Hoofdstuk 2 uit Position paper Learning Communities van Netwerk learning Communities Grote maatschappelijke uitdagingen op het gebied van vergrijzing, duurzaamheid, digitalisering, segregatie en onderwijskwaliteit vragen om nieuwe manieren van werken, leren en innoveren. In toenemende mate wordt daarom ingezet op het bundelen van kennis en expertise van zowel publieke als private organisaties, die elkaar nodig hebben om te innoveren en complexe vraagstukken aan te pakken. Het concept ‘learning communities’ wordt gezien als dé oplossing om leren, werken en innoveren anders met elkaar te verbinden: collaboratief, co-creërend en contextrijk. Vanuit het Netwerk Learning Communities is een groep onafhankelijk onderzoekers van een groot aantal Nederlandse kennisinstellingen aan de slag gegaan met een kennissynthese rondom het concept ‘Learning Community’. Het Position paper is een eerste aanzet tot kennisbundeling. Een ‘levend document’ dat in de komende tijd verder aangevuld en verrijkt kan worden door onderzoekers, praktijkprofessionals en beleidsmakers.
Learning environment designs at the boundary of school and work can be characterised as integrative because they integrate features from the contexts of school and work. Many different manifestations of such integrative learning environments are found in current vocational education, both in senior secondary education and higher professional education. However, limited research has focused on how to design these learning environments and not much is known about their designable elements (i.e. the epistemic, spatial, instrumental, temporal and social elements that constitute the learning environments). The purpose of this study was to examine manifestations of two categories of integrative learning environment designs: designs based on incorporation; and designs based on hybridisation. Cross-case analysis of six cases in senior secondary vocational education and higher professional education in the Netherlands led to insights into the designable elements of both categories of designs. We report findings about the epistemic, spatial, instrumental, temporal and social elements of the studied cases. Specific characteristics of designs based on incorporation and designs based on hybridisation were identified and links between the designable elements became apparent, thus contributing to a deeper understanding of the design of learning environments that aim to connect the contexts of school and work.
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The HRM study program of The Hague University of Applied Sciences (THUAS) recently replaced classical, module-based education by so-called learning landscapes in which students approach complex problems by interdisciplinary learning activities. Teachers collaborate in multi-disciplinary teams that have a shared responsibility to support students as well as to innovate their education. This new way of organizing educational processes not only need to strengthen the learning ability and flexibility of students, but also the learning and innovation ability of teachers. Our exploratory research among teachers showed that this new way of working increased their job satisfaction. However, teachers experience difficulties in implementing their ideas, which is an important precondition for sustainable educational innovation. In our research we addressed the question whether the new working context of teachers supported innovation. The organizational structure as described in this case study is characterized by a high degree of autonomy for the teachers who collaborate in multidisciplinary teams, in which the management rewards innovative behaviour and facilitates where possible. Given the fact that this context incorporates a high number of elements that are known to facilitate innovation, the assumption was that teachers would experience that this context was supporting them to innovate. We evaluated whether this was indeed the case in their educational innovation. Our research shows that in general teachers positively evaluate the new working context. They experience the renewal process to contribute to their job satisfaction and feel supported by the management. A large majority of the teachers, partly as a result of this new working context, do have many ideas to renew the education. Even though they use multiple sources to generate ideas, they are mainly inspired by the needs of students and the occupational practice. Especially by sharing their ideas with others, they enrich their ideas. For the implementation of their ideas they specifically focus on creating buy-in, mentioned in two-thirds of the storyboards, with activities such as seeking allies, communicating the idea to others and ‘drinking lots of coffee’. In addition, experiments help to make their ideas more visible.
A fast growing percentage (currently 75% ) of the EU population lives in urban areas, using 70% of available energy resources. In the global competition for talent, growth and investments, quality of city life and the attractiveness of cities as environments for learning, innovation, doing business and job creation, are now the key parameters for success. Therefore cities need to provide solutions to significantly increase their overall energy and resource efficiency through actions addressing the building stock, energy systems, mobility, and air quality.The European Energy Union of 2015 aims to ensure secure, affordable and climate-friendly energy for EU citizens and businesses among others, by bringing new technologies and renewed infrastructure to cut household bills, create jobs and boost growth, for achieving a sustainable, low carbon and environmentally friendly economy, putting Europe at the forefront of renewable energy production and winning the fight against global warming.However, the retail market is not functioning properly. Many household consumers have too little choices of energy suppliers and too little control over their energy costs. An unacceptably high percentage of European households cannot afford to pay their energy bills. Energy infrastructure is ageing and is not adjusted to the increased production from renewables. As a consequence there is still a need to attract investments, with the current market design and national policies not setting the right incentives and providing insufficient predictability for potential investors. With an increasing share of renewable energy sources in the coming decades, the generation of electricity/energy will change drastically from present-day centralized production by gigawatt fossil-fueled plants towards decentralized generation, in cities mostly by local household and district level RES (e.g PV, wind turbines) systems operating in the level of micro-grids. With the intermittent nature of renewable energy, grid stress is a challenge. Therefore there is a need for more flexibility in the energy system. Technology can be of great help in linking resource efficiency and flexibility in energy supply and demand with innovative, inclusive and more efficient services for citizens and businesses. To realize the European targets for further growth of renewable energy in the energy market, and to exploit both on a European and global level the expected technological opportunities in a sustainable manner, city planners, administrators, universities, entrepreneurs, citizens, and all other relevant stakeholders, need to work together and be the key moving wheel of future EU cities development.Our SolutionIn the light of such a transiting environment, the need for strategies that help cities to smartly integrate technological solutions becomes more and more apparent. Given this condition and the fact that cities can act as large-scale demonstrators of integrated solutions, and want to contribute to the socially inclusive energy and mobility transition, IRIS offers an excellent opportunity to demonstrate and replicate the cities’ great potential. For more information see the HKU Smart Citieswebsite or check out the EU-website.
It is VHL’s mission to train high-quality, committed and innovative professionals who con-tribute to a more sustainable world , and who are able to organize and manage multi-stakeholder processes for sustainable change: graduates with transdisciplinary competences. Secondly, VHL aims to contribute to the SDG-agenda by linking its education and applied research to eight particular SDGs of which Resilient Communities is one. However, to operationalize SDGs in practice, and aligning targets and strategies of different stakeholders is difficult: ‘resilience’ and ‘sustainability’ refer to ‘wicked problems’ for which no definitive problem formulation, nor clear-cut solutions exist. Addressing wicked problems like ‘resilience’ and ‘sustainability’ requires transdisciplinary collaboration to manage and transform divergent values and conflicting interests, and to co-create sustainable innovations. This HBO postdoc views the 17 SDGs as a compass to align targets and strategies of citizens, government, civil society organizations, private sector and knowledge institutes who collaborate in Living Labs of VHL focusing on resilient communities/regions. Through spiraling action-reflection cycles, stakeholders will use the SDG compass to make success mechanisms, obstacles and trade-offs visible, assuming they stay engaged to overcome difficulties to improve interventions and innovations; this is expected to result in adapted sustainability practices and lessons learned on reaching community resilience. The postdoc’s aim is two-fold highlighting the link between research and education: (1) Design a methodology to integrate SDGs effectively in VHL’s applied research: using the SDGs as compass to improve performance and outcomes of transdisciplinary collaborations. (2) Develop a Roadmap for transdisciplinary education at course, curriculum, and institutional level with SDGs as compass. Future graduates require the competence to work together with others outside one own’s discipline, institute, culture or context. Living Labs offer a suitable learning environment to develop this competence
