Regenerative forms of higher education are emerging, and required, to connect with some of the grand transition challenges of our times. This paper explores the lived experience of 21 students learning to navigate a regenerative form of higher education in the Mission Impact course at The Hague University of Applied Sciences. This semester-length course ran for two iterations with the intention of connecting the students with local transitions towards a more circular society, one where products are lasting and have multiple lives when they are shared, refurbished, or become a source for a new product. At the end of each iteration, the students reflected on their experience using the Living Spiral Framework, which served as basis for an interpretative phenomenological analysis of their journey navigating this transformative course. The results of this study include four themes; (1) Opting in—Choosing RHE, (2) Learning in Regenerative Ways, (3) Navigating Resistance(s), and (4) Transformative Impacts of RHE. These themes can be used by practitioners to design and engage with regenerative forms of higher education, and by scholars to guide further inquiry. van den Berg B, Poldner KA, Sjoer E, Wals AEJ. ‘Sweet Acid’ An Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis of Students’ Navigating Regenerative Higher Education. Education Sciences. 2022; 12(8):533. https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci12080533
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Transitions can be facilitated through collective networked action, moving from coordinated learning towards more forceful interventions. This coordinated effort is challenging in more extended learning and innovation networks. Creating and maintaining an overview of activities within such a network and connecting them to a common cause can be a powerful approach. A tool named MissionMapping was developed in an iterative process in applied co-design research. With the tool, we intend to allow for a more holistic perspective when navigating the activities of the network related to the transition by working towards more of an overview of the questions and activities within the network. This article describes three cases in which MissionMapping was applied to facilitate synergy in networks of people collaborating on societal challenges. A cross-case analysis was done to develop insights on how MissionMapping supports the synergy of goals and projects within societal challenges. MissionMapping allows participants to build their mission landscape. They combine individual activities to create shared territories. The tool was developed in an iterative process. In the three cases, different versions of the tool were used during live workshops. After the cases and applying MissionMapping in other cases, the tool results in a flexible set that can be adapted to different purposes for a workshop and adopted by others who like to apply the tool. The article presents insights resulting from a cross-case analysis of applying the MissionMapping tool. One insight was that it is difficult to keep track of adjustments over time when the network dynamics change. Additionally, we found that while preparing the workshop, adjusting and printing the tiles cost time and are not easily transferable to others who might be interested in applying the tool. Navigating the mission resulted in increased enthusiasm for the topic at hand. The form factor also seems to contribute to a sense of agency. However, the increased agency does not automatically transfer to actions, as organisations are often inflexible. MissionMapping stimulates the development of a shared language through the landscape metaphor. This helps to cross boundaries in multidisciplinary networks. Capturing and transferring insights visually and digitally was quite challenging. Further exploration is needed to find an effective method. It is difficult to capture the impact of the MissionMaps and requires monitoring over time. For now, we conclude that it benefits collaboration, creates overviews in complex networks, and may fuel idea generation.
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The user experience of our daily interactions is increasingly shaped with the aid of AI, mostly as the output of recommendation engines. However, it is less common to present users with possibilities to navigate or adapt such output. In this paper we argue that adding such algorithmic controls can be a potent strategy to create explainable AI and to aid users in building adequate mental models of the system. We describe our efforts to create a pattern library for algorithmic controls: the algorithmic affordances pattern library. The library can aid in bridging research efforts to explore and evaluate algorithmic controls and emerging practices in commercial applications, therewith scaffolding a more evidence-based adoption of algorithmic controls in industry. A first version of the library suggested four distinct categories of algorithmic controls: feeding the algorithm, tuning algorithmic parameters, activating recommendation contexts, and navigating the recommendation space. In this paper we discuss these and reflect on how each of them could aid explainability. Based on this reflection, we unfold a sketch for a future research agenda. The paper also serves as an open invitation to the XAI community to strengthen our approach with things we missed so far.
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BACKGROUND: In geriatric oncology, family members frequently accompany patients during medical consultations, providing emotional and practical support while participating in shared decision-making (SDM). Family involvement in SDM can facilitate the decision-making process but also pose challenges for healthcare professionals. Additionally, much of the SDM deliberation occurs outside the clinical setting, making it important to understand family dynamics to ensure treatment decisions align with the patient's values and preferences. Therefore this study aims to explore the experiences and perspectives of family members regarding their involvement in decision-making processes for older patients with cancer, and the subsequent impact on roles and family dynamics.METHODS: Qualitative open in-depth interviews were conducted with 16 family members of 11 patients with cancer of 70 years and older in the Netherlands. Qualitative data analysis was conducted using a thematic analysis approach.RESULTS: Four interconnected themes emerged. The first theme, "Roles" revealed that family members often provide both practical and informational support, and sometimes act as advocates for the patient. The second theme, "Family Values and Beliefs," highlighted a strong sense of unconditional and reciprocal support within families, emphasizing the core value of caring for one another. Third, "Family Dynamics," encompasses: keeping everyone informed, dividing caregiver tasks, dealing with disappointment and sadness, managing different opinions, and coping with uncertainty. Finally, "Dilemma's" describes: family members balancing their own opinions with the patient's preferences, reconciling hope and fear, weighing trust in medical professionals against their own judgment, and balancing caregiving responsibilities with their personal lives. These dilemmas were shaped by roles the family members assumed, the underlying values and beliefs, and family dynamics.CONCLUSION: The findings of this interview study provide valuable insights into the complex roles that family members of older patients with cancer play in medical consultations and treatment decision-making and their dilemma's. These roles are deeply influenced by family values and dynamics, which can significantly shape decision-making processes and outcomes. Understanding these factors can help healthcare professionals as it highlights the evolving responsibilities of family caregivers and the importance of supporting them in navigating the intricacies of treatment decisions while maintaining respect for patient autonomy.
