15. Research Partnerships in Education
Paper
Let our Dreams Come True – Acting on Challenges in Educational Systems through Collaboration and Co-creation
Fríða Bjarney Jónsdóttir1, Helgi Grímsson1, Penelope Stiles2, Jean Claude Couture2, Pasi Sahlberg3, Jón Torfi Jónasson4
1Department of Education and Youth, Iceland; 2University of Alberta; 3University of Melbourne; 4University of Iceland
Presenting Author: Jónsdóttir, Fríða Bjarney;
Grímsson, Helgi
The Educational Policy “Let Our Dreams Come True” was launched November 20th 2018 (City of Reykjavík, Department of Education and Youth, 2019). The implementation started 2019 supported by action plans launched every three years (Department of Education and Youth, 2019a, 2022). The Policy emphasizes that education of children and adolescents is a societal project taking place formally and informally in collaboration with parents and the community. The policy centres around the child and is rooted in the principles of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child and other international and national key documents. Its mission is to encourage democratic participation of children and youth while supporting professional development. The Department of Education and Youth in Reykjavík (DEY) is responsible for the education of 22.000 children 0-16 years of age. Nearly six thousand teachers, leaders, principals, and staff work in the city’s educational sector in preschools, compulsory schools, leisure centres, school music bands and among professionals providing support and guidance.
A steering committee involving politicians, representatives for the Department of Education along with Icelandic and international advisory experts led by Dr. Pasi Sahlberg (Sahlberg, 2021) were champions for the work of developing the policy. Nearly 10,000 citizens, children and adults participated in responding to the question “what skills do we want our education system to have provided our children by 2030?” (Centre for Public Impact, 2019). Five foundational competency domains were identified. Those are: social skills, self-empowerment, literacy, creativity, and health.
The Centre for Innovation in Education, based within the DEY, was established, and is leading a comprehensive implementation of the policy (Department of Education and Youth, 2019b, 2020, 2021). Other initiatives involve development and innovation fund where all schools and leisure centres get yearly funding to implement projects based on the policy (Jónsdóttir & Ágústsson, 2021). Collaboration with the School of Education at the University of Iceland was enhanced around professional development, learning communities were created where leaders and teachers share their experience and knowledge, and professional support is provided to teachers and staff. One of the objectives of the policy is to provide children with dynamic educational experiences allowing them to fulfil their dreams and have a positive impact on society and the environment. To achieve this goal, the policy's implementation emphasizes the integration of new technology and diverse learning methods. Centre for Creativity and Educational Technology at the DEY, is responsible for implementing new and creative technology in formal and informal education (Jónsdóttir et al., 2021).
In January 2022 the parliament of Iceland approved a new act on Integrating Services in the Interest of Children’s Prosperity (Government of Iceland, Ministry of Social Affairs, n.d.). For the first time in Iceland, services in the interest of children’s prosperity are divided into three stages, primary, secondary, and tertiary level. The educational sector is defined as a part of the primary level providing formal and informal education and early intervention based on the educational policy. The primary level receives support from the secondary and tertiary level for individual children and their family’s involving assessment of children’s needs and systematic follow up based on a support plan that sometimes requires specialized assistance from the tertiary level. All four neighbourhoods in the city have launched the new act on prosperity by developing a comprehensive and systematic collaboration between the three stages through the project; Better City for Children: School Support Services (Better City for Children). To weave all these three interventions together the DEY is hosting Social Innovation Labs with representatives from schools and leisure where participants design projects aiming at improving education and prosperity for all children in Reykjavík.
