Theory of practice architecture - book overview

 This book,  the theory of practice architecture is by Peter Grootenboer and Christine Edwards-Groves. It is published by Springer in 2023.

Being a book in the Springer Brief series, it has five chapters. The first chapter summarises the premises with regards to the concepts of practice architetcture as a research approach to help understand real-world practices and 'practice-scapes.

The second chapter, extends the work into the wider approach of theories of ecologies of practice.

Then the third chapter explains the importance of situating practices into their authentic settings.

Chapter four details the ways practice architecture influence and lead the interpretation and analysis of data.

The last chapter provides recommendaitions on how to disseminate practice-based research to ensure it has impact and is used tranformationally to inform and perhaps enhance practice.

Creating the university of the future - book overview

 This 2024 open access book, Creating the university of the future is published by Springer and edited by U-D Ehlers and L. Eigbrecht. It is part of the book series on Future Higher Education. 

There are 30 chapters, organised into five sections.

The editors 'Set the scene' with 3 chapters in the first section - Creating the university of the future: A global panorama on future skills; towards a future skills framework for higher education; and the practice of future skills learning: an assessment of approaches, conditions and sucesss factors.

The next section focuses on 'future skills- foundations and shapes of a new emerging concept in a global view. There are six chapters in this section. 

Then 11 chapters in the section on future skills in practice - teaching and learning. The chapters provide case studies or examples of contemporary pedagogy from across the world.

The fourth section is on 'future skills in practice - assessment'. with 4 chapters. Emphasis is placed on formative assessments across the chapters.

The last section has a series of chapters from various countries which have worked towards achieving 'future skills'. Chapters are on the 'skills future movement in Singapore'; 'continuing education at the National University of Singapore'; Educational digital transformation of university education in Japan; future IT skills; and further higher education in New Zealand.

Overall, a good collection of chapters, some philosophical/theoretical but many reporting on current approaches. 

Peformance based research funding in Aotearoa New Zealand -

 Last week, the Tertiary Education Commission (TEC) announced that the University Advisory Group, has been tasked with reviewing the mechanism for recognition and funding of research in tertiary institutions. The Performance-based Research Funding (PBRF) is the main conduit for the funding of research at universities and polytechnics 

Taking this into account, the current collation of evidence towards the 2018-2026 evaluation round, has been cancelled. The Tertiary Education Union (TEU) have always contended that the PBRF system was unwieldy and expensive, taking up much of academics' time without any real benefits for them. 

What happens next, will hopefully be more manageable and fair. Across three posts, Roger Smyth has discussed some possibilities. Firstly, he overviews the system as it stands and summarises the inherent challenges. Then, he presents some possible solutions. A postscript was then added providing examples of how the possible solutions proposed, may play out. Of note is that PBRF is a funding regime that is derived from the university sectors' research volume. Smaller tertiary providers in the form of  Wananga (Māori Universities) and Polytechnics which participate in research as they offer degree level and above qualifications, will always have much smaller volumes of research outputs. Therefore, their share of the PBRF, has always been much smaller. 

The recommendations from the University Advisory Group on PBRF will therefore, always be a balancing act between how funding drives research activity and the costs of measuring the quantity and quality of the activity. The current system is very costly, in terms of time, for individual institutions and individual researchers. Hopefully, a better, more efficient method is presented that does not penalise non-university research. 

Māori voices in the AI landscape

 Dr. Karaitiana Taiuru maintains a blog and also posts on linkedin. He is an authority on IT issues and ther effects on Māori. His blog has posts on Māori data sovereignty AI/data and emerging technologies and critical indigenous research.

This linkedin post discusses the small number of Māori active in the technology sector in Aotearoa NZ and how this needs to change as many aspects of AI have far and long reaching effects on all people. Ensuring larger Māori representation in the digital space, is important to ensure their voices are heard. 

References provide a good resource.

Prompt engineering - Claude prompt library and other resources

 Prompt engineering is part of AI literacies and as interaction with Gen AI platforms/tools/apps increases, the competency to be able to effectively use prompt engineering has increased.

A theoretical approach to prompt engineering is offered by this IBM video whereby the approaches are based on computer science principles or algorithms.

For educational and pedagogical approaches, the paper by Mollick & Mollick (2023) recommends the assignation of a role to AI, usually as a coach/mentor. The role undertaken by AI, guides the types and tone of conversation with the AI. 

Good examples can now be found through the Claude AI prompt library. There are dozens of prompts to get things started for work, study and leisure tasks. These are useful in education as examples that can be deconstructed by learners, for them to work out the main principles for prompt engineering. 

Alternatives to ChatGPT

 A list of free and paid alternatives to ChatGPT can be found at Writesonic's site which compares each alternative to its own Chatsonic. 

Another list is found at Clickup which also compares the alternatives with both ChatGPT and its own project - Clickup.

More neutral recommendations from analyticsvidhya blog,  PC world and an older one (2023) from TechRadar for free to try alternatives.

Each has advantages and disadvantages and some have been adopted by certain industries as 'standards' or 'go to' platforms. Not all provide the ability to 'build your own chatbot' so it will be interesting to see how many are still about next year and of those that survive, how many provide additional features. 

Learning Design Voices -

 Learning Design Voices captures the perspecitves of learning designers post-pandemic. The book is open access and edited by South African learning designers/researchers T.Jaffer, S.C. Govender and L. Czerniewicz. 

After an introduction, the book has three sections (provocations).

The first provocation is 'what might learning design become in the post-COVID university? has five chapters. Each cover one of several themes -

1) increased visibility and value of learning designers due to the need to shift to flexible delivery models.

2) open learning design - on the margins

3) learning designer as pedagogical advisor

4) learning how to design learning through mimicry and mentoring

5) indigenous learning practices

The second focuses on compassionate learning design for unsettling times, with six chapters. The chapters focus on issues of equity, access, humanising learning, inclusivity and community.

The final provocation ' the challenge of designing experiences' has 13 chapters. Here, various examples, case studies and reflective studies are presented.

14) adapting ABC learning design

15) Using Laurillard's learning types

16) Rapid development prototype model

17) blended learning

18) elearning tools

19) knowledge-identity nexus

20) learner centred learning

21) authentic learning design

22) developing critique and argument

23) rethinking the textbook

24) digital divide and accessibility to print-based learning

25) ten principles of alternative assessment

26) reimagining authentic online assessments for large classes

27) inclusive online assessment

All in, may relevant chapters to inform the work of learning designers.