Ilic, and M. Sato-Ilic.

- reimagining learning experiences with the use of AI with D. Guralnick

- Gen AI integration in education: challenges and approaches by S. Watson and S. Shi.

- Navigating AI in education - towards a system approach for design of educational changes by L. Yuan, T. Hoel, and S. Powell.

-AI in the assessment ecosystem: A human-centered AI perspective by A. A. von Davier and J. Burnstein.

- The role of AI language assistants in dialogic education for collective intelligence by I. Casebourne and R. Wegerif.

- AI powered adaptive formative assessment: validity and reliability evaluation by Y. Bimpeh.

- Decimal point: a decade of learning science findings with a digital learning game with B. M. McLaren.

- Leveraging AI to advance science and computing education across Africa: challenges, progress and opportunities with G. Boateng

- Educating manufacturing operators by extending reality with AI by  P-D. Zuercher, M. Schimpf, S. Tadeja and T. Bohne.

- Pedagogical restructuring of business communication courses: AI-enhanced prompt engineering in an EFL teaching context by D. Roy.

- AI in language education: The impact of machine translation and ChatGPT by L. Ohashi.

Overall a good collection of case studies, providing some good examples of integrating AI into specific disciplines. The discussions are congruent to our current work, in that although Gen AI is a tool for all, there is still a need to match Gen tools to the learning outcomes to be achieved. Most importantly to maintain the human element and contribution towards AI responses and to remember that AI is a tool and it is the tool user who much always take responsibility for the outputs. 

AI NZ AI blueprint

 The AI forum in New Zealand - has published a blueprint for charting NZ's AI powered future. 

It is a follow up from a blueprint published in 2024. The blueprint is a high level strategic document providing rationale and recommendations.

The main items are:

- supporting and encouraging adoption of an AI strategy for Aotearoa by government

- making good governance possible for responsible, accessible and affordable AI for all.

- Encouraging upskills across the existing workforce.

- providing Māori with voice and guidance for the intersection of Te Tiriti, Te Ao Māori and AI.

- telling stories that bring life to how AI is used across Aotearoa.

The blueprint then shares the frameworks , recommendations and guidelines to action the main items. 

Developing curriculum for deep learning - overview of open access Springer brief

 In tandem with the recent blogs with overviews of recent scholarly books on embodiment and being and becoming through higher education, this book 'developing curriculum for deep learning: the knowledge revival' brings a school-based context. 

The book is open access and written by a range of authors from Europe (T, More - Belgium; N. Crato, Portugal, D. Muijs, UK; D. Wiliam, UK; P.A. Kirschner, Netherlands), Australia (J. Hattie) and New Zealand (E. Rata), many with scholarly contributions to the educational literature across many years. 

There are five chapters, beginning with a summary and ending with a chapter of concluding remarks.

The second chapter argues for the need to ensure that the pursuit of knowledge is not left out in a curriculum crowded with many needs. The third chapter sets out the relationships between knowledge and the school curriculum. The fourth chapter has concluding remarks to close the argument.

The last executive summary lays out the reasons knowledge matters from the perspectives of learning (developing our minds as humans); sociology (knowledge contribution to society); democracy (to bring about better lives for all). The importance of the curriculum in ensuring knowledge is included is then discussed with the need to establish a knowledge rich curriculum through the school years. 

Overall, good background on the aspect of knowledge in education. Its importance, role in learner's formative years, contribution to societal function. and the future of the human race. 

Being and becoming through higher education - brief overview

 This blog follows on from the previous which summarised a book on embodiment and professional learning.

The book - Being and becoming through higher education: Expanding possibilities was published 2024 by Springer. It is edited by G. Dall'Alba and is another timely book as we wrestle with our humanness in the age of AI. 

The book is Open Access via UTS and has 15 chapters, beginning with the introductory chapter by the editor - Embodied being in Higher Education. The main message is the importance of keeping to the main purpose of higher education i.e. to develop students' learning and enable them to become part of professional communities and to contribute to society at large. 

Four chapters in the first part, introduce the concepts and perspectives informing the focus of the book.

Firstly, a chapter on the 'ontological turn in HE' by the editor and R. Barnacle. Challenges the 'knowledge acquisition approach' towards determining who they become. 

Then a chapter by the editor on 'learning professional ways of being: Ambiguities of becoming. Rationalises the need to not only teach skills and knowledge, but to enable the types of learning which lead to students 'becoming'. 

