The Community Education Program: A reflection on good practice in the USA

This good practice essay puts the Community Education Program (CEP) as a focus for com-parison between West Virginia (USA) and Germany/European Union (EU). The essay is a combination of reflections on qualification frameworks, learning outcomes, lifelong learn-ers/learning, transnational organisations, the Scottish Framework, a number of good practic-es, and accreditation from a research and practical perspective. Despite substantial research efforts, a national qualifications framework (NQF) or accrediting body for the CEP could not be identified in the US. The goal is to continue research on a national and international level. In the meantime, the good practice efforts, established through various features, continue to apply.

The Estimated Effects of Participation in Service-Learning on Liberal Arts Outcomes

This study used data from a longitudinal, national study of recent college students to examine the estimated effects of students’ participation in service-learning on six liberal arts outcomes. Findings indicate that service-learning was a positive, significant predictor for students’ political and social involvement. Service-learning did not have a significant effect on students’ growth regarding critical thinking, moral reasoning, inclination to inquire and lifelong learn, intercultural effectiveness, or psychological well-being.

Smart Cities Learning

The cities, despite the huge size reached by some and the problems by which they are sometimes afflicted, continue to attract people and pose epochal sustainability challenges to which policy makers and planners have decided to respond with a top-down functionalist approach aiming at transforming the cities in “smart cities”. The purpose of this paper is to present a critical analysis of such approach highlighting its limitations as far as education systems are concerned. The hope is to contribute to arise awareness and foster a timely and necessary redefinition of the functionalist approach to appropriately face an unavoidable transformation of the education system (space, strategies, processes and methods) that in turn will require the future learners to widen their skills to become smart enough to lifelong learn within and from smart territories.