One of the most incredible aspects of the Mexican Baja Peninsula is the immense wealth of plant and animal diversity it holds. The human communities living alongside this richness have boundless intimate knowledge of its natural history, potentially with novel insights into the ecological and evolutionary processes shaping the diversity of plants and animals. These same human communities have likely also witnessed changes to these natural environments over their lifetimes, particularly as the effects of global change are being felt by similar rural communities around the world. However, because the area is so remote, they often have little access to scientific data or current information about the causes or effects of the changes they observe. Using a thematic analysis of recorded conversations, this project seeks to connect remote rural ranches in Mexico with scientists, to gather data on the issues that matter most to the community members, and work to find collaborative solutions. Through thematic analysis of recorded conversations, our research reveals that unpredictable climate variability, including droughts, hurricanes, and shifting seasonal patterns, poses significant challenges to ranching livelihoods. Ranchers' deep ecological knowledge provides critical insights into the stresses of changing and increasingly unpredictable environmental trends. By integrating local perspectives with scientific approaches, this study highlights the potential for collaborative biodiversity research. Uno de los aspectos m & aacute;s incre & iacute;bles de la Pen & iacute;nsula de Baja (M & eacute;xico) es la inmensa riqueza de diversidad vegetal y animal que alberga. Las comunidades humanas que viven junto a esta riqueza tienen un conocimiento & iacute;ntimo e ilimitado de su historia natural, potencialmente con conocimientos novedosos sobre los procesos ecol & oacute;gicos y evolutivos que dan forma a la diversidad de plantas y animales. Es probable que estas mismas comunidades humanas tambi & eacute;n hayan sido testigos de cambios en estos entornos naturales a lo largo de sus vidas, particularmente porque los efectos del cambio global se est & aacute;n sintiendo en comunidades rurales similares en todo el mundo. Sin embargo, debido a que el & aacute;rea es muy remota, a menudo tienen poco acceso a datos cient & iacute;ficos o informaci & oacute;n actual sobre las causas o efectos de los cambios que observan. Utilizando un an & aacute;lisis tem & aacute;tico de conversaciones grabadas, este proyecto ha utilizado el an & aacute;lisis tem & aacute;tico para conectar ranchos rurales remotos en M & eacute;xico con cient & iacute;ficos, para encontrar soluciones y recopilar datos sobre los problemas que m & aacute;s les importan. A trav & eacute;s del an & aacute;lisis tem & aacute;tico de conversaciones grabadas, nuestra investigaci & oacute;n revela que la variabilidad clim & aacute;tica impredecible, incluyendo sequ & iacute;as, huracanes y cambios en los patrones estacionales, representa un desaf & iacute;o significativo para el sustento de los rancheros. El profundo conocimiento ecol & oacute;gico de los rancheros nos proporciona perspectivas clave sobre las tensiones provocadas por las tendencias ambientales cambiantes y cada vez m & aacute;s impredecibles. Al integrar las perspectivas locales con enfoques cient & iacute;ficos, este estudio resalta el potencial de la investigaci & oacute;n colaborativa en biodiversidad.

In a project funded by the British Council, researchers interviewed students, teachers, parents, and schools in marginalised communities across four countries: Bangladesh, Nepal, Senegal and Sudan. They found a growing trend of young people, regardless of their backgrounds, using technology and English to seek information. The findings of the study have been organised into three themes: English language, technology and gender. The research found that English is viewed as crucial for both technology and education. It is thought to help individuals secure better job opportunities and stay connected globally. Technology and English support each other, although not everyone has strong English skills, which can hinder technology use. Students generally have a positive attitude toward technology, believing it aids in learning and job searches. However, challenges such as power outages in schools persist, with the Covid-19 pandemic accelerating the use of mobile phones for learning purposes. Access to devices and networks varied, with some children having their own devices, others borrowing from family members, and some drawing on extended social networks for internet connections. Students sometimes found ways to support their education both in and out of school, for example by borrowing devices from friends. Some had access only at home. Gender differences influence technology access, with girls sometimes having fewer opportunities due to household rules. Parents tend to monitor girls' technology use more closely. Girls and boys also use technology differently, with girls focusing more on research and content sharing, while boys prefer chatting and gaming. It is uncertain if boys have better English learning opportunities than girls. However, teachers perceive girls as more interested in learning English. Additionally, girls often have ambitious goals for their future, potentially driving their enthusiasm for English learning. In summary, the study highlights the interconnectedness of technology and English learning. Ensuring equal access to technology and English learning opportunities, regardless of background or gender, is crucial for promoting inclusive education and skill development in a rapidly evolving digital era.