Methodology, Methods, Research Instruments or Sources UsedIn order to evaluate the impact and reflect on the implementation of the Reykjavík Education Policy, a mixed-methods approach is used (Mælikvarðar menntastefnu Reykjavíkur). A survey was conducted with leaders in schools and leisure centres to assess their perception of the policy's impact on children's education. Different metrics are being developed and implemented to examine the academic and social impact of formal and informal education in the city. It is assumed that the emphasis on which metrics are the most important at each point in time will change somewhat until the year 2030. The guiding light of the education policy gives an insight into what needs to be emphasized to reap progress in the five fundamental elements and the future vision of making children's dreams come true. It is therefore important to look both at the scale of what is contributed and likely to yield benefits as well as the benefits we see in the academic success and wellbeing or overall prosperity. Every year the DEY publishes an implementation report that presents multiple stories of all the different projects, initiatives and practices documented in the collaborative process of transforming formal and informal education for children in the city (Department of Education and Youth, 2019b, 2020, 2021). A webpage was launched in 2019 that hosts all information about the implementation, offers a toolbox that is a collective creation of teachers and staff in schools and leisure, presents offers for professional development and highlights all the developmental and innovation projects in schools and leisure, up to 200 per year (Menntastefna Reykjavíkurborgar). A series of Social Innovation Labs based on our collaboration with Penelope Stiles and her team from Edmonton Public School District in Alberta (Department of Education and Youth, 2019c) are being used to create critical reflection among stakeholders regarding the educational interventions discussed in the abstract above. The labs are carefully documented, and the resources designed by the participants used as concrete examples of the way schools and leisure centres visualize and cocreate their role in weaving together goals and missions of the Educational policy, the act on Prosperity and the Better City for Children.
Conclusions, Expected Outcomes or FindingsThe Reykjavík Education Policy has been a successful implementation in the city and has had a positive impact on the education of children and adolescents as well as the professionalism of leaders, teachers and staff in schools and leisure. In Iceland like everywhere in the world, Covid19 had negative effect on school personnel and the wellbeing of the children in the city (Gestsdóttir et al., 2020). During the pandemic the main goal was to guarantee as much as possible the uninterrupted education of children in Iceland. In Reykjavík schools stayed open and teachers and staff reached out and provided children with education, wellbeing, and care during the whole time (Jónsdóttir, 2020; Sigurðardóttir & Mörk, 2020). Nevertheless, it is clear that children and teens in Reykjavík have been struggling during the pandemic due to restrictions and measures being taken to protect citizens from harm. More children are waiting for services than before and emotional problems such as anxiety, loneliness and depression among children are a threat (Mælikvarðar menntastefnu Reykjavíkur). The war in Ukraine, riots and difficulties in many other countries are influencing the number of refugees seeking asylum in Iceland and for the past year Reykjavík’s schools are welcoming more refugee children than ever before. By implementing comprehensive educational policy and projects aiming at the overall prosperity, inclusion and equity for all children the educational sector in Reykjavík is being responsible for meeting the challenges of a world characterised by rapid societal and technological changes that transform children’s educational upbringing as well as traditional ideas of learning.
ReferencesBetter City for Children. https://reykjavik.is/en/a-better-city-for-children
Centre for Public Impact. (2019). Crowdsourcing Better Education Policy in Reykjavik. https://www.centreforpublicimpact.org/case-study/crowdsourcing-better-education-policy-reykjavik
City of Reykjavík, Department of Education and Youth. (2019). Reykjavik Education Policy 2030. https://menntastefna.is/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/menntastefna_rvk_ens_web.pdf
Department of Education and Youth. (2019a). Menntastefna Reykjavíkur – Almennar aðgerðir 2019-2021. https://menntastefna.is/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/Almennar-adgerdir-2019-2021.pdf
Department of Education and Youth. (2019b). Menntastefna Reykjavíkur til 2030 – Staða innleiðingar. https://menntastefna.is/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/Menntastefna-Reykjavikur_stoduskyrsla-innleidingar-jun-des2019.pdf
