Creating Our Future in an Age of Transformation Originally published in 1994, PIQ 7.3

There is a growing realization that many of our social systems and organizations are out-of-sync with the new realities of the recently emerged post-industrial, information/knowledge age. These new realities are touching the lives of every individual, every family and community, the host of organizations of our public and private sectors, and our overall society. They affect the future of humanity as a whole. Questions arise. What are these new realities? What are the meanings of societal transformations? What is our role in facing the massive changes that confront us today? Are we only spectators of these changes? Are we their victims? Are we at the mercy of others who control these changes and the experts who design systems for us? Or is it up to us to shape our future and create and recreate the systems to which we belong? What kind of capacities and capabilities should we develop that will allow us to design our own lives, shape our systems, and give direction to the evolution of our communities, our organizations, and our society? I have struggled and worked with these questions over the last three decades. They have been the focus of my research and teaching. I explore these questions in this paper in order to define an approach—the systems design approach—by which we can individually and collectively create a better future for ourselves, our families, our communities and our society while enhancing human performance, adding value to our organizations, and most importantly, creating just and ethical systems for future generations.     

Planning for the 2040s: everybody's business

As we mark the publication of the 35th issue of the British Journal of Special Education, Peter Mittler, Emeritus Professor of Special Needs Education at the University of Manchester, looks into the future and asks a series of challenging questions: What kind of a future do we want to see for a baby born with a significant disability today? What changes will be needed in society and in our schools both for the child and for the family? What reforms might this year's newly qualified staff bring about in our schools and services and in society as a whole by the time they retire in the 2040s? Professor Mittler proposes that the time is ripe to take advantage of new international and national opportunities to lay the foundations for a society that fully includes disabled people and safeguards their basic human rights. He argues that each one of us can help to determine the values and priorities of the society in which today's baby will grow up and suggests that the Make Poverty History movement has provided powerful evidence that the voice of ordinary citizens can shape policies and set priorities. He encourages us all to think globally and to act locally on a host of issues, including supporting families, planning for transition, promoting quality of life, professional development and challenging inequality.     

The Changing Corporate Mind: Organizations,Vision, Missions,Purposes, and Indicators on the Move Toward Societal Payoffs

Where are the world's organizations headed? What do they see as their primary destination and contribution? What do they commit to deliver and to whom? How rigorous are they in defining their destinations? What label do they use to describe statements of their intended future? To find the answers to these and other questions, we examined 26 of the leading organizations internationally as well as 60 leading organizations in the United States. Based on this sample of world organizations, we found indications that many organizations see some aspect of societal good as basic to their future, while many others regard their own organization's well-being as what is most important. We find no clear favorite for what organizations label their statements of purpose: most use “mission” while some use “vision,” and some use “values” or “philosophy.” Few of the organizations in our sample state their intended destination in measurable performance terms. From these data, we discuss the implications in terms of an increasing emphasis in the literature on organizations having to deliver outputs that contribute to external clients and society. We also note that purpose statements must be accompanied by appropriate actions to achieve those intentions. In addition, we discuss how this move toward socially-responsive organizations is impacting the role of the performance technologist.     

The University's Uncommon Community

In the UK, as elsewhere in the world, the global financial crisis has focused attention on the cost of public services and the need to reduce expenditure, not least in respect of higher education. This, however, raises a set of prior questions: What kind of society do we want? What is important to democratic society? What kind of higher education is desirable? The article takes Alasdair MacIntyre's critique of what he calls liberal capitalist society as a starting point for considering questions concerning the kind of higher education that would be valuable and relevant to a healthy democratic society. His thesis is outlined and the implications of this for the university set out. The article examines MacIntyre's notion of community, which he elaborates in relation to medieval religious worldviews, and argues that whilst his conceptualisation is more intellectually and educationally coherent than some others, it is ultimately too restrictive. The article argues instead for a recognition, within education, of what is uncommon. This may open greater possibilities for keeping alive the serious questions that we must constantly attend to, beyond and within our communities, secular or religious.     

