A chasm exists between science curriculum offered within K-12 and post-secondary education systems, and the needs of national and international decision-makers with respect to the inclusion of Indigenous knowledges within processes aimed at protecting global biological diversity. World governments seek to protect biodiversity through the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity and consideration of Indigenous knowledges has emerged in governing texts. Yet, sustaining Indigenous knowledges as global wisdom will not be possible if young people lack opportunities to learn Indigenous traditional environmental knowledge as an integral part of their education experience. Métis traditional environmental knowledge can be a modality of science education that will engage learners in understanding relationships with the natural world and the importance of developing sustainable lifestyles within holistic lifelong learning.<p> In advancing this contention, a series of interviews were conducted with Métis traditional land users from North West Saskatchewan. The interviews provided data in 17 thematic areas including: balance, economic, environment, harmony, health, Indigenous knowledge, political, social, spirituality, values, land, language, people, self, imagination, tradition, and learning. Results were used to respond to the four primary research questions: According to traditional land users in North West Saskatchewan, what is Métis traditional environmental knowledge? How does Métis traditional environmental knowledge in North West Saskatchewan align with established theories of Aboriginal epistemology and supporting principles? What evidence and arguments exist that support the development of Métis traditional environmental knowledge as a modality of science education? How can Métis traditional environmental knowledge be developed as a modality of science education?<p> Findings support development of holistic education processes that comprise a broad scope of knowledge integral to understanding our environment. Métis traditional environmental knowledge requires learners engage in activities outside the classroom, participating in experiences that facilitate an understanding of holistic thinking in intellectual, physical, affective and spiritual domains. Traditional environmental knowledge and practices of Métis People can inspire learners in science education, improving their engagement, understanding and decision-making abilities concerning the natural environment.

The government has pooled its resources to promote lifelong learning, considering the fact that lifelong learning is not only a deciding factor in the era of knowledge economy but also the most efficient way in its cultivation of democracy among the general public. In the study, I defined the scope of lifelong learning as three categories: Master, Master-work-experience, and other correspondence courses like those offered by National Open University. The population of this study is all the official in Penghu County. 347 subjects were surveyed and analyzed using the software SPSS 10.0. The purpose of this study, besides exploring the motivation and various barriers for the official in Penghu under the current government lifelong learning policy, is to understand whether the existing learning channels meet the needs and live up to the expectations of official in their pursuit of lifelong learning. The results of the study are for the reference of our government in its making of lifelong learning policy and the creation of a better learning environment. The findings are as follows: 1.The learning motivations of official for in-service training, broadly speaking, are (in descending order): further pursuit of education or personal interest, advancement in the career, participation in social service, and development of interpersonal relationship. 2.As a whole, the barriers facing official in their pursuit of further study are classified, in descending order, into institutional factors, circumstantial factors, intentional factors, and informative factors. 3.The official who fail to complete their study are due to (in descending order) circumstantial factors, institutional factors, personal concerns, and teaching factors. 4.Basically, official from different backgrounds show significant differences in terms of their respective motivations, barriers they encounter, and reasons for the termination of study. And among the many factors affecting the willingness to study, the education level seems not to be significantly correlated. As for the termination of study, the three factors¢w¢wage, marital status, and family monthly income are not significantly correlated. Suggestions are provided for in-service official, government policymaking mechanism, extension education environment and resources providers, and further studies based the findings of the study.