Department of Education and Youth. (2019c). Letting Our Dreams Come True. (Re)Imagining Together - A Social Innovation Action Lab. https://menntastefna.is/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/Reykjavik-Action-Lab-Report_Final.pdf
Department of Education and Youth. (2020). Menntastefna Reykjavíkur til 2030 – Staða innleiðingar. https://menntastefna.is/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/Loka-Menntastefna-Reykjavikur_stoduskyrsla-05.02.21.pdf
Department of Education and Youth. (2021). Menntastefna Reykjavíkur til 2030 – Helstu vörður innleiðingar 2021. https://menntastefna.is/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/Skyrsla-um-stodu-innleidingar-fyrir-arid-2021.pdf
Department of Education and Youth. (2022). Innleiðing Menntastefnu Reykjavíkur “Látum draumana rætast”. Almennar aðgerðir 2022-2024. https://menntastefna.is/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/Almennar-adgerdir-menntastefnu-Reykjavikur-2022-2024.pdf
Menntastefna Reykjavíkurborgar. https://menntastefna.is/
Mælikvarðar Menntastefnu Reykjavíkur. https://menntastefna.is/gaedastarf/maelikvardar/
Gestsdóttir, S. M. et al. 2020. Fjarkennsla í faraldri: Nám og kennsla í framhaldsskólum á tímum samkomubanns vegna COVID-19 19 Upper secondary education in Iceland during the COVID-19 pandemic. Netla – Veftímarit um uppeldi og menntun. Sérrit um COVID-19 og menntakerfið. https://doi.org/10.24270/serritnetla.2020.25
Government of Iceland, Ministry of Social Affairs. (n.d.). Integration of Services in the Interest of Children’s Prosperity. https://www.bvs.is/media/almenningur/samthaetting_tjonustu_handout_ens_v4.pdf
Jónsdóttir, F.B., Ágústsson, H. (2021). Þróun og nýsköpun í skóla- og frístundastarfi Reykjavíkurborgar. Skólaþræðir. https://skolathraedir.is/tag/frida-bjarney-jonsdottir/
Jónsdóttir, Svanborg, R., Kjartansdóttir, S.H., Jónsdóttir, S., Pétursdóttir, S, Hjartarson, T. (2021). Sköpunar- og tæknismiðjur í þremur grunnskólum: Framkvæmd og kennslufræði fyrstu skrefin. Netla – Veftímarit um uppeldi og menntun. https://netla.hi.is/greinar/2021/rynd/09.pdf
Jónsdóttir, K. (2020). Tengslin við heimilin trosnuðu merkilega lítið í fyrstu bylgju COVID-19: Sjónarhorn stjórnenda og grunnskólakennara. Netla – Veftímarit um uppeldi og menntun. Sérrit um COVID-19 og menntakerfið. https://ojs.hi.is/netla/article/view/3323
Sahlberg, P (2021). Let our dreams come true – A tribute to Iceland. https://pasisahlberg.com/let-our-dreams-come-true-a-tribute-to-iceland/
Sigurðardóttir, I.Ó., Mörk, S.B. (2020). Kófið og leikskólinn: „Þetta var mögnuð „tilraun“ til að sjá gæðastarf verða til við skrítnar aðstæður“. Netla – Veftímarit um uppeldi og menntun. Sérrit um COVID-19 og menntakerfið. https://ojs.hi.is/netla/article/view/3321
15. Research Partnerships in Education
Paper
A Framework for ensuring Sustainability in Digital Education Ecosystems for University-Industry Partnerships
Claudia-Melania Chituc
DIPF - Leibniz Institute for Research and Information in Education
Presenting Author: Chituc, Claudia-Melania
Society 5.0 [1] and Industry 4.0 [2] compel the digital transformation of all the domains, and demand highly qualified workforce [3]. Although the concept of Industry 4.0 emerged in Germany [2], it is now of high relevance in Europe and also internationally (e.g., [3], [5], [13]). University-industry partnerships were built to prepare the future workforce in a highly digitalized industry and human-centric society, and to support technology transfer [4]. In this context, concepts such as Education 4.0 [5] and Digital Education Ecosystems (DEEs) emerged; the DEEs signify here inter-connected heterogeneous and disperse e-learning Information and Communication Technology (ICT) infrastructures and information systems used in education activities in in-person, blended, or fully on-line settings, and in university-industry partnerships, which are enabled by the Internet of Things (IoT) and cyber-physical systems.
With the increasing use of the ICT infrastructures in education activities and university-industry partnerships, with the growing amount of data created and stored in databases on premise or on public clouds, and analytics executed to improve educational activities, ensuring sustainability (with respect to environment, economic, social, educational areas) is crucial. Sustainability in education and university-industry partnerships is a new area; few studies exist that identify and assess the scope, development and evolution of the goals of sustainability in education [6]. Although digital education is considered as an adequate approach for sustainable education [7], there is no framework to guide the relevant stakeholders in attaining the goals to ensure sustainability in educational activities executed in university-industry partnerships, and in the design and deployment of the DEEs and ICT infrastructures that support university-industry partnerships and education activities towards preparing the highly qualified workforce required by Industry 4.0 and Society 5.0. This work addresses this gap.
