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.