Abstract Facing to the upcoming of knowledge and economic age, the intellectual property of manpower resource is the key factor for government to upgrade the competitive capability. If the governmental employees desired to be a worker of knowledge, the department in government must provide the opportunity to let governmental employees learn. And they must have equipped themselves with ability and intention for learning the new knowledge so as to expand their intellectual property and to be an authentic worker for knowledge. Starting from July 1, 2001, the lifelong learning passport of governmental employees was officially implemented. This is the first time to promote this activity for governmental employees for lifelong learning. In addition to investigate the satisfaction of governmental employees on lifelong learning, this study also researches on personal statistical variance, individual attitude, organization factor, individual behavior and intention, and influence on satisfaction with lifelong learning passport for the governmental employees. This study adopts questionnaire method, and because it is limited by time and labor, only governmental employees served in Taichung City Government are interviewed. There are total 1173 copies of questionnaire issued, and 966 copies are collected. Among them, 916 copies are effective, and 51 copies are ineffective. The recovery rate is 82.35%, and effective recovery is 78.09%. Through SPSS software and statistical analysis with LISREL, the results of this study are concluded as follows: 1. Variance of statistical for individual attitude under analysis, there is a significant difference on lifelong learning passport for governmental employees at different ages. And the rest assumptions are unacceptable. 2. In the structure of behavior intention affected to lifelong learning passport of governmental employees, ¡§Recognition¡¨, ¡§Preference¡¨, ¡§Colleague Relationship¡¨ have reached a significant standard for behavior and have a positive relation. Moreover, ¡§Organization Supporting¡¨ and ¡§Senior Officer¡¦s Attitude¡¨ have no significant relation with behavior intention. 3. In the structure of satisfaction on lifelong learning for governmental employees, ¡§Behavior Intention¡¨ ¡§Organization Supporting¡¨ ¡§Senior Officer¡¦s Attitude¡¨ and ¡§Colleague Relationship¡¨ have a significant standard for satisfaction and have a positive relation.

After recreation of independence Lithuania happened to suffer the new quality of inner and outer economical, political and cultural relationships. The post-communist society has splintered into society of well-off and poor. The problem of certain groups of people who feel inferior members of society or separated, arises. Putting into life the concept of life-long learning encourages to search for the way how to integrate socially separated people into society so they could take an active position there. Today we live in the society of knowledge which becomes also the society of learning. It means that such a society has its members learning all through the life. The knowledge society requires much more not only from the policy of education but also from each of us. Today it is not enough for a person to enquire his or her qualification once. Today’s person has to have an ability to adapt to the changing world. Consequently, the essence of the changing society is constant changing and learning of its members. The first task on the way to this purpose is to make a research of society’s educational needs. The society’s educational needs (necessity for changing)are: to educate themselves, widen their intellectual potential and abilities adapting themselves to challenges of today’s life. When this is obvious and the present situation is assessed the measures for further activities can be noted. Problem of the research. The scientific problem of the present research is... [to full text]

Despite the steady growth of coaching science over the last two decades, research on coaches of persons with disabilities is scarce. This study examined how an adaptive sailing coach learned through and from experience using a single case study methodology. Jarvis’s (2009) lifelong learning approach and Gilbert and Trudel’s (2001) reflective conversation model framed the thematic analysis. The findings revealed that the coach, Jenny, was exposed to collaborative environments that optimized her learning process. Social interactions with a number of people (e.g., mentors, colleagues, and athletes) possessing different types of expertise made major contributions to Jenny becoming a coach. As time progressed and Jenny was exposed to a mixture of challenges and learning situations, she advanced from recreational Para-swimming instructor to developmental adaptive sailing coach. This study informs future research in disability sport coaching.

Policy goals for lifelong learning prioritise a need to motivate people to participate in purposeful learning and to become autonomous lifelong learners. As the latest of a series of initiatives in the vocational curriculum, Advanced GNVQs adopted a controversial assessment model to achieve these aims. The implementation of the model in the further education (FE) sector has taken place at a time of protracted restructuring in colleges. This study evaluates the effects of Advanced level GNVQ policy on students' autonomy and motivation. It focuses on the 'policy trajectory' created by the interplay between macro, meso and micro-level factors. The research developed and tested a theoretical typology to connect types of motivation and autonomy to formative assessment practices through three layers of analysis: (a) the structural and ideological context of policy for lifelong learning; (b) the particular policy debates and processes that surrounded the GNVQ assessment model and (c) the social processes of assessment within two GNVQ courses in two FE colleges. By combining these three layers, the thesis set out to relate to a tradition of policy scholarship and to contribute to the sociological study of the political, cultural, social and pedagogic roles that assessment systems play in the UK. The study draws upon a wide range of data collection techniques, including interviews with policy-makers, teachers and students, participant observation in colleges, documentary analysis and questionnaires. It adopts multiple perspectives for analysing data to raise issuesa bout assessmenpt olicy and practice in four broad areas.F irst, policy development for GNVQs shows that extreme ad hocery, chaos and controversy continue to beset assessment policy in the UK, particularly over what 'standards' of assessment mean. This, together with the speed of development, lack of funding and turf wars between different constituencies has created an 'assessment regime' where new forms of regulation, pedagogy and organisational practices shape meanings associated with 'autonomy' and 'motivation'. Second, this regime affects teachers' and students' values and beliefs about vocational education and their formative assessmenpt ractices. The study argues that a combination of mechanisms for regulating teachers' assessmenpt ractices, resource pressuresa nd student expectations about acceptable engagement with learning create and shape students' 'assessment careers'. In this respect, the study contributes evidence to a growing body of work on the social and cultural processes and effects of assessment and to research which explores learners' identities and 'learning careers'. Third, the study highlights barriers to improving formative assessmentin postcompulsory education but offers recommendations to various interested constituencies that might contribute to this goal. Last, the study offers tentative suggestionsa bout how current assessmenpt olicy and pedagogy' might relate to specific ideological trends associated with 'risk consciousness'.