The aim of this work is to present a framework that assists relevant stakeholders (e.g., educators, industry representatives, policy makers, students, academic institutions) in identifying, analyzing, and addressing the challenges towards ensuring sustainability in the ICT infrastructures and DEEs supporting educational activities and university-industry partnerships towards supplying the highly qualified workforce demanded by Industry 4.0 and Society 5.0. Next to challenges for education sustainability, technology-related challenges for environment sustainability (e.g., green computing, sustainable software) relevant for realizing the goals of the university-industry partnerships and required ICT infrastructures and DEEs are also addressed by this framework. This work enhances the existing body of literature and knowledge regarding the areas of environment and education sustainability, and proposes concrete steps to be taken for realizing sustainable university-industry partnerships.
The proposed framework was constructed based on the findings of a literature review conducted following the guidelines of the PRISMA method [8] and builds on the results of previous research and development work conducted, such as: [9] which identified and analyzed challenges of Education 4.0 and DEEs: ICT infrastructure, interoperability, development of artificial intelligence algorithms to aid education, implementation, security, data protection and privacy, [10] that analyzed areas of relevance for Education 4.0, namely: knowledge, skills and qualifications in Education 4.0; teaching; learning; implementation; e-assessment; and quality assurance, [11] which presented the work towards the design and deployment of an item bank and its role within a service-oriented system architecture that enables the execution of e-assessment activities (e.g., from item design and e-test creation, to the analysis of logs generated by exam-takers), and [12] which analyzed standardization approaches for e-learning and interoperability challenges for e-learning ICT infrastructures in the context of the classroom of the future.
Methodology, Methods, Research Instruments or Sources UsedAiming to identify and analyze prominent challenges towards ensuring sustainability of the ICT infrastructures and DEEs supporting educational activities and university-industry partnerships towards supplying the highly qualified workforce demanded by Industry 4.0 and Society 5.0, a literature review was conducted following the PRISMA guidelines [8]. The digital libraries of the ACM and Science Direct were searched to identify relevant works, as they represent the most relevant databases in the areas of education and technology in the context of Industry 4.0. Because the concept of Industry 4.0 was firstly introduced in 2015-2016, the searches performed concern the time interval from 2016 to 2022. The following keywords were used to execute the searches: “sustainability”, “university-industry partnership”, “Industry 4.0”, “Education 4.0”, “digital education” “digital education ecosystem”, “ICT infrastructure”, “information and communication technology infrastructure”. Queries executed contain the Boolean operators AND, OR, NOT, e.g., ((“sustainability” AND “university-industry partnership” AND (“ICT infrastructure” OR “information and communication technology infrastructure”)); (“sustainability” and “Education 4.0”); (“sustainability” AND (“digital education” OR “digital education ecosystem”)). Searches on Google Scholar were also executed to identify systematic literature reviews in these areas. To retain only the relevant literature, inclusion and exclusion criteria were defined. For example, by reading the title and abstract, the clearly out of scope articles were excluded. The articles not available in English, or the ones for which full access was not granted were eliminated. The articles that only refereed broadly to the concept of sustainability, without tackling the topics of university-industry partnerships, Industry 4.0, Education 4.0, digital education ecosystems were also excluded.
Next to the literature review conducted, the result of previous research and development work executed were also used in constructing the proposed framework, e.g., [9] where challenges of Education 4.0 and DEEs are identified and analyzed: ICT infrastructure, interoperability, development of artificial intelligence algorithms to aid education, implementation, security, data protection and privacy, [10 ] that analyzed areas of relevance for Education 4.0, [11] which presents the work towards the design and deployment of an item bank and its role within a service-oriented system architecture that enables the execution of e-assessment activities, and [12] which focuses on standards and interoperability challenges for e-learning infrastructures for the classroom of the future.