Field courses provide opportunities for students to engage with the world as part of the learning process. This chapter explores the use of a portable Wi-Fi network and mobile technologies to support the inclusion of students with physical disabilities in field study courses. The Enabling Remote Activity approach, which has been developed through multiple field courses at The Open University in the United Kingdom, is introduced, and a case study involving two field courses from a second-level undergraduate environmental science module is presented. The findings are discussed in regard to inclusive education, and recommendations for facilitating social inclusion are proposed.

Disadvantaged young people in low-resource countries are less likely to complete their education or to progress to higher levels, which means that their upward mobility can be severely constrained. Versatile technologies such as smartphones, when combined with an ability to use the English language, can facilitate access to learning resources, thereby helping to support young people's education where the school facilities and local teaching resources are often insufficient and may reinforce existing inequalities. However, technology access and usage vary, and linguistic or other barriers to effective engagement are multifaceted. To gain a deeper understanding of the role of languages and technologies, our research project collected first-hand accounts of the educational experiences of marginalized young people aged 13–15, their parents and teachers in harder-to-reach urban and rural settings, in four low-income countries in Africa and Asia. The research investigated perspectives on the English language and use of technology in education in school and outside of school. Our findings provide original insights into local cultures of technology use and English language use in the context of young people's lived experiences. The paper covers young people's use of English and attitudes toward English alongside other languages in their local settings, and how they are learning with mobile digital devices at school, at home, outdoors, and in the homes of relatives, friends and neighbors. Relationships between languages and technologies are discussed, as well as the sustainability of English- and technology-mediated education in the countries in question, which will have broader applicability in other low-resource settings.

Teachers in marginalised communities are known to face numerous challenges that may impact on their classroom practices. However, very little is known about their classroom practices in terms of their use of language and technology. Drawing on data collected in an international research project involving teachers and schoolchildren in several marginalised communities in Bangladesh, Nepal, Senegal and Sudan, the paper reports and reflects on the roles of languages and technology in education from the perspectives of teachers. The research data pertaining to teachers was collected through interviews and classroom observations and analysed through the lens of activity theory. Contradictions emerged between official languages used in class and the need to use local languages to support understanding, communication and discussion. Digital tools for teaching and learning were highly valued but scarce, consequently some teachers filled the gap by using their own digital and financial resources. Despite some challenges using English with students, teachers’ attitudes towards English were positive due to the perceived value of English for employment, access to information and social status. The research contributes to renewed awareness of marginalization and inequity and to promoting inclusivity. It contributes insights directly from communities that have not been studied from the combined perspective of languages and technology use in education. We discuss the implications of the findings for the improvement of pedagogical practices in marginalised communities.

