Education 3.0

Education 3.0 is the confluence of known, effective throughputs in teaching and learning due to changed inputs and desired changes to output across higher education. From increasingly diverse student populations to the need for critical thinking by all, education has fundamentally changed. Practitioners must leverage technologies to scale learning and meet demands by families for more flexible, lifelong learning options. Gone are the days when student bodies had more on-campus, residential, homogeneity, as well as small cohorts from selective admissions. Such changes now require architects of learning to consider the efficacy of various teaching and assessment methods in promoting actual learning versus short-term memorization, as well as how to use technology to do all of this at scale. From neuroscience to learning psychology to education technology, there is an impressive body of research around authentic learning, yet most faculty are largely unaware of this scholarship, seeing instruction dominated by tradition rather than effectiveness.

Designing a Pathway to Digital Fluency

This chapter addresses the need for developing digital fluency skills in higher-education students in order to best prepare them for real-world success. The pathway to digital fluency is complex and requires a reimagined, collaborative approach to learning design. This chapter considers the elements of authentic learning as a means of developing students' digital fluency and proposes learning design as a pathway to action for teacher-developed authentic learning activities. The chapter begins by exploring the concept of digital fluency in order to develop a definition that informs pedagogical approach. Approaches to digital fluency development are examined through digital literacy and authentic learning frameworks. The pedagogical approach is further examined and conceptualized through the process of learning design. Considerations are presented at the end of each section to illustrate relationships between digital fluency, authentic learning, and learning design, and to allow for further exploration of concepts within unique contexts.

Play Is the Game

Drawing on a multimodal framework, this chapter looks at the ways engagement and embodiment of learning are mediated through play as sixth graders learn to skin or repurpose board games to represent the story of The Lightning Thief. Studying game design for the purpose of skinning, that is, applying a new theme or skin to a game, provides a literacy learning process that can foster collaborative, creative, and authentic learning. Outcomes demonstrated gains in social skills and interactions, critical thinking, reading comprehension, visual representation, graphic design, and writing for specific purposes. Analysis revealed that students were immersed in the learning process to the extent that they felt comfortable acting informally, responding in the moment, and being playful. This chapter shows a way to foster academic growth, engagement in learning, and collaboration is to engage students in skinning games based on literature and integrated a playful learning environment.

Technology Integration in Higher Education: The use of Website Design Pedagogy to Promote Quality Teaching and Learning

The integration of technology within higher education, specifically teacher education, has become vital in preparing pre-service teacher for the 21st-century classroom. Literature shows that the integration of technology allows students to engage deeply with content and promote authentic learning. Over two years, pre-service teachers who nrolled for a language education module at a university in South Africa were tasked with designing their own websites using Google Sites – an online, free, collaborative, web-based application that forms part of Google’s G Suite. As part of the as part website design assignment, they had to include a blog, informative text and a YouTube video explaining a language-teaching-related topic. The study was conducted from an interpretivist paradigm and an embedded mixed-methods research design. The technological pedagogical content knowledge model served as the theoretical framework. Data collected from 214 pre-service teachers revealed that the use of website design pedagogy promoted the integration of different types of knowledge domains, authentic learning and proximal development. The pre-service teachers furthermore reported that the use of website design pedagogy better prepared them for the 21st-century classroom. Challenges that the students experienced included inadequate access to the internet and problems with recording and uploading videos. This study advocates for authentic learning and scaffolding and therefore recommends that higher education institutions integrate technology holistically by adhering to the principles of the technological pedagogical content knowledge model.

Applying a Christian perspective to educating gifted students through talent development framework

In this article, we examine conceptions of giftedness through a Christian perspective and through a talent development paradigm ( Subotnik et al., 2011 ). We intersect aims of Christian education with a developmental view of giftedness in order to inform pedagogical approaches in educating gifted/high-potential students. In applying the characteristics of Christian pedagogy of uniqueness, purpose, stewardship, and Christian character, teachers of the gifted can create contexts for students to explore authentic learning experiences in ways that develop specific strengths and talents for kingdom purposes.

Students’ Performance and Perceptions Towards Authentic Learning Environment Based on Visual Thinking Continuum

This paper explores the changes in student’s level of achievement and per-ception towards authentic learning environment based on visual thinking elements. The three elements in visual thinking continuum are visual thinking, visual learning and visual communication. This research is a quan-titative design involving quantitative and qualitative data. Research instru-ments included pre and post achievement tests, and a questionnaire on stu-dent’s perception towards visualization level. There are 29 samples students, from teacher training first degree program in one of Malaysian public univer-sities. The research data were analyzed by inferential and descriptive statisti-cal analysis. Research findings through paired-sample t-test showed that there is a significant difference between scores of mean for the pre-test and post-test (p< 0.05) and shows positive student’s perception towards authen-tic learning environment. All students have experienced positive growth in their level of visualization through authentic learning environment activities which based on visual thinking elements. Therefore, it can be concluded that the visual-based website has helped to enhance the students’ performance and visualization levels.

Leveraging the pandemic to build a community of networked, engaged and curious learners – our future leaders

The COVID-19 pandemic has undoubtedly presented a multitude of challenges to the way education is delivered; its wide-reaching multidisciplinary impact has also presented a unique opportunity as a focus for real-world authentic learning. For some time now, technology has enabled interaction at a global scale, allowing students to connect with teachers and industry experts around the world. This paper reports on the innovative design of an intra-curricular program utilising COVID-19 as a focus for online, real-world connected learning, delivered to business students at a large Australian university during the pandemic lockdown. Implemented as an online intra-curricular initiative, ‘Leading in a Post-COVID World’ encouraged student engagement with the challenges of leadership to address issues on a personal, local, and global scale. Using a community of inquiry (CoI) lens we explore key features of the program and find that a CoI approach combined with principles of real-world learning and authentic experiences encourages student participation and engagement in this intra-curricular space.