Following on is another chapter by the editor 'towards a pedagogy of responsive attunement for HE' sets out the practical applications and implications. Here, the chapter focuses on how students can be directed towards the salient issues, principles and practices of their field or profession. The role of pedagogy and curricula is achieving these goals is also presented.

The last chapter in Part 1 by T. T. Vu and the editor is 'becoming authentic professionals: learning for authenticity'. Redefines authentic learning as not only involving real-life applications of knowledge but to ensure learners engage with tasks, learning environments etc. that help them become more fully human.

Part Two has three chapters around embodied learning

Begins with 'bodily grounds of learning: Embodying professional practice in biotechnology' with the editor and J. Sandberg. Foregrounds the need to be cognisant of the role of the body in learning, becoming and being. Embodied skilful performance and how it is attained is not often researched. Yet, there is importance in understanding how we perceive and feel in a sensual and tactile world.

Then a chapter on 'embodied learning in online environments' by the editor and R. Barnacle. Uses phenomenological perspectives to understand the use of ICTs in programmes to shift these from the predominant Western epistomology where knowledge and skills are often decontextualised from the practices they belong.

The third chapter in Part 2 is on 'international education and (dis)embodied cosmopolitanisms. Critique of international education which have not met their promise. International students are regarded as disembodied learners with littler regard for their cultures they bring with them.

The third in the book revolves around pedagogy and learner focus

First up is a chapter by the editor and S. Bengtsen on 're-imagining active learning: delving into darkness'. A discussion on what is active learning and its purposes in HE. Active learning is often invisible, unfocused, unsettling and may leave learners being more confused. Suggests the use of 'dark learning' to help improve and alleviate some of the disadvantages of active learning.

Then R. Barnacle and the author contribute the chapter 'committed to learn: student engagement and care in HE'. Advocates for the need to help students attain a capacity to care about others and things, rather than the focus on neoliberal directions on economic benefit to individuals.

'Authentic assessment for student learning: an ontological conceptualisation' is presented by T. T. VU and the editor. Instead of 'authentic assessments', the focus should be on the quality of educational processes which engage learners to become more fully human.

The last chapter in Part three is with the editor on 'evaluative judgement for learning to be in a digital world'. Argues that an important aspect of education is to develop the capability to judge the quality of one's work and the work of others. 

The last part has three chapters on enacting the concepts and principles presented and discussed in the previous chapters. They are written by the editor.

First up, 'improving teaching: enhancing ways of being university teachers'. Proposes the need to ensure that university teachers integrate their knowing, acting and being into their teaching and to make these visible to learners.

Following on is a chapter on 'making the familiar unfamiliar: re-thinking teaching in HE'. Explores the ontological turn required to bring meaning back into university teaching. Draws on the work on Heidegger and Irigaray to inform the conceptual underpinnings for the proposal.

The book ends with a chapter on 're-imaging the university: developing a capacity to care. Reiterates the need to understand the purposes on HR towards helping students to 'interrogate possibilities of being' in ways that help themselves thrive and also to contribute to the society they live in. 

Overall, the book sets out to encourage a rethink of the objectives of university education as not just to provision knowledge and skills to learners and meet the economic direction of nations. Instead, the importance of developing learners sense of being and to deploy pedagogy towards supporting learners to become, are required as we move into a future where by humanness is being challenged by digital agents.

On blogging - twenty years and still going!!

At the beginning of 2015, I posted my reflections on a decade of blogging. The precepts I discussed, still hold as I come up to the end of my 20th year of blogging!

One would think that in this age of AI and short communication forms (Snapchat, TikTok, X etc.), that blogging would have faded. However, SEO's article, written at the beginning of 2024, indicates that blogging is not dead! Readership of blogs is still high and seem to be a mainstay of marketers, influencers and commentators. 

However, for me, the purposes for continuing with this blog remains very similar to what was summarised 10 years ago. The blog becomes a 'one stop shop' for archiving notes and reflections from readings, found resources/websites, conference musings, and occasional rants. Having somewhere to park items one comes across in a busy work and scholarly life means that it becomes easier to organise thoughts and ideas as they consolidate. With the increase in open access articles and books, links to these resources can be archived, along with brief notes to trigger relevant searches when topics being worked on are required. 