Access to effective Continuing Professional Development can be difficult for teachers in sub-Saharan Africa, impacting their capacity to learn from best practice and improve their teaching approaches. Internet and cellphone services are seen as potential solutions, offering digital resources and online training. However, these are hindered by limited or expensive network coverage, leaving poorer-resourced and more remote schools behind. Zambian Education School-based Training (ZEST) has trialled an innovative approach for teachers: an offline networked learning approach. Deploying low-cost, battery-powered small computers as networked hubs has enabled collaborative, digitally enhanced professional development training where internet access is too expensive or unreliable. Central to ZEST is the idea of teachers learning together in Teacher Group Meetings. Raspberry Pi computers, accessed via teachers’ own smartphones, have allowed educators to work together in proximity, sharing open digital resources. Through interviews and observations and drawing from Blumenfeld et al.’s diagnostic framework (2000), we report on teachers’ and school leaders’ impressions of the benefits and challenges of this novel approach. We reflect on its adoption, appropriation, enactment, and maintenance by school systems. We offer findings that may be more broadly applied to support school-based professional development in similarly restricted environments.

Zambian Education School-based Training (ZEST) is an innovative programme aimed at improving teaching in line with policy aspirations in Zambia. It draws on existing roles, structures and processes whilst making innovative use of technology and resources, to support teaching and to challenge attitudes which can limit achievement. A programme of research has been designed to better understand school-based continuing professional development (SBCPD) at a school-level. This presentation focuses on one strand of that research: school leaders. It seeks to make explicit what it is that school leaders do to support successful innovation. // ZEST is based on the policy aspiration that teaching should be more learner-centred, and defines learner-centredness in terms of attitudes, values and relationships, rather than a set of required practices. This paper will draw on the literature to suggest what ‘learner-centred leadership’ could look like. It will present data from interviews and observations gathered during a two-day visit to each of six schools to explore head teachers’ leadership of innovation. A purposive sample of schools was chosen, based on their successful engagement with ZEST as evidenced through new ways of working, new attitudes to learners, and the successful use of technology. // The presentation will provide case studies of successful school leaders and will highlight what it means to innovate, identifying key drivers and constraints in the Zambian context. The findings will be relevant to others working on the continent.

The digital divide presented between the Global South and North has been exacerbated due to the Covid-19 pandemic causing unequal access to technologies in education, public services, and healthcare. Through an exploratory study in the northeastern region of Mexico, a marginalized community used a hyperlocal network to engage in creative Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Mathematics (STEAM) activities. The study uses a qualitative methodology with a reflective approach, informed by sociocultural and dialogic concepts. Data collection primarily involved semi-structured interviews, observations, focus groups, and collection of artifacts. The findings present a rich framework of sociocultural factors and capital knowledge from the community. From the study emerged participants’ meanings in three categories: i) the use of offline mobile learning, ii) the educational practices in the non-formal context, and iii) the dialogic opportunities created among participants. From this non-formal context of education experience emerged creative lessons in innovation, agency from the learners, and genuine involvement from the participants.

This is the ninth report in a series of reports exploring new forms of teaching, learning and assessment. The reports are intended for teachers, policy makers, academics, students, researchers, designers of educational technology, and for anyone who is interested in pedagogical innovation and how education is changing. This 2021 report was co-authored by researchers in the Open University's Institute of Educational Technology in collaboration with colleagues at the Artificial Intelligence and Human Languages Lab/The Institute of Online Education at Beijing Foreign Studies University. It proposes ten promising innovations that have not yet had a significant influence on education but deserve attention: -Best learning moments -Enriched realities -Gratitude as a pedagogy -Using chatbots in learning -Equity-oriented pedagogy -Hip-hop based education -Student co-created teaching and learning -Telecollaboration for language learning -Evidence-based teaching -Corpus-based pedagogy

This review aims to collate and organize the current literature base on the use of participatory research methods within Covid-19 and pandemic contexts. Participatory approaches rely on establishing trust and rapport between researchers and participants and advocate actively involving participants in the planning, implementation and evaluation of a research issue. However, by transitioning such approaches to an online and geographically distributed context, the openness and equitability of participatory approaches may be reduced or lost. By providing an overview of current empirical and guidance literature on the use of participatory approaches within the context of Covid-19, this review not only offers a basis for how a variety of methods may be used and adapted to distanced contexts, but also explicates the challenges associated with the use of these methods and the wider methodological implications posed by the Covid-19 pandemic. Furthermore, this review outlines the issues associated with conducting this type of research more generally, providing implications for how distance-based participatory methods may be used in wider contexts where face-to-face interaction may not be appropriate, or fieldwork may be disrupted due to logistical reasons.

