Wikipedia as an academic service-learning tool in science and technology: higher education case from Siberia.

Wikipedia, the open crowdsourced encyclopedia that anyone can edit, ranks among the top ten most-visited websites globally. Its integration into university curriculum as an innovative educational tool is a slowly growing trend; however, many higher education institutions have yet to fully grasp its potential. In response, a specific optional module for Wikipedia editing, designed for the selected undergraduate science courses at the School of Advanced Studies, Russia, was implemented as an optional extra credit service-learning activity, a teaching methodology combining meaningful service to the community with curriculum-based learning. Students who chose to participate and those who preferred not to participate in the activity were invited to participate in a research project to explore their perspectives and experiences. In total, five sessions of focus group discussions were conducted with participants (12 females and 2 males) in one set and non-participants (5 females and 4 males) in another to identify students' perspectives on themes such as their interest in science, reasons for their choices, and their expectations before the activity while post-experience focus group discussions were used to identify the perspectives of participant students on themes, encompassing contribution of the service-learning activity, acquisition of new skills, and the development of prosocial behaviors. Students' opinions on integrating social responsibility topics into the curriculum were also explored. The results extracted from these focus group discussions, analyzed through consensual coding, revealed factors promoting student participation, like interest in the subject, novelty of the activity, and grade improvement opportunities, as well as factors deterring participation, such as concerns about academic benefits, workload, and time constraints. Furthermore, the results demonstrated that Wikipedia editing serves as a novel teaching methodology, promoting student learning and development in digital literacy and information literacy, which are among the twenty-first-century skills. Interestingly, at the same time, not all students could address the value of contributing to open, crowdsourced knowledge for public service or interpret this activity as an academic service-learning. These suggest that Wikipedia editing is an innovative teaching approach, fostering students' learning and development while also indicating its potential to enhance students' understanding of responsible citizenship and public service in the digital age.

Teaching the Turkish language to foreigners at higher education level in Northern Cyprus: An evaluation based on self-perceived dominant intelligence types, twenty-first-century skills and learning technologies.

Introduction: There are many foreign students in higher education in Northern Cyprus. Both the academic and life skills of these students depend on attaching the necessary importance to their Turkish language teaching. The goal of this study is to examine how university students employ learning technology, twenty-first-century abilities, and perceived categories of intelligence in the process of learning a foreign language. Methods: In line with the quantitative research design, this study utilized a descriptive approach. Purposeful and convenience sampling methods were used to create the study sample. As a result, the institution in Northern Cyprus with the largest international student body was chosen. At this university, one of the authors of this study has been employed, and Turkish is the language of teaching. The study sample consisted of 431 university students who took Turkish as a foreign language in the 2021-2022 academic year at the selected university. Results: The results of the study revealed a weak yet statistically significant correlation between twenty-first-century skills and usage of foreign language-learning technologies. Additionally, students' twenty-first-century skill scores differed significantly, whereas their foreign language-learning technology scale scores did not match their self-perceived intelligence types. Conclusion: The research's findings indicate that students in higher education possess twenty-first-century skills. Based on this finding, it is possible to engage students in the courses and accomplish effective foreign language acquisition if foreign language education is carried out in accordance with modern methodologies and based on twenty-first-century abilities. It has been revealed in this study that it is important to include social learning rather than individual and competitive learning in foreign language education classes.

Teachers' AI digital competencies and twenty-first century skills in the post-pandemic world.

The pandemic has catalyzed a significant shift to online/blended teaching and learning where teachers apply emerging technologies to enhance their students' learning outcomes. Artificial intelligence (AI) technology has gained its popularity in online learning environments during the pandemic to assist students' learning. However, many of these AI tools are new to teachers. They may not have rich technical knowledge to use AI educational applications to facilitate their teaching, not to mention developing students' AI digital capabilities. As such, there is a growing need for teachers to equip themselves with adequate digital competencies so as to use and teach AI in their teaching environments. There are few existing frameworks informing teachers of necessary AI competencies. This study first explores the opportunities and challenges of employing AI systems and how they can enhance teaching, learning and assessment. Then, aligning with generic digital competency frameworks, the DigCompEdu framework and P21's framework for twenty-first century learning were adapted and revised to accommodate AI technologies. Recommendations are proposed to support educators and researchers to promote AI education in their classrooms and academia.

Promoting Secondary Students' Twenty-First Century Skills and STEM Career Interests Through a Crossover Program of STEM and Community Service Education.

STEM education has been regarded as an important educational initiative for cultivating students' twenty-first century skills. The present work aimed to explore ways to promote students' twenty-first century skills through an integrated STEM-based curriculum. Specifically, we designed and implemented an 8-week crossover program of STEM and community service education. In this program, students learned about STEM domain knowledge and community service issues. They then applied the knowledge to solve authentic problems faced by Hong Kong community-housing residents from disadvantaged groups. A mixed-method approach was employed to evaluate the effectiveness of the program in enhancing students' twenty-first century skills and attitudes, including (i) creative thinking, (ii) collaboration, (iii) perseverance, as well as their (iv) STEM career interests. The research participants were 121 secondary students from a government-subsidized school. The quantitative results showed that the participants' creative thinking, collaboration, and perseverance improved alongside their STEM career interests. These findings were further supported by the data gathered through focus-group interviews. This study provides theoretical and practical insights into the integration of STEM education with community service learning.

Development and validation of students' digital competence scale (SDiCoS).

