The Press as a Resource for Promoting Sustainability Competencies in Teacher Training: The Case of SDG 7

Given the seriousness of the socio-environmental situation we are facing, this study aims to contribute to the involvement of teachers in education for sustainability through the use of non-formal education, particularly the press. The main objectives of the present study are to analyse the use of the press in science education, as well as the design, implementation and evaluation of tools aimed at teachers and trainee researchers in order to encourage and promote attention to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and more specifically SDG 7 (clean and affordable energy for all) in science education. The proposals are carried out using a constructivist methodology in sessions structured in small collaborative groups. The initial results show that attention to the press is still insufficient, but that, nevertheless, the strategies designed contribute to raising awareness of the importance of SDG 7 and to the classroom treatment of the energy issue among the participants in the study who attend a Master’s degree program in secondary education teacher training (specialising in physics and chemistry) and a Master’s degree program in research in specific didactics (specialising in experimental sciences).

Teaching international comparative public management through a development lens

The article tackles the question, how to provide students with a comparative orientation to public administration. We eschew the older tradition of comparing major systems such British parliamentary system or French bureaucratic approaches to organizations’ structure. Rather, we seek to understand public administration in countries with different cultures, histories, and political regimes by focusing on international development. Our students are drawn from the Master of Public Administration degree program and the Master of International Affairs degree program. What unites them is an interest in international affairs and the desire to work internationally; international students take what they learn and apply it in their home countries. We ground the course on a model of international development with a strong focus on development in governance. We spend the first third of the class creating a development lens for understanding global practices in public management in which they use what they learned in the first part of the course to analyze a range of public management issues within governmental institutions and/or in working in the nongovernmental organizations and intergovernmental organization sectors. We use detailed case studies drawn from several case data banks to apply some of the core concepts of public administration such as leadership, stakeholder analysis, complexity, and implementation to development challenges such as fiscal issues, poverty alleviation, interorganizational collaboration, and human rights. We do this with a range of in-class exercises and assignments that students do out of class. One goal we have is to provide students with knowledge and skills to enhance their ability to work internationally since many have gone on to work for donor and various implementing organizations in international development. We believe that this is a reasonable measure of success of the approach we have taken to comparative public administration.

Designing a Master's program in speech therapy education in the context of interaction with stakeholders

Introduction. The relevance of the study is due to the need to match the requirements of stakeholders to the level of preparedness of a graduate of a master's degree. The purpose of the research. The research is aimed at the development and scientific substantiation of the master's degree program in the field of speech therapy support for persons with communication disorders of various categories in terms of interaction with stakeholders. Methodology and research methods. The Master's program is based on the principles and provisions of practice-oriented and competence-based approaches that ensure the formation of students ' professional competencies and practical skills in solving real professional problems, both in practical classes and during industrial practice on the basis of stakeholders. The research used methods of design, content analysis, questionnaires, mathematical statistics (descriptive statistics, factor analysis). The results. The mechanism of designing the master's degree program is based on the inclusion of stakeholders in the process of forming professional competencies of graduates, the development of its structure, content and areas of implementation (educational process, scientific work, practice, final qualification work, career guidance). The conducted research with the participation of stakeholders (56 people: speech therapists, speech pathologists, psychologists, rehabilitologists, managers) allowed us to determine the four-factor structure of knowledge, skills and labor actions (professional competencies) necessary for a speech therapist when working with people with communication disorders of various categories: ability to plan and implement the content of correctional and developmental classes (percentage of dispersion – 29.4); the ability to design an adapted basic general education program and a special individual development program (percentage of dispersion – 24.5); the ability to implement speech therapy support in the rehabilitation work system (percentage of dispersion – 18.9); the ability to plan and conduct applied scientific research in education, including the diagnosis of persons with communication disorders of various categories (percentage of dispersion – 7.8). Practical significance. The results obtained can be used by the heads of universities focused on the development of interaction with stakeholders, can help to encourage the introduction of practices and strategies that take into account the influence of stakeholders in the development of management decisions and the organization of effective training of teachers in the master's program. They may be of interest to speech therapists-practitioners, scientific supervisors of master's programs.