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Innovation and Sustainable Development of Seamless Education and Teaching Methods

A special issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050). This special issue belongs to the section "Sustainable Education and Approaches".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 30 June 2024 | Viewed by 7333

Special Issue Editor

Ossiannilsson Quality in Open, Online Learning Consultancy, International Council for Open and Distance Education, OER Advocacy Committee, Viktoria University of Wellington, NZ, OEGlobal Award Winner Open Leadership, EntreComp Champion, OE4BW, 222 35 Lund, Sweden
Interests: learning; lifelong learning; leadership; innovation; open education; personal learning; seamless education; sustainable development
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

This Special Issue, entitled Innovation and Sustainable Development of Seamless Education and Teaching Methods, is dedicated to the promotion and dissemination of knowledge on methods, strategies and technologies to increase the sustainability of the development of the future of education and the new social contract for education by considering global challenges such as globalisation, changing demographics, digital transformation, climate change, environment and social pillars of sustainable development.

The response to the pandemic, and to the widespread discontent that preceded it, must be based on a New Social Contract and a New Global Deal for education that create equal opportunities for all and respect the rights and freedoms of all (UNESCO; 2021). Such a new social contract suggested by UNESCO must build on the general principles underlying human rights—inclusion and equality, cooperation and solidarity, and collective responsibility and interconnectedness—and be guided by the following fundamental principle: guarantee the right to quality education throughout life.

We face the dual challenge of delivering on the unfulfilled promise of ensuring the right to quality education for every child, youth, and adult, and of fully realizing the transformative potential of education as a pathway to a sustainable collective future. To achieve this, there is a need for a new social contract for education that can address inequities while transforming the future. This new social contract must be based on human rights and the principles of non-discrimination, social justice, respect for life, human dignity, and cultural diversity. It must embrace an ethic of care, reciprocity and solidarity.

Sustainability is also a perfect field for the interdisciplinary and multicultural assessment of complex systems. In light of all this, this Special Issue is intended to provide an opportunity for global researchers from a wide range of fields to develop, discuss, share, and disseminate new ideas within the fields of Innovation and Sustainable Development of Seamless Education and Teaching Methods.

Prof. Dr. Ebba Ossiannilsson
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sustainability is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • education systems
  • new social contract
  • new normal
  • OER
  • OER recommendation
  • open education
  • open pedagogy
  • sustainability
  • quality
  • teaching methods

Published Papers (3 papers)