Towards the transition to blended and remote education, evaluating the levels of students' digital competence and designing educational programs to advance them is of paramount importance. Existing validated digital competence scales usually ignore either important digital skills needed or new socio-technological innovations. This study proposes and validates a comprehensive digital competence scale for students in higher education. The suggested instrument includes skills of online learning and collaboration, social media, smart and mobile devices, safety, and data protection. The scale was evaluated on a sample of 156 undergraduate and postgraduate students just before and at the beginning of the COVID-19 crisis. The final scale is composed of 28 items and six digital competence components. The evaluation study revealed valid results in terms of model fit criteria, factor loadings, internal validity, and reliability. Individual factors like the students' field of study, computer experience and age revealed significant associations to the scale components, while gender revealed no significant differences. The suggested scale can be useful to the design of new actions and policies towards remote education and the digital skills' development of adult learners.

A Structured Pathway Toward Disruption: A Novel HealthTec Innovation Design Curriculum With Entrepreneurship in Mind.

The typical curriculum of training and educating future clinicians, biomedical engineers, health IT, and artificial intelligence experts lacks needed twenty first-century skills like problem-solving, stakeholder empathy, curiosity stimulation, entrepreneurship, and health economics, which are essential generators and are pre-requirements for creating intentional disruptive innovations. Moreover, the translation from research to a valuable and affordable product/process innovation is not formalized by the current teachings that focus on short-term rather than long-term developments, leading to inaccurate and incremental forecasting on the future of healthcare and longevity. The Stanford Biodesign approach of unmet clinical need detection would be an excellent starting methodology for health-related innovation work, although unfortunately not widely taught yet. We have developed a novel lecture titled HealthTec Innovation Design (HTID) offered in an interdisciplinary setup to medical students and biomedical engineers. It teaches a future-oriented view and the application and effects of exponential trends. We implemented a novel approach using the Purpose Launchpad meta-methodology combined with other innovation generation tools to define, experiment, and validate existing project ideas. As part of the process of defining the novel curriculum, we used experimentation methods, like a global science fiction event to create a comic book with Future Health stories and an Innovation Think Tank Certification Program of a large medical technology company that is focused on identifying future health opportunities. We conducted before and after surveys and concluded that the proposed initiatives were impactful in developing an innovative design thinking approach. Participants' awareness and enthusiasm were raised, including their willingness to implement taught skills, values, and methods in their working projects. We conclude that a new curriculum based on HTID is essential and needed to move the needle of healthcare activities from treating sickness to maintaining health.

Effects of the blended learning model on preservice teachers' academic achievements and twenty-first century skills.

The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of a blended teaching-learning approach on academic achievement and twenty-first century skills of preservice teachers who took the teaching principles and methods course. The implementation was carried out over a period of ten weeks with preservice teachers who were enrolled in pedagogical training at the Faculty of Education at Karamanoglu Mehmetbey University in the 2019-2020 academic year. In the study, a semi-experimental research design with experimental and control groups was employed. Data collection tools were an academic achievement test and "multidimensional twenty-first century skills scale". Analysis revealed that there was a significant difference across the two groups' academic achievement and twenty-first century skills in favor of the experimental group. In addition, analysis of the retention test administered four weeks later showed a significant difference in favor of the experimental group. In the light of the results, the implications and future directions were discussed.

Public Health Entrepreneurship: A Novel Path for Training Future Public Health Professionals.

Background: As schools of public health adapt to the new Council on Public Health (CEPH) competencies there is increased relevance in training public health professionals in public health entrepreneurship. Public health entrepreneurship provides an alternate process to traditional academic approaches focusing on translating public health knowledge into effective, sustainable, and scalable solutions. Objective: This study reports student perceptions of public health entrepreneurship and training needs for successfully equipping future public health professionals. Methods: Focus groups were conducted in April 2018 with graduate public health students in pilot entrepreneurship courses at two U.S.-based CEPH-accredited schools of public health. Results: Participating students (n = 29) were mainly pursing MPH degrees (62%) within Health Management and Policy (38%) or Health Promotion/Global Health (31%) departments. Most students (52%) were between 21 and 30 years old. For 71% of students this was their first academic course with a focus on entrepreneurial thinking. Four themes emerged regarding public health entrepreneurship and training needs for becoming a successful public health professional of the future. Students confirmed a place for public health entrepreneurship in the emerging educational paradigm because it is action-oriented, skills-driven, and fosters innovation through inter-professional collaboration and cross-pollination of knowledge and skills between professional disciplines. Conclusions: The competencies required for public health entrepreneurship are in alignment with CEPH competencies and are well-received by the next generation of public health professionals as an adjunct but nascent approach to stimulate public health innovation.

18REST: a short RIASEC-interest measure for large-scale educational and vocational assessment.

The construction of the 18REST, a short 18-item inventory to describe students' position on John Holland's RIASEC interest types, is documented. The instrument is meant to be used in large-scale assessment in education and on the labor market, supplementing information on school achievement and social-emotional skills. This research was carried out in Brazil, initially with two independent samples composed by adolescents and adults. The 18REST's psychometric properties are compared to those of the more extended RIASEC item pool and confirmed in a new independent undergraduate sample. Despite differences between genders were found as expected, invariance measurement across gender was indicated. Different ways to use the 18REST in large-scale assessment are discussed.

18REST: a short RIASEC-interest measure for large-scale educational and vocational assessment

Abstract The construction of the 18REST, a short 18-item inventory to describe students' position on John Holland's RIASEC interest types, is documented. The instrument is meant to be used in large-scale assessment in education and on the labor market, supplementing information on school achievement and social-emotional skills. This research was carried out in Brazil, initially with two independent samples composed by adolescents and adults. The 18REST's psychometric properties are compared to those of the more extended RIASEC item pool and confirmed in a new independent undergraduate sample. Despite differences between genders were found as expected, invariance measurement across gender was indicated. Different ways to use the 18REST in large-scale assessment are discussed.