Search results

Interdisciplinary approaches to climate change teaching are well justified and arise from the complexity of climate change challenges and the integrated problem-solving responses they demand. These approaches require academic teachers to collaborate across disciplines. Yet, the fragmentation typical of universities impedes collaborative teaching practice. This paper aims to report on the outcomes of a distributed leadership project in four Australian universities aimed at enhancing interdisciplinary climate change teaching.

Communities of teaching practice were established at four Australian universities with participants drawn from a wide range of disciplines. The establishment and operation of these communities relied on a distributed leadership methodology which facilitates acts of initiative, innovation, vision and courage through group interaction rather than through designated hierarchical roles.

Each community of practice found the distributed leadership approach overcame barriers to interdisciplinary climate change teaching. Cultivating distributed leadership enabled community members to engage in peer-led professional learning, collaborative curriculum and pedagogical development, and to facilitate wider institutional change. The detailed outcomes achieved by each community were tailored to their specific institutional context. They included the transformation of climate change curriculum, professional development in interdisciplinary pedagogy, innovation in student-led learning activities, and participation in institutional decision-making related to curriculum reform.

Collaborative, non-traditional leadership practices have attracted little attention in research about sustainability education in university curricula. This paper demonstrates that the distributed leadership model for sustainability education reported here is effective in building capacity for interdisciplinary climate change teaching within disciplines. The model is flexible enough for a variety of institutional settings.

This study aims to propose a service-dominant logic (S-DL)-informed framework for teaching innovation in the context of human–computer interaction (HCI) education involving large industrial projects.

This study combines S-DL from the field of marketing with experiential and constructivist learning to enable value co-creation as the primary method of connecting diverse actors within the service ecology. The approach aligns with the current conceptualization of central university activities as a triad of research, education and innovation.

The teaching framework based on the S-DL enabled ongoing improvements to the course (a project-based, bachelor’s-level HCI course in the computer science department), easier management of stakeholders and learning experiences through students’ participation in real-life projects. The framework also helped to provide an understanding of how value co-creation works and brought a new dimension to HCI education.

The proposed framework and the authors’ experience described herein, along with examples of projects, can be helpful to educators designing and improving project-based HCI courses. It can also be useful for partner companies and organizations to realize the potential benefits of collaboration with universities. Decision-makers in industry and academia can benefit from these findings when discussing approaches to addressing sustainability issues.

While HCI has successfully contributed to innovation, HCI education has made only moderate efforts to include innovation as part of the curriculum. The proposed framework considers multiple service ecosystem actors and covers a broader set of co-created values for the involved partners and society than just learning benefits.

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the presence of the sustainable development goals (SDGs) proposed by the UN (2015) in university degrees within the fields of education, humanities and environmental sciences (ES) at Andalusian public institutions (Spain).

This paper shows an empirical analysis from a mixed methodological model on a total of 99 syllabi and training programs from nine different universities. The collection of information has been carried out through a rubric specifically designed within the framework of this body of research.

The results show that the syllabus of the subjects in the faculties of education includes the SDGs related to the social aspect of sustainability, with special focus on SDG4, SDG5, SDG10, SDG16 and SDG17, whereas others like SDG6 and SDG7 are less represented. SDGs are present in the majority of syllabus of the subjects analysed. It is certainly a positive finding which shows predisposition and a high interest on by the teachers involved. However, this is not enough as there is still a long way to go until achieving a thorough and complete incorporation of the principles of sustainability.

This research sheds light on the changes and transformations that the discourse linked to sustainability is generating in the university syllabi. Taking the SDG as a framework this paper highlights the most original aspects: a replicable methodology that allows diagnosing the level of curricular greening of the university syllabi is provided to other contexts the innovative value of connecting teaching with local and global environmental problems in their physical-chemical social and economic dimensions is shown and it has been possible to compare the difficulties of some universities in addressing compliance with the SDGs and curricular sustainability from a systemic and integrative perspective that will lead to methodological transformation and pedagogical renewal.

Much of the literature on innovation and entrepreneurship in education focuses on how external ideas, processes, and techniques can be applied to education systems, schools, and classrooms to improve educational performance. Little research, however, addresses the ways that internal ideas, processes, and techniques within educational systems, schools, and classrooms impart innovation and entrepreneurial skills to youth worldwide. This chapter identifies ways that these skills can be developed in youth through mass education systems. Particular attention is given to the ways that youth are prepared to participate in the knowledge economy by becoming information innovators and knowledge entrepreneurs.

Higher education has recently experienced an advancement in teaching and learning methods. Academics are experimenting with innovative techniques in using e-learning due to the global pandemic which has given a new dimension to classroom teaching. Hybrid teaching is becoming the new norm for classroom teaching which includes both face-to-face and online modes. Smart gadgets and technology are being used to design classroom delivery, assessment, and evaluation of students. The use of innovative teaching and learning methods becomes crucial to motivate and teach a spirit of learning. The development in the information and communication technologies (ICTs) sector has led to knowledge-intensive, interdependent and internationalized societies exploring and experimenting with opportunities for the design and delivery of education. ICTs are opening up new horizons to facilitate the exchange of creativity and intercultural dialogue. This book volume highlights case studies and innovative teaching methods used by academics across the globe. It talks about how teaching staff should stimulate students’ active engagement in their own learning processes leading to transformative student learning. It discusses the in-class approach of implementing high-quality project-based learning activities that integrate learning in an authentic real-world manner. Chapters are dedicated to experiential learning which encourages critical thinking and creative problem-solving skills in students which is the essence of innovative teaching-learning methods. Academics are applying these methods to ensure that the student learning process is free flowing and stimulates students toward role-playing and mastering problem-based learning.