The new organization and implications for training

In our work over the past 15 years, we have been guided by a premise, right or wrong, that fundamental changes in how organizations work require fundamental changes in how we think and interact. Changes in the “outer world” do not necessarily produce change in the “inner world”… I am skeptical of what can be accomplished by changes in structure alone.… What leads us to believe that lots of local managers, focused on their own profits, will be any more far‐sighted than a few corporate managers focused on corporate profits? Will they be any better at systems thinking? … What good is it to have more free movement of information if people cannot discuss the information that is most important, but that is also the most threatening? (Sugarman, 1997).     

Roses from the Cracks: A Pedagogical Reflection on the 2018 Religious Education Association Annual Meeting

Abstract

This essay explores what surfaces when we lead a reflection on the 2018 REA meeting with questions about teaching and learning. What pedagogical models appeared to be operative during the meeting? What voices were missing and which ones were privileged? Who benefitted from the pedagogies at work in the meeting? Who was marginalized? What pedagogical possibilities burst through the painful and difficult spaces in the meeting that can be a “North Star” to guide us in our future work?     

Actors: From Audience to Provider

Abstract

This article describes and analyzes actors' experiences of distance learning systems in a wide variety of cultural and organizational contexts. In line with the project of this special series of issues, results of research, much of which is longitudinal, allow us to suggest answers to the following questions: Who are the actors of distance learning? How has their experience of learning systems evolved over the last thirty years? What roles have information and communication technologies (ICTs) played in this evolution? How do actors assess the effects of these learning systems on themselves, on the system itself, or on the organization? What are the future perspectives?     

对马克思主义中国化研究中几个重要问题的认识——中国社会科学院马克思主义研究院研究员、博士生导师辛向阳访谈

马克思主义中国化研究的基本问题是什么?这些基本问题之间的关系如何?未来马克思主义中国化研究的新的视野或者说新的着力点在哪里?理论联系实际的具体方法是什么?马克思主义中国化理论创新的动力在哪里?中国特色社会主义道路和发展模式的创新性及其国际意义表现在哪里?就以上问题采访了著名马克思主义研究学者辛向阳,他的回答反映了一位马克思主义研究专家的真知灼见。     

The State of NCME: Remembering the Past, Looking to the Future

What are the roots of NCME? What were our initial goals and how well have we attained them? Are we drifting away from our practitioner orientation? What should be our policy on important matters in educational practice and our role in sociopolitical issues in educational measurement?     

The Impending Revolution in Undergraduate Science Education

There is substantial evidence that scientific teaching in the sciences, i.e. teaching that employs instructional strategies that encourage undergraduates to become actively engaged in their own learning, can produce levels of understanding, retention and transfer of knowledge that are greater than those resulting from traditional lecture/lab classes. But widespread acceptance by university faculty of new pedagogies and curricular materials still lies in the future. In this essay we review recent literature that sheds light on the following questions:

• What has evidence from education research and the cognitive sciences told us about undergraduate instruction and student learning in the sciences?
• What role can undergraduate student research play in a science curriculum?
• What benefits does information technology have to offer?
• What changes are needed in institutions of higher learning to improve science teaching?

We conclude that widespread promotion and adoption of the elements of scientific teaching by university science departments could have profound effects in promoting a scientifically literate society and a reinvigorated research enterprise.     

