The implementation and embedding of digital skills and digital literacy into the curriculum considering the Covid-19 pandemic and the new SQE

This paper focuses on the introduction of a new model of digital teaching and resource provision for the University of Law (ULaw) Library Service, during the Covid-19 pandemic. It details the processes and steps we took to achieve the three core aims of: a new mode of online skills delivery, the creation of self-directed, independent learners in the various student cohorts at the university and the creation of a flexible self-assessment platform to provide an incremental learning journey for both students and staff. This paper also highlights some of the challenges and difficulties we faced, arising from a project of this size and nature.

A Learning Journey through a Heart-Centered Book

As faculty for a graduate program in early childhood leadership, we co-designed a course on community-based action research around Patricia Wilson’s book, The Heart of Community Engagement: Practitioner Stories from Across the Globe. In this review we share how it mirrored our own deepening sense of community engagement practices, and how our students engaged with this unique text on their individual and collective learning journeys. We share highlights from the text that reinforced our sense of liberatory pedagogy. Wilson’s personal stories, as well as the stories of community-engaged practitioners across the globe , invite all of us to create our own purpose and intentions for the evolving path of facilitating change within ourselves and with others.

Yes! I Want My Non-Cognitive Skills to Be Improved: Perceptions on an ICT-Enabled Learning Journey

Non-cognitive skills (NCS) are important for personal development and enhancing employability. However, as related literature points out, designs for NCS development are challenged by their fidelity, complexity, technology pedagogy and content value, user-centricity and so forth. Thus, this study investigates on 1) how do individuals recognise their needs, challenges and motivations for improving NCS, and 2) how do they envision their individual roadmap towards NCS achievement. An exploratory strategy is followed in capturing the learners’ perceptions. Expected data were collected by a questionnaire aiming at a sample of 80 purposely selected employable adults, followed by interviews with 11 randomly selected individuals among the sample. The outcomes provided feedback towards optimising design concepts for an NCS learning environment. Consequently, the framework for NCS improvement must include components, in the order of importance, tools for assessment of NCS, premises for learning NCS, dynamic CV, and linking to the occupations of individual interests as envisioned by the respondents. The participants recognised the significance of NCS and that NCS contribute meaningfully to their personal and professional growth. As such, research efforts shall be invested in evaluating the methods and tools in a systematic user-centric process to determine their effectiveness and impact in lifelong learning.

Towards an Integrated Case Method in Management Education—Developing an Ecosystem-Based Research and Learning Journey for Flipped Classrooms

In the field of management science and business administration, the case method is gaining ground in research and in teaching. Case studies support on the one hand exploratory research and on the other hand problem-based teaching. However, we find that case research and case teaching remain unchained in management study programs and propose to close this gap. We identify an untapped potential of boosting the case method by integrating case-based research and teaching into a discovery and learning journey of applied science. We suggest embedding the “integrated case method” (ICM) in the ecosystem of universities, with the aim of enhancing and intensifying the knowledge transfer between business and the higher educational sector, thereby achieving better learning objectives in higher education. As a result, this approach enables the development of a high level of contextual intelligence and thus helps to avoid the fallacies of teaching based on uniform theoretical content.

Undergraduate creative arts students’ perceptions and attitudes toward disability: Advancing a critical disability studies informed curriculum

This study reports on the unanticipated findings of a small-scale, evaluative research project. Further to a pilot iteration, a cohort of undergraduate art students engaged with an immersive, inclusive arts curriculum informed by critical disability studies. Students’ perceptions and attitudes about disability were recorded at the outset and conclusion of the pedagogical project, through a qualitative questionnaire. Thematic analysis was employed to surface patterns in the cohort’s responses at both points in their learning journey. While the findings evidenced the anticipated shift from individualized perspectives about disability to an increasingly social, interactional perspective, the full extent of the medicalized gaze and internalized ableism at the outset of the study was unanticipated. This realization has been influential in developing the pedagogical approach and the framing of the content taught, and has exemplified both the potential and the need to learn about disability, disablement and diversity through art education.