Teaching excellence remains a contested term in English higher education (HE). This paper begins by reflecting on its complex and sometimes blurred meaning, charting the divergence between academic interests in the complexity and contextual questions relating to practice development and organisational and sectoral shifts which have been driven by managerialism, accountability and “top-down” ideas of change. The authors argue that this divergence, epitomised in the development of the teaching excellence framework, has led to a confused, if ubiquitous, use of excellence to identify organisational and sector-led ideas of what it means to deliver quality teaching. However, these frameworks have become progressively detached from the complexity of practice investigated by those interested in pedagogy. The paper aims to discuss this issue.

This is a conceptual paper which brings together literature from teaching excellence, organisational science, time and HE to develop an alternative approach to pedagogic development.

Based on a critique of the current, confused conceptualisation of teaching excellence, the authors offer a different narrative which demonstrates how a reconsideration of the factors is important in developing critical and challenging teaching opportunities. Based on a “bottom-up” system focusing on dialogue, sustainability and “unhasty” time, the authors argue for a re-establishing of a holistic approach in HE providers based on emergent pedagogies as opposed to teaching excellence.

This paper demonstrates why teaching excellence has become conceptually fractured in an English context, and why a new approach to pedagogic development needs to be considered to establish a more positive and critical approach at both the institutional and sectoral levels. This paper outlines a possible approach to developing such renewal.

The strictest definition of teaching and learning is no longer what it used to be with innovation becoming an important component of classroom teaching. The fact that classroom teaching has moved beyond the walls and to the homes of students confined to hand-held device or their computer is in itself a rare feat that academics couldn’t imagine even a few years ago. Innovation in teaching and learning is bringing qualitative change in higher education along with quantitative expansion. Changes are essential part of teaching and learning as it helps in improving the quality and equity in creating learning opportunities for students. Teaching and learning have been undergoing rapid changes and is never considered to be a change averse sector; however, in certain parts of the world, the acceptance toward change has been very slow and they are lagging behind in adopting technology, improving efficiency, and productivity and the quality standard of education.

The book volume highlights some interesting interventions practiced around the world by higher education instructors who were forced to make necessary changes in the conversion from face-to-face instruction to the use of online and virtual platforms owing to COVID pandemic. Instructors took help of modern technology and used virtual exchange platform to create meaningful classroom discussions and lively interactions between learners and faculty. Quality assurance was a priority with regular monitoring of students’ interaction, performance, and involvement in a class. Changes in a conventional way of teaching are the need of the hour and technology is expected to bring some radical improvement in this field.

Active learning is not a simple practice. It is a new paradigm for the provision of high-quality, collaborative, engaging, and motivating education. Active learning has the capacity to respond to most of the challenges that institutions of higher education are facing in our time. In this chapter, we present active learning strategies used in STEM disciplines and we analyze the potential of active learning to redefine the value proposition in academic institutions. After providing the theoretical underpinnings of active learning as an evolving practice, an attempt is made to connect it with different learning theories and present an integrative model in which institutional strategies, learning strategy and information, and communication technologies work synergistically toward the development of knowledge and skills. We then present the results of a survey examining “stories” of active learning from the STEM disciplines, identifying good teaching practices, and discussing challenges and lessons learned. The key idea is that active engagement and participation of students is based on faculty commitments and inspiration and mentoring by faculty. We finally present a stage model for the implementation of active learning practices in higher education. Emphasis is put on a new vision for higher education, based on systematic planning, implementation, and evaluation of active learning methods, collaboration, engagement with society and industry, innovation, and sustainability, for a better world for all.

Higher Education institutions are complex but optimal organizations for innovation and creativity to grow and flourish. To achieve this, teaching staff should stimulate students’ active engagement in their own learning processes leading to transformative student learning. This chapter focuses on an innovative pedagogical approach, which has been consistently implemented for the last three academic years in the 3rd year module “Sport, Leisure and Tourism” within Sports undergraduate degree at the University of Algarve (Portugal). The case study method and reflective portfolio were used to create an authentic, enriching, and transformative learning experience for all students. These teaching, learning, and assessment methods are, within the context of the module, underpinned by experiential learning theory. Meta-reflections of 92 students’ portfolios showed their views about the entire process and their perception of skills they gained: (i) scientific and academic; (ii) professional; and (iii) intrapersonal and interpersonal. The innovative pedagogy presented in this chapter aimed to impact on students’ ability to understand and navigate through complexity – both in a teaching and learning environment and in a real organization.

This article focuses on university education in innovation. We examine and present a novel system we have developed that is achieving our vision of instantiating a robust education that teaches, develops, and grades innovation in the education system. This paper is discussing a paradigm shift, offering new degrees with a common core focused on innovation, with teams of students learning and practicing the key elements of the innovation process. First we examine the motivation and need for a radically new approach, not a new major or a course, that is based upon a new common core and family of degrees. We describe how we knew that to effectively reach our goals the program had to span across departments, college boundaries, and beyond the very core of the university. Second, we show how in doing so we created a family of degrees that moved us beyond the centuries-old B.S. and B.A. educational constraints with a new, innovative "Bachelor of Innovation^™" (B.I.) family of degrees that includes a core built around multi-disciplinary multi-year innovation partnering with real companies. Lastly we summarize the unique aspects of the program and the rationale behind them, from the 3-year multi-disciplinary team experience to the trademarked name. We present our B.I. program as its own case study in innovation within higher education, reviewing the key challenges we faced so that other innovative institutions and departments may learn from our experience. We conclude with lessons learned and the future of the B.I. family of degrees.