So continuing on with blogging is more to meet my individual cognitive needs, rather than to provide a forum for others to read. If nothing else, this blog is a record of a mostly productive academic life and long may it continue :) 

Embodiment and professional learning - open access book - brief overview

 This 2021 book - Embodiment and Professional Education : Body Practice and Pedagogy is published by Springer and edited by S. Loftus and E.A. Kinsella.

Through learning, humans attain not only knowledge, but also appropriates practice. With the current discussions on AI and its impact on teaching and learning, one of the impacts is that AI replaces some of the 'doing'. It is in actual practice that we consolidate knowledge through application. Deliberate practice is required to bring mind and body into active enactment of what has been learnt. Therefore, in the current circumstances, discussions on embodiment and how this makes us human have great relevance.

The book is is open access (via UTS) and has 17 chapters.

The first chapter by the editors, summarises the main themes of the book. It calls for promoting the significance of the body in our lives as to date, it has been much neglected. 

Chapter two by B. Green introduces practice theory and concepts of corporeality and its role in professional education. The practice turn recommends bringing the body back into professional learning.

E. Swartz contributes the next chapter on 'To act as one body? collective and embodied judgement within professional action and education'. Through professional practice, which includes human relations within a social sphere, collaboration amongst professionals contribute to practical wisdom or phronesis. The chapter introduces and discusses the concepts.

S. Loftus then writes on how embodied knowledge and thinking should be the hallmark of professional education.

Two chapters on 'embodiment and professional practice' follow. T. Chemi with 'the genealogy of the actor's laboratory: making kin as embodied pedagogy' and S. DeLuca on 'theatre of carnival: a classroom for the vigilant embodied healer'.

The three chapters on 'embodiment and reflection'. E.A. Kinsella and K. S. Smith with 'I listen to my body more': embodied mindfulness in professional education; 'Body mapping to facilitate embodied reflection in professional education programmes' by H. F. Harrison and 'Ethics and embodiment in health professions education' by A. M. DeBaets.

Following on are three chapter on 'Embodiment and professional knowledge'. S. Loftus with 'Goethe and embodiment in professional education and practice'; B. Roberts with 'Neurophenomology and Professional education'; and 'Embodied learning and two-eyed seeing: indigenous and feminist perspectives in professional education' by E. Cupchik and M. Schnarr.

The last section has four chapters on the theme of 'embodiment and technology. First up, W. Kupers with ' (Re-)embodied digital education practices: Empirical vignettes about teaching and learning in 'tele-co-presence'; B. Delgarno with 'Technological affordances for embodied learning in authentic contexts'; K. Mahon on 'neoliberalised (human) bodies and implications for professional education' and R. A. Gardiner and J. Chisholm on 'Its not just one bad actor: Tracing the embodied effects of institutional sexism in the implementation of gender-based violence policies and practices.

The editors close with the last chapter to present 'implications for practice'. Overall, the book makes important contributions to better understand the processes of human learning. With the advent of AI, it is important to evaluate what makes us humans and to appreciate that processes of learning, involving holistic experiences, to prepare us to live and be in the world. Without doing and by abrogating our responsibilities to AI agents, we become less able to grapple with the complexities of life. Given the VUCA world we now live in, it is to our detriment if we place all of our reliance on using AI rather than take up the work required, to be proficient and skilled at cognitive, evaluative, tasks and critical thinking which are the hallmarks of being human.

 

NZ Government framework for AI - Public Service guidelines

The NZ Government has launched its public service AI framework. It is part of the overall NZ Government work on establishing guidelines for its National AI Strategy. The public service guidelines draw on the OECD AI principles of:

- inclusive, sustainable development

- human centred values

- transparency and explainability

- safety and security 

- accountability.

The NZ framework layers in the important concepts of the nation's biculturism. Commentary on this aspect along with the ways the principles above require much more work internationally provide material for critical reflection. Guidelines and frameworks may set the scene but it is how they are supported, adopted and persistently worked on to actually make a difference which is the important ongoing effect.

Developing curriculum for deep thinking - book overview

In this 'age of AI ascendence'  more than anytime perhaps in human history, the importance of how we learn knowledge and what is required to learn it, is more important than ever.

This Open Access Springer brief - Developing curriculum for deep learning:The knowledge revival has chapters written by authors from Europe (T, Surma, C. Vanhees, M, Wils, J, Nijlunsing, N. Crato, D, Muijs, D. Wiliam, P. A. Kirschner) Australia (J. Hattie) and New Zealand. (E. Rata).