全球化视野中“学习社会”与基础教育改革

处在一个人人都需要确立终身学习思想和观念的时代,教育的重要目标之一就是要使现代的人们都具有终身学习的意识,而我们的社会则应该为提供这样一种多样化和多元化的终身学习活动肩负起应有的责任和义务。那么,何谓“终身教育”?何谓“终身学习”?基础教育又应如何立足于终身教育和学习社会的理念来加以改革?全球化视野中“学习社会”的特征是什么?它对基础教育改革又将产生怎样的影响?这一系列问题的提出都具有十分重要的意义并有待于教育理论工作者去作深入的研究和探讨。     

以人为本与教育学改造

以人为本唤起我们对教育学改造必要性的思考。人在哪里?谁的教育学?工具理性为何畅行?超越的声音怎样在低旋?人文课程的地位焉在?人是什么?这些问题引导我们思考改造。     

States of matter

All of us have read about solid, liquid and gaseous states of matter in school. Are these the only states of matter? What distinguishes different states of matter from each other?     

States of matter

All of us have read about solid, liquid and gaseous states of matter in school. Are these the only states of matter? What distinguishes different states of matter from each other?     

Ethics and Values: Their Place in Computer Labs and Classrooms

Articles concerning computer law abound. Institutions of higher learning have produced lengthy documents addressing computer ethics on campus, and several organizations have printed materials to educate the public. Are these efforts working? Are the ethics and values in the business world and in the education world the same? Several scenarios are examined in investigating these questions.     

DEWEY'S THEORY OF THE DEMOCRATIC PUBLIC AND THE PUBLIC CHARACTER OF CHARTER SCHOOLS

In this essay, Leonard Waks reconsiders the issue of the public character of charter schools, that is, schools funded through public taxation but operated by non‐state organizations such as nonprofit and for‐profit educational corporations and nongovernmental public interest organizations. Using John Dewey's conception of a democratic public as a framework, Waks examines the following questions: (1) Are schools chartered and funded by government, but operated by nonprofit nongovernmental organizations, ever appropriate instruments of a democratic public? (2) If so, what criteria might distinguish those that are appropriate from those that are not? (3) How might public education be re‐institutionalized so as to include the charter schools that are appropriate? Waks concludes that Dewey's theory of democratic publics can play a useful role in thinking about how to balance the democratic benefits of charter schools for the various subcommunities of our society with the democratic requirement of broad public discourse and intergroup education.     

CONNECTING THE LEARNING COMMUNITY AND VOCATION IN THE PUBLIC WORLD

Faith communities have become privatized and secluded from the daily lives of parishioners. Meanwhile secular media raises religious questions. When learning communities visit the vocational worlds of people in the parish, they can listen and learn in the languages people speak there: architecture, real estate, medicine. What are their worldviews, values, belief systems, joys, and struggles? A nurse anesthetist in Eau Claire, a librarian in Colorado Springs, a firefighter in Syracuse reflected theologically on the issues they face and more clearly discerned their callings. Listening to people speak about their faith and life in their terms on their turf helps develop a multilingual learning community.     

Lecture courses and private instruction advertised in selected London newspapers, 1742‐1765

An information society is one in which information is churned out at an increasingly rapid rate. It is also a society in which change becomes the norm. Information learned one day may become obsolete the next day. How, then, do we, as educators, deal with this situation? What can we do to help our students keep afloat and learn to swim in this rising sea of information? In this paper, metaphors are explored as possible lifebelts in the situation. The characteristics of metaphors are outlined and factors affecting their pedagogic value are discussed. Metaphorical teaching is not new. Indeed, it has a very long history in many cultures. Examples are given of how metaphors have been used in teaching in the past and present as well as suggestions of how they may be used in the future. Such suggestions, however, are only helpful in provoking thought. What we really need is research to determine under what conditions the use of metaphors in teaching are most effective. In this respect some questions that need to be answered are mentioned.     

The State of Research in Technical Communication

There have been many attempts to assess the state of research in our field. This article is our attempt to both (1) synthesize recent analyses, opinions, and conclusions concerning the status of technical communication research and (2) propose an action plan aimed at redirecting our field's agenda for its research. We explore these questions: What are the recent research trends in our field? What is and is not promising about our recent approaches to research? Where do we need to go next? What are the critical components for a new agenda for our research?