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This paper aims to investigate the potential for digital badges to support alternate learning and career pathways in formal and informal learning environments. Stakeholder groups in higher education and industry discussed how digital badges might transform current processes of admitting undergraduate students and hiring young professionals.

This research uses a thematic analysis of in-depth interviews with 30 stakeholders in higher education and the technology industry.

Interview participants expressed optimism about the potential for digital badges to make learning pathways visible to learners and external audiences and to promote equity in STEM (STEM: science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) education and careers. Participants noted several obstacles, largely focused on issues of credibility and logistics of working with badges across settings.

Though the research approach is limited in geographic scope, the findings have broad applicability and insight for the use of digital badges in general.

Education policymakers, employers and scholars will be able to use the insights from this investigation in their efforts to find innovative ways to expand and diversify the STEM workforce, as well as support a wider range of learners than is currently supported by initiatives aligned with the school-to-workforce pipeline metaphor.

This paper directly confronts issues of real-world applications of digital badges by discussing practical implications with college admissions officers and employers. The current study fills a need for research that investigates the use of digital badges across – as opposed to within – contexts.

Early childhood social studies students deserve to learn in a powerful, in-depth fashion about their interests with teachers who facilitate cognitive and affective growth. Humanistic teachers offer democratic learning experiences characterized by exploration and inquiry within a challenging and caring environment. Growth toward acceptance of all types of diversity and every classmate is featured. Through discussion about social studies topics, learners proceed to graphically represent what they learn. This powerful social studies learning is found in Reggio Emilia, Italy. The tenets, strategies, and approaches are easily transferable and modified to create powerful and exemplar early childhood social studies learning for social rights and social justice. Early childhood is the perfect place to set social justice learning in motion.

The paper describes two reflective instruments: a reflective diary (RD) and a joint learning protocol (JLP) for teachers' knowledge creation in lesson study (LS), reflects on teachers' reactions and encountered challenges and draws inferences on how teachers' learning and knowledge creation could be facilitated more effectively in LS through “learning keeping.”

This qualitative case study of an action research project utilizes the data collected through the narrative inquiry within an LS initiative with four English as a foreign language (EFL) teachers in a school in Spain.

The study suggests that the incorporation of reflective writing in LS as a method of keeping records of teachers' individual and collective reflections should be considered “a good practice” and yet another important mechanism facilitating teachers' learning in LS.

The study is limited by its scope since the applied LS model suggests carrying out three consecutive cycles rather than two.

Firstly, the two proposed instruments could be of practical value to educators and facilitators employing LS as an approach to teachers' professional learning. Secondly, the study adds to the discussion on the mechanisms fostering teachers' learning in LS by emphasizing “learning keeping” as a form of record-keeping through reflective writing. Thirdly, the study is set in the new for the LS community context, in the autonomous community of the Basque Country, Spain.

The purpose of this paper is to test a multilevel, cross-classified model that seeks to illuminate the dynamic nature of relationships among leadership, teaching quality, and student learning in school improvement. The study's primary goal is to shed light on the paths through which leadership influences student learning. At the school level, the model examines the mediating effect of the school's instructional environment on leadership and student learning. At the classroom level, it examines how instructionally focussed leadership can moderate teacher effects on student learning. Then these multiple paths are examined in a single model that seeks to test and highlight the means by which leadership contributes to school improvement.

The current study employed a multilevel longitudinal data set drawn from 60 primary schools in one state in the USA. Using a cross-classification approach to quantitative modeling, the research analyzes the complex cross-level interactions that characterize school-level and classroom level practices that contribute to school improvement and student learning.

The results illustrate the utility of specifying multilevel relationships when examining the “paths” that link school leadership to student learning. First, leadership effects on student learning were fully mediated by the quality of the school's instructional environment. Second, the findings indicated that the classroom-related paths examined in this study directly influenced the measures of student math achievement. Third, the research found that instructionally focussed school leadership moderated the effect of individual teachers on student learning. Fourth, the results suggest that school leaders can enhance student outcomes by creating conditions that lead to greater consistency in levels of effectiveness across teachers.

The study makes substantive contributions to the global knowledge base on school improvement by testing and elaborating on the “paths” that link school leadership and student learning. More specifically, the findings offer insights into strategic targets that instructional leaders can employ to enhance teacher effectiveness and school improvement. Thus, these results both support and extend findings from prior cross-sectional and longitudinal studies of leadership and school improvement.

This is the first study that has tested a conceptualization of leadership for learning in a single “cross-classified longitudinal model” capable of capturing interactions among leadership, classroom teaching processes and growth in student learning. The research illustrates one “state-of-the-art” methodological approach for analyzing longitudinal data collected at both the school and classroom levels when studying school improvement.

The aim of the study is to explore perceptions of the impact of assessment feedback by international undergraduate nursing students. Research to date indicates that summative assessment feedback may impact significantly on student achievement but if it is undertaken sub optimally or does not provide students with the opportunity to engage with the process and reflexively respond, it can also be exceptionally damaging to the learning experience.

A scoping exercise of overall student feedback experience was initially collated via the adoption of an Interpretive Phenomenological Approach (IPA). Participants were recruited via purposive sampling and the LEGO® Serious Play® method was used to collect data. Analysis with Quirkos software was used to examine the salience as well as commonality of findings as an integral part of a recognised five-step thematic analytical approach.