The Covid-19 pandemic worsened access to education and socio-economic development opportunities for marginalized communities around the globe. ‘Hyperlocal Learning Network La Campana-Altamira’ has used low-cost technologies to target this challenge in a city in the Northeast region of Mexico. With the collaboration of academics from Mexico and the United Kingdom, the project in progress has aimed to build hyperlocal and creative learning networks under a socio-constructivist and grounded approach that could empower individuals (children, parents and general community) and nurture makerspace characteristics at home during lockdown. The project established a hyperlocal learning network in La Campana-Altamira with 11 families, using a combination of craft kits and low-cost digital networks to enable making, reflecting, and sharing in the neighbourhood while schools and makerspaces were closed. This paper presents initial findings of the research process and seeks to open a debate on innovative methods and transnational collaboration during pandemics.

As higher education institutions increasingly teach online and offer greater levels of choice to students (over which modules to study, in which order to study, and how long to extend study before qualification) new challenges are introduced. One of these challenges is how to maintain an understanding of the student experience. This understanding is necessary to provide feedback to both students and faculty, and institutionally for the continued enhancement of quality. This paper is the first attempt at providing a narrative describing one approach to this challenge and the experience within a large distance learning University. It demonstrates a new approach to data is key to enabling the analysis of student study pathways. For many years, this University has offered great flexibility of study and as wide a study choice as it is possible to offer with conventional modules. By design, the Institution holds high levels of data for all student study. However, whilst it is possible to create bespoke queries, we found that this has been insufficient to readily enable analysis of the student experience. By moving from a traditional relational database structure to a multi-model database, many of the difficulties are resolved. In this paper, we report on this approach and describe next steps, including the potential to apply machine learning algorithms and test other data theories like that of Markov Chains.

As universities increasingly teach at scale, new challenges are introduced and compounded where students are offered greater choice. A key challenge is to maintain an understanding of the student experience within the huge increase in variations in student study path. This understanding is necessary to provide feedback to both faculty and students, and institutionally for the enhancement of quality. This is the first description of one fresh approach to this challenge. Whilst based on the experience within a large distance learning university, the findings are relevant to all institutions working at scale. Moving from a traditional relational structure to a multi-model database makes it possible to quickly design study path queries to explore the richness of available data. We provide an overview of this approach that could be applied by other universities and higher education institutions where data is not being fully utilised.

In the last 20 years a range of approaches have been adopted to facilitate assessment of learning as well as assessment for learning. With the increased interest in measuring learning gains using assessment data, it is important to recognise the potential limitations of using grades as proxies for learning. If there is a lack of alignment in terms of grade descriptors between modules within a qualification, students might perform really well on one module, and may underperform in a module that has relatively “harsh” grading policies. Using principles of big data, we explored whether students’ grade trajectories followed a consistent pattern over time based upon their abilities, efforts, and engagement in two distinct studies. In Study 1, we explored a relatively large dataset of 13,966 students using multi-level modelling, while in a more fine-grained Study 2 we focussed on the pathways of students choosing their first two modules in six large qualifications. The findings indicated substantial misalignments in how students progressed over time in 12 large qualifications in Study 1. In Study 2, our analyses provided further evidence that students’ grades did not seem to be well aligned. In all qualifications we found a highly significant effect of change over time depending on the achievement group. Based upon these findings, we provide clear recommendations how institutions might use similar insights into big data, and how they may improve the longitudinal alignment of grading trajectories by using consistent grading policies.