Although the chapters have the school context at the forefront, the many concepts introduced and discussed has relevance across the all educational sectors. The books main premise is that it is important to ensure curriculum is 'knowledge-rich'. In doing, the attainment of knowledge helps to drive the learning (acquisition and practice) of crucial cognitive or thinking skills. 

There are five chapters.

After a short introductory chapter the following chapters discuss:

- How knowledge matters

- knowledge and the curriulum

Then two chapter - concluding remarks and an executive summary close the book.

Therefore the book is a short treatise (less than 100 pages) presenting the argument for the importance of ensuring that knowledge is made visible across the curriculum, and the need for content richness, coherence across the curriculum, and clarity of purpose for learning knowledge. 

Future of work report 2025 - World Economic Forum

 This year's future of work report from the World Economic Forum, provides some good information as the world of work moves into the AI age. Summaries are provided for many countries by Aotearoa New Zealand is not included.

The forces contributing to the shifts are summarised as:

- increased digital access and advances across technologies (AI, information processing, robotics and automation, energy generation, storage and distribution), all influence the ways work is carried out and how work is structured.

- cost of living and other economic impacts of inflation, economic slowdown etc. will affect job creation.

- climate change mitigation leads to the need for new skills and generates new types of work and occupations.

- demographic shifts including worldwide aging of the workforce and increasing numbers of older people, living longer puts strain on economies.

-geoeconomics and geopolitical tensions make for an unpredictable future.

Jobs predicted to grow in volume include farmworkers, delivery drivers, construction workers, sales people and food processing workers, Care economy jobs in nursing, social work, counselling etc. also to grow significantly. Technology related roles including one related to data management and green energy transition roles also set to grow.

In contrast, clerical and secretarial work is set to decline along with jobs in the postal service, banks and data entry roles.

There is a great need to ensure that analytical thinking as a core skill is attained. Other skills include workers being resilient, flexible and agile. Understanding AI and big data are also important to leverage off the potential of these technologies. 

All in, a good overview  and reference source on the current state of work and what may come in the near future.

Gen AI strategies for Australian higher education - emerging practice

 The Australian Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency (TESQA) published a practice toolkit for Gen AI in November 2023. 

The guide covers three dimensions of tertiary education - Process, People and Practice. Each dimension is introduced and the implications of Gen AI are detailed, discussed and evaluated. Examples from Australian tertiary institutions are provided to provide case studies. These provide good templates from which individual institutional processes, policies and procedures can be contextualised and synthesised. 

All in a good resource to mine for relevant concepts as Gen AI takes hold across the tertiary landscape. 

Plans for 2025

 It looks like another busy year coming up.

Details of what post Te Pūkenga looks like will help clarify what is likely to occur at an organisational level and some of these may affect the composition of my current work team, our lines of management, and our objectives. Whatever happens, there is still a great deal of work to do!

Firstly, we have many programmes in review. In Aotearoa, all programmes of study are reviewed every five years. The responsibility for these, devolved to Te Pūkenga 2 years ago, but only a small number of programmes were 'unified'. Hence, we now have a substantial backlog of programmes, several over 3 years beyond their review timelines, to work on and have presented to NZQA by July. Therefore, my  educational development team (down to 5 from 8) are fully occupied with working through all the programme reviews.

Secondly, AI is not going away. Capability and professional development for our teaching colleagues, has been patchy, as lines of responsibility for who does what, have been unclear since Te Pūkenga disestablishment was announced late in 2023. Te Pūkenga was at the beginning of bringing together a consolidated approach to capability and development but this all came to a halt and individual institutions have been working on financial stability, maintaining quality etc. before looking at capability.

Thirdly, I am now about half way through scoping another group of scholarship of teaching and learning projects for this year. The focus will be on integrating AI into programmes with strong practice-based learning as currently, AI has text/writing focus. Multimodality of AI is not as common as integrating AI through text. Also, it is important to have AI available in practice-based learning environments - i.e. workshops, training kitchens / salons / studios etc. plus the need to have customised / bespoke or 'wall-garden' AI tools as the generalised AI (e.g. ChatGPT, CoPilot) often do not use specialised occupational vocabulary, with information drawn on being very North American-centric.

Therefore, it looks like there is quite a bit to do, making it difficult to even think about retiring for the moment!!