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Universities have the potential, and the responsibility, to take on more ecological and relational approaches to facilitating learning-based change in times of interconnected socioecological crises. Signs for a transition towards these more regenerative approaches of higher education (RHE) that include more place-based, ecological, and relational, ways of educating can already be found in niches across Europe (see for example the proliferation of education-based living labs, field labs, challenge labs). In this paper, the results of a podcast-based inquiry into the design practises and barriers to enacting such forms of RHE are shown. This study revealed seven educational practises that occurred across the innovation niches. It is important to note that these practises are enacted in different ways, or are locally nested in unique expressions; for example, while the ‘practise’ of cultivating personal transformations was represented across the included cases, the way these transformations were cultivated were unique expressions of each context. These RHE-design practises are derived from twenty-seven narrative-based podcasts as interviews recorded in the April through June 2021 period. The resulting podcast (The Regenerative Education Podcast) was published on all major streaming platforms in October 2021 and included 21 participants active in Dutch universities, 1 in Sweden, 1 in Germany, 1 in France, and 3 primarily online. Each episode engages with a leading practitioner, professor, teacher, and/or activist that is trying to connect their educational practice to making the world a more equitable, sustainable, and regenerative place. The episodes ranged from 30 to 70 min in total length and included both English (14) and Dutch (12) interviews. These episodes were analysed through transition mapping a method based on story analysis and transition design. The results include seven design practises such as cultivating personal transformations, nurturing ecosystems of support, and tackling relevant and urgent transition challenges, as well as a preliminary design tool that educational teams can use together with students and local agents in (re)designing their own RHE to connect their educational praxis with transition challenges. van den Berg B, Poldner K, Sjoer E, Wals A. Practises, Drivers and Barriers of an Emerging Regenerative Higher Education in The Netherlands—A Podcast-Based Inquiry. Sustainability. 2022; 14(15):9138. https://doi.org/10.3390/su14159138
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Research into the relationship between innovative physical learning environments (PLEs) and innovative psychosocial learning environments (PSLEs) indicates that it must be understood as a network of relationships between multiple psychosocial and physical aspects. Actors shape this network by attaching meanings to these aspects and their relationships in a continuous process of gaining and exchanging experiences. This study used a psychosocial-physical, relational approach for exploring teachers’ and students’ experiences with six innovative PLEs in a higher educational institute, with the application of a psychosocial-physical relationship (PPR) framework. This framework, which brings together the multitude of PLE and PSLE aspects, was used to map and analyse teachers’ and students’ experiences that were gathered in focus group interviews. The PPR framework proved useful in analysing the results and comparing them with previous research. Previously-identified relationships were confirmed, clarified, and nuanced. The results underline the importance of the attunement of system aspects to pedagogical and spatial changes, and of a psychosocial-physical relational approach in designing and implementing new learning environments, including the involvement of actors in the discourse within and between the different system levels. Interventions can be less invasive, resistance to processes could be reduced, and innovative PLEs could be used more effectively.
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The transition to an inclusive society through design Inclusive design can play a critical role in shaping a more equitable society. When products and services are intentionally created to be inclusive, they become more accessible to a wide audience, including people who might otherwise struggle to engage with them. In this way, designers become agents of social transformation. The project Active Inclusive Design (AID) addresses this challenge directly. It aims to enhance the capabilities of professional and future designers to create inclusive products and services, both digital and non-digital. In doing so, it supports a responsible and digital society central to the Expertise network Systemic Co-design (ESC) agenda, and is closely connected to all ESC Dynamic Learning Agenda (DLA) themes: Systemic Co-Design (SCD) in me, SCD with others, SCD in reality and SCD in time.
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This book offers a comprehensive, practice-based exploration of Systemic Co-Design (SCD) as it is applied to society’s most complex and urgent transitions. Drawing on collaborative projects from the Expertisenetwork Systemic Co-Design (ESC), it portrays Systemic Co-Design not as a fixed framework but as a reflexive, evolving practice. The chapters present diverse collaborations and inquiries, ranging from inclusive design and digital accessibility to fostering safety cultures and urban co-creation, that illustrate Systemic Co-Design’s capacity to build awareness, trust, and communities, as well as systemic capabilities. The book promotes mutual learning and generates knowledge products such as maps, canvases, cards, games, and embodied interactions that enable meaningful engagement. Key themes that run throughout include continuous reflection, the blending of action research and design experimentation, and collective sense-making across disciplines. The contributions demonstrate how new values, methods, and communities are co-developed with design practitioners, policymakers, educators, and citizens. Together, they demonstrate how Systemic Co-Design achieves practical outcomes while fostering the longterm capacities and cultural shifts necessary for systemic change.
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Agency in education: The capacity to intentionally and reflectively construct one’s learning path and influence one’s functioning and circumstances. We focus on social-cognitive perspective.
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