This study proposes strategies for effective working in teams where more than one discipline or fields are involved and addresses one of the major challenges in the field, that of the development of interdisciplinary skills and knowledge. Data from ten in-depth interviews provides insights about: (a) how interdisciplinary teams in technology-enhanced learning collaborate, (b) the challenges and obstacles they face, and (c) strategies for effective working. The need for awareness about the challenges of interdisciplinarity work and respective training are emphasized as a means to promote effective working in interdisciplinary teams.

There is a widespread notion that educational systems should empower learners with skills and competences to cope with a constantly changing landscape. Reference is often made to skills such as critical thinking, problem solving, collaborative skills, innovation, digital literacy, and adaptability. What is negotiable is how best to achieve the development of those skills, in particular which teaching and learning approaches are suitable for facilitating or enabling complex skills development. In this paper, we build on our previous work of exploring new forms of pedagogy for an interactive world, as documented in our Innovating Pedagogy report series. We present a set of innovative pedagogical approaches that have the potential to guide teaching and transform learning. An integrated framework has been developed to select pedagogies for inclusion in this paper, consisting of the following five dimensions: (a) relevance to effective educational theories, (b) research evidence about the effectiveness of the proposed pedagogies, (c) relation to the development of twenty-first century skills, (d) innovative aspects of pedagogy, and (e) level of adoption in educational practice. The selected pedagogies, namely formative analytics, teachback, place-based learning, learning with drones, learning with robots, and citizen inquiry are either attached to specific technological developments, or they have emerged due to an advanced understanding of the science of learning. Each one is presented in terms of the five dimensions of the framework.

This series of reports explores new forms of teaching, learning and assessment for an interactive world, to guide teachers and policy makers in productive innovation. This seventh report, produced by The Open University in collaboration with the Centre for the Science of Learning & Technology (SLATE), University of Bergen, Norway, proposes ten innovations that are already in currency but have not yet had a profound influence on education in their current form.

In the movie classic Back to the Future a young Michael J. Fox is able to explore the past by a time machine developed by the slightly bizarre but exquisite Dr Brown. Unexpectedly by some small intervention the course of history was changed a bit along Fox’s adventures. In this fourth Scholarly Insight Report we have explored two innovative approaches to learn from OU data of the past, which hopefully in the future will make a large difference in how we support our students and design and implement our teaching and learning practices. In Chapter 1, we provide an in-depth analysis of 50 thousands comments expressed by students through the Student Experience on a Module (SEAM) questionnaire. By analysing over 2.5 million words using big data approaches, our Scholarly insights indicate that not all student voices are heard. Furthermore, our big data analysis indicate useful potential insights to explore how student voices change over time, and for which particular modules emergent themes might arise. In Chapter 2 we provide our second innovative approach of a proof-of-concept of qualification path way using graph approaches. By exploring existing data of one qualification (i.e., Psychology), we show that students make a range of pathway choices during their qualification, some of which are more successful than others. As highlighted in our previous Scholarly Insight Reports, getting data from a qualification perspective within the OU is a difficult and challenging process, and the proof-of-concept provided in Chapter 2 might provide a way forward to better understand and support the complex choices our students make. In Chapter 3, we provide a slightly more practically-oriented and perhaps down to earth approach focussing on the lessons-learned with Analytics4Action. Over the last four years nearly a hundred modules have worked with more active use of data and insights into module presentation to support their students. In Chapter 3 several good-practices are described by the LTI/TEL learning design team, as well as three innovative case-studies which we hope will inspire you to try something new as well. Working organically in various Faculty sub-group meetings and LTI Units and in a google doc with various key stakeholders in the Faculties, we hope that our Scholarly insights can help to inform our staff, but also spark some ideas how to further improve our module designs and qualification pathways. Of course we are keen to hear what other topics require Scholarly insight. We hope that you see some potential in the two innovative approaches, and perhaps you might want to try some new ideas in your module. While a time machine has not really been invented yet, with the increasing rich and fine-grained data about our students and our learning practices we are getting closer to understand what really drives our students.