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Research

12 pages, 247 KiB  
Article
Resilient Agile Education for Lifelong Learning Post-Pandemic to Meet the United Nations Sustainability Goals
by Ebba S. I. Ossiannilsson
Sustainability 2022, 14(16), 10376; https://doi.org/10.3390/su141610376 - 20 Aug 2022
Cited by 4 | Viewed by 2147
Abstract
The World Health Organization officially classified COVID-19 as a pandemic in early March 2020. Extraordinary security measures, health restrictions, and social isolation left hardly any aspect of daily life untouched. One area that underwent major changes was education, whose cornerstones and foundations were [...] Read more.
The World Health Organization officially classified COVID-19 as a pandemic in early March 2020. Extraordinary security measures, health restrictions, and social isolation left hardly any aspect of daily life untouched. One area that underwent major changes was education, whose cornerstones and foundations were challenged as schools and universities around the world were forced to close their doors to prevent the spread of the virus. In this article, the reasons resilience and agility are critical to achieving social justice, human rights, and the United Nations Sustainability goals (SDG) in the post-pandemic era are studied. It is also argued that the role of education needs to be redesigned to be resilient and agile and to ensure lifelong learning. In addition, a post-pandemic quality agenda is the focus of the article. Some of the emerging quality dimensions are empathy, satisfaction, well-being, the social dimensions of learning, and their impact at the nano, micro, meso, and macro levels. This article was prepared as part of a systematic literature review based mainly on official reports from organizations working in this field worldwide. The author selected examples from ongoing discourse and debate about the challenges in this field in addition to examples from the author’s research, experiences, and perspectives. In summary, questions regarding educational landscapes may be the same, but in the context of post-pandemic and resilient agile education for lifelong learning to meet the SDGs and the new social contract for education, the answers to the questions of why, who, when, what, and at what levels will be different. It is time not just to talk, but to act. Each of us can and must commit to the new social contract. It is time to collectively reimagine our futures to include the ecosystem of education in all learning environments, i.e., formal, non-formal, and informal, and to value resilient, agile, seamless, and rhizomatic learning in the context of lifelong learning. Full article
15 pages, 270 KiB  
Article
An Investigation of Preschool Level Out-of-Class Education Activities in Finland, Estonia, Ireland, and Turkey within the Framework of 21st Century Skills
by Kezban Özgem and Umut Akçıl
Sustainability 2022, 14(14), 8736; https://doi.org/10.3390/su14148736 - 17 Jul 2022
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 1874
Abstract
The skills and competencies to be acquired in the 21st century are collected under these topics: learning and innovation skills; life and career skills; information, media and technology skills. The changes taking place in the world, in information technologies and global transformation, have [...] Read more.
The skills and competencies to be acquired in the 21st century are collected under these topics: learning and innovation skills; life and career skills; information, media and technology skills. The changes taking place in the world, in information technologies and global transformation, have promoted the development of different approaches, models, skills, and various learning theories in education. One of the prominent features shaping this period is the acquisition of these desired skills from the pre-school period, and this acquisition occurs through providing children with different experiences and offering rich environments and materials to children. In this respect, the activities carried outdoors have gained as much significance as in-class activities. This study aims to compare the 21st-century skills-based outdoor educational activities in Finland, Estonia, Ireland, and Turkey. In this respect, the horizontal and diagnostic approach used in comparative education studies is applied in combination. Document analysis is used in this research to gather data on the objectives of the countries regarding preschool out-of-class education as well as out-of-class education environments; the activities, modules, and assessment methods used were obtained from Finland, Estonia, Ireland, and Turkey’s Ministry of Education websites, countries’ laws on education, official pre-school education reports, education systems, articles, and online databases, etc. Among the countries examined, Finland, Estonia, and Ireland have learning modules related to out-of-class learning activities, which indicates that these countries have more options and thus a greater variety of out-of-class activities and environments. It also indicates that out-of-class education activities are carried out more extensively in these countries. It has been concluded that Ireland has more out-of-class learning activities in number and a number of the activities address a higher number of developmental areas. However, it has also been revealed that there is no module, program, or booklet for out-of-class learning activities in Turkey. From this point of view, the recommendation is for Turkish education to create a preschool education program module with out-of-class activities to adapt the Turkish preschool education program to the imperatives of contemporary learning outcomes. Full article
19 pages, 286 KiB  
Article
Adoption of Online Education and Pedagogy as New Codes of Life for New Future in Rural Regions
by Betul Yikici, Fahriye Altinay, Zehra Altinay, Ramesh Chander Sharma and Gokmen Dagli
Sustainability 2022, 14(9), 5528; https://doi.org/10.3390/su14095528 - 05 May 2022
Cited by 9 | Viewed by 1789
Abstract
The COVID-19 pandemic threw the education system out of gear worldwide. This crisis calls for fundamental reforms and strategic planning to continue education. There are other factors, like pedagogy of care, adoption of emergency remote teaching methods, training of teachers, and assessment strategies. [...] Read more.
The COVID-19 pandemic threw the education system out of gear worldwide. This crisis calls for fundamental reforms and strategic planning to continue education. There are other factors, like pedagogy of care, adoption of emergency remote teaching methods, training of teachers, and assessment strategies. This paper examines teachers’ professional competencies working in secondary schools in the rural areas of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus. The paper investigates how distance teaching and learning are adopted, problems encountered for the same, and modes of assessment used. Data was collected by adopting a qualitative survey design, using a holistic case design to understand qualitatively complex events from the participants’ perspectives. Data were obtained from 122 teachers working at schools in different regions of the TRNC (Nicosia, Kyrenia, Famagusta, İskele). The findings revealed that although the teachers found the distance education process exhausting, they found ICT helpful. Further, teachers reported that distance education was the best training process in the current pandemic situation. Difficulties were reported to increase students’ motivation and prepare appropriate materials for the lesson. They used teaching methods, such as question and answer, narration, fun videos, whiteboard, and online test application techniques. Full article
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