Conclusions, Expected Outcomes or FindingsBeing aware of the need for highly qualified workforce in the context of Industry 4.0, numerous works focus on the skills and knowledge the young graduates and employees need to have; for example, according to [13] “must have” technical skills include IT and statistical knowledge, data and information processing and analytics, organizational and processual understanding, ease to interact with novel interfaces, and “must have” personal skills comprise self- and time management, adaptability, teamwork, social and communication abilities. University-industry partnerships were created to address the need for highly qualified workforce of Industry 4.0, and concepts such as Education 4.0 [5] and DEEs emerged. Addressing sustainability in this context is crucial. However, sustainability in education and university-industry partnerships is a new area and research and development work is scarce [6]. By performing a literature review following the PRISMA guidelines [8] and based on previous research work, a framework is proposed, which is aimed to assist relevant stakeholders (e.g., educators, industry representatives, policy makers, students, academic institutions) in identifying, analyzing, and addressing the challenges towards ensuring sustainability in the ICT infrastructures and DEEs supporting educational activities and university-industry partnerships towards supplying the highly qualified workforce demanded by Industry 4.0. Next to challenges for education sustainability, technology-related challenges for environment sustainability (e.g., green computing, sustainable software) relevant for realizing the goals of the university-industry partnerships and required ICT infrastructures and DEEs are also tackled.
References[1] A. Deguchi et al. (2020) What is society 5.0?. In: Society 5.0 A people-centric super-smart society. Hitachi-UTokyo Laboratory, Springer Open, Chapter 1, pp. 1—24.
[2]DIN Deutsches Institut für Normung e.V. (2016) DIN SPEC 91345:2016-04: Referenzarchitekturmodell Industrie 4.0 (RAMI4.0).
[3]L. Li. (2022). Reskilling and Upskilling the Future-ready Workforce for Industry 4.0 and Beyond. Information Systems Frontiers, 13 July 2022, https://doi.org/10.1007/s10796-022-10308-y
[4]R. Alkhazaleh, K. Mykoniatis, A. Alahmer. (2022) The Success of Technology Transfer in the Industry 4.0 Era: A Systematic Literature Review. Journal of Open Innovation: Technology, Market and Complexity: 8, 202. https://doi.org/10.3390/joitmc8040202
[5]da Motta Reis et al. (2020) Education 4.0: Gaps research between school formation and technological development. In: Latifi S. (eds.) International Conference on Information Technology – New Generation ITNG 2020. Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing vol. 1134, Springer, Cham, pp. 415-420. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-43020-7_55
[6] P. Colás-Bravo et al. (2021) Sustainability and Digital Teaching Competence in Higher Education. Sustainability 2021, 13(22), 12354; https://doi.org/10.3390/su132212354
[7] M.J. Sousa et al. (2022) Digital learning is an educational format towards sustainable education. Sustainability. Sustainability 2022, 14, 1140. https://doi.org/10.3390/su14031140
[8] D. Moher et al. (2009) Preferred reporting items for systematic review and meta-analyses: The PRISMA statement. PLOS Medicine 6(7), e1000097, doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.b2535
[9] C. -M. Chituc (2022) An Analysis of Technical Challenges for Education 4.0 and Digital Education Ecosystems, IEEE German Education Conference (GeCon), Berlin, Germany, pp. 1-5, doi: 10.1109/GeCon55699.2022.9942758.
[10] C.-M. Chituc (2021) A Framework for Education 4.0 in Digital Education Ecosystems. In: Camarinha-Matos, L.M., Boucher, X., Afsarmanesh, H. (eds) Smart and Sustainable Collaborative Networks 4.0. PRO-VE 2021. IFIP Advances in Information and Communication Technology, vol 629. Springer, Cham, pp. 702-709. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-85969-5_66
[11] C.-M. Chituc, M. Herrmann, D. Schiffner, M. Rittberger (2019) Towards the Design and Deployment of an Item Bank: An Analysis of the Requirements Elicited. In: Herzog, M. et al. (eds) Advances in Web-Based Learning – ICWL 2019. ICWL 2019. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 11841. Springer, Cham, pp. 155-162. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-35758-0_15
[12] C. -M. Chituc, M. Rittberger (2019) Understanding the Importance of Interoperability Standards in the Classroom of the Future, IECON 2019 - 45th Annual Conference of the IEEE Industrial Electronics Society, Lisbon, Portugal, pp. 6801-6806, doi: 10.1109/IECON.2019.8927631.
[13] L. Gehrke, Kühn A., Rule D., Moore P., Bellmann C. et al. (2015) A Discussion of Qualifications and Skills in the Factory of the Future: A German and American Perspective, VDI The Association of German Engineers, Düsseldorf, Germany.
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