Feedback was perceived, by students, as significantly impacting factor in relation to their overall progression, attainment and retention rates. Themes generated from the findings evidenced student perceptions that summative feedback is a positive driver and source of motivation for academic success and progression. It was perceived that levels of attainment were related to the clarity, quality and individualised nature of feedback that students received and that this was perceived to be evident in their final grades. These were accompanied by perceptions that feedback clarity also determined the potential of breaking down perceived student barriers to learning, their perceived capacity for effective assignment planning and preparation and the likelihood of them having any positive collective or individual interpersonal relationships with their tutors. Summarised, students perceived that feedback ought to lead to student empowerment in managing their studies and as such it ought to be clear, straightforward and non-ambiguous.

The methodological design of the study means that generalisability from its findings was never intended or possible. However, there may be the potential transferability of findings to similar institutions and contexts of nurse education with students who have similar demographic profiling. The study was also a means of providing an insight into the lived experience of students which could be used in the prospective adaptation of feedback mechanisms for staff at a local level within Higher Education.

The study reveals the perceived impact of gamification as a mechanism of summative assessment as conveyed by a designated group of students. Whilst specific recommendations for change can only be made within the context specificity of the research, there may be aspects of the findings which are potentially transferable to other similar contexts of Higher Education delivery whose pedagogical approaches mirror those in operation at the institution where the research was undertaken. It became apparent that the standardisation of feedback approaches offered many opportunities to improve existing systems. The issue of monitoring workloads is also of significance in terms of the level and degree of summative assessment and feedback that academic staff can undertake.

The study revealed the perceived magnitude of assessment feedback on progression, attainment and retention rates, alongside the perceived need for a universal feedback template and the opportunity to provide audio-video feedback. This study adds to existing knowledge in the field of pedagogic practice about both the execution of LEGO® Serious Play® as a research methodology and why the perceptions of feedback as articulated and illuminated by a group of contemporary nursing students ought to matter in the context of Higher Education.

The purpose of this paper is to present a new professional development framework (EntreCompEdu) that identifies the competencies educators need to promote entrepreneurial education in primary, secondary and vocational settings.

This conceptual paper explores the relationships between the framework's various constructs to articulate its rationale and value. Its design was informed by literature review and critical feedback from an advisory group of European and national policymakers, university staff, teachers and education consultants. It is currently in a pilot stage.

The paper proposes a new model in the field resting on six pedagogical principles. These are translated into five areas of competence: entrepreneurial knowledge and understanding, planning and organization, teaching and training, assessment, and professional learning.

This paper only describes the conceptual thinking and contents of EntreCompEdu based on a limited literature review. Empirical research is necessary to assess the impact of EntreCompEdu on teaching. There are implications for building a network to support educators' professional development.

EntreCompEdu and its training materials offer educators structure and guidance to develop their competences. These are available in open access format, via https://www.entrecompedu.eu. Participants will have access to a bank of effective teaching practices and support network across Europe.

Collaboration is essential to effective entrepreneurial education, with EntreCompEdu facilitating a support network across Europe.

EntreCompEdu is an original response to a policy problem, namely the need for a professional development framework to support the implementation of EntreComp. It is timely given calls to pay further attention to teachers' professional development and widen the appeal of entrepreneurial education.

This study aims to better understand the relationship between peer feedback in the context of online collaborative note-taking and how comments impacted student performance and understanding.

This one sample investigation was of graduate students participating in an academic writing class working collaboratively online. Data was gathered on student feedback during note-taking activity to test for its effects on student performance and understanding.

The use of peer comments in online note-taking was found to impact student quiz scores and academic writing skills positively. However, no significance was found between comments and the completeness of their notes taken, suggesting its limits to promote deeper understanding.

The level and detail about the comments made and how accurately they recall the important details from the video lectures is not known. The average number of comments made weekly by each group was also low.

Designers and teachers using online collaborative activities could benefit by understanding the nature in which peer comments can enhance student learning, bearing in mind the need for explicit guidance in how to comment and at what level of knowledge their comments should target.

Online collaboration, peer editing and commenting is widely used by educators and the public. A better understanding of how these elements operate might improve the quality of knowledge artefacts such as academic writing and research notes.

Existing literature focuses mainly on peer feedback on writing or other artefacts; this paper seeks to find out more about the impact of comments in particular on collaborative note-taking.

In contrast to traditional portfolio practices that focus on the individual, this paper aims to reenvision portfolio practices to encompass sociocultural aspects of learning by considering how young makers, both in- and out-of-school, imbue digital cultural practices into the documenting and showcasing of their work, as well as observe the extent to which their portfolios are used to build community inside and outside their local settings.

Drawing from a connected learning approach, the authors engaged in qualitative and ethnographic study of youth’s digital maker portfolios in an out-of-school and a school-based makerspace. Through qualitative and thematic coding of portfolio walkthroughs, the authors identified four underlying characteristics within portfolio artifacts (i.e. personal and shared projects) and capturing practices (i.e. personal and shared capturing practices) that differently presented projects.

The analysis showed that portfolios that included shared productions and shared portfolios (i.e. projects and portfolios contributed to by more than one youth) and that were shared in open-ended ways across communities valued connected learning principles. These connected portfolios made community building within and beyond maker-educational communities of the young makers possible. In particular, openly shared and collaboratively captured work showed individual achievements (e.g. projects and techniques) and made visible connective and social engagement (e.g. opportunities for feedback and refinement, possibilities to narrate work to multiple audiences).

This paper has implications for the design of portfolio assessment in makerspaces and expands the role of portfolios as a way to capture individual and cognitive achievements alone toward connected community-building opportunities for youth as well as maker-centered settings within and beyond the youth’s local maker-centered settings.