Abstract: My inquiry, involving participant-observation and self-study, explores the stories of four older women through verbal and visual narratives. Showing how two specific types of visual narratives—sandpictures and collages—stimulate experiential story-telling and promote understanding about life experiences, I also illustrate how engagement with images extends learning and meaning-making. Effective in carrying life stories and integrating experience, the visual narratives also reveal archetypal imagery that is sustained and sustaining. Considering how visual narratives may be understood independently, I describe multiple strategies that worked for me for entering deeply into the images. I also elaborate on the relationship of visual narratives to accompanying verbal narratives, describing how tacit knowing may evolve. Through this process, I offer a framework for a curricular approach to visual narratives that involves feeling and seeing aesthetically and associatively and that provides a space for learners to express their individual stories and make meaning of significant life events. Salient narrative themes include confrontation with life-death issues, the experience of “creating a new life,” an avid early interest in books and learning, and a vital connection to the natural world. New professions after mid-life, creative expression, and volunteerism provide fulfillment and challenge as life changes promote attempts to marry relationships with self and others to work and service. My therapy practice room was the setting for five sessions, including an introduction, three experiential sandplay sessions, and a conclusion. Data derive from transcripts from free-flowing conversations, written narratives, photographs of sandpictures, and field notes written throughout the various phases of my doctoral process. This study of older women, with its emphasis on lifelong learning, visual narratives, and development of tacit knowing, will contribute to the field of narrative inquiry already strongly grounded in verbal narrative and teacher education/development. It may also promote in-depth investigations of male learners at a life stage of making meaning of, and integrating, their life experiences. New inquirers may note what I did and how it worked for me, and find their unique ways of extending the study of visual narratives while venturing into the broad field of diverse narrative forms.

This project aimed to demonstrate that a commitment by a community to improve access to lifelong learning opportunities as a Learning City enhances the quality of life of its citizens and improves its economic conditions through a more creative, stable and adaptable community. In May 2000, the newly elected Labor Government in Victoria launched the Victorian 'Learning Towns' Program. Based on a United Kingdom (UK) model that had been developing since 1995 with demonstrable success, the nine (and later, ten) rural and regional cities and towns in the Victorian pilot program were the first in Australia to receive funding to support lifelong learning as an approach towards achieving sustainable economic development and social inclusiveness. This research focused on the practice and progress of SmartGeelong - The Leaming City, one of the pilot programs. It presented an opportunity to evaluate the economic and social development of a community that has declared itself a Learning City by posing the following research questions: 1. What are the key characteristics of a Leaming City and what determines these? 2. What are the value added outcomes? How can the depth and breadth of participation be entrenched? 3. What are the indicators of success and effectiveness in a Leaming City? Having made this observation however, the capacity for the cultural change in an ACE driven learning community to be sustainable is likely to be limited unless it engages local government in meaningful ways to ensure that those changes are long term. Currently, the contribution by local government to learning communities in Australia is varied and can be erratic. The experience in the UK supports the observation in Australian learning communities that where there is a commitment that is understood by local government, it is possible to improve social inclusion and local economic performance. This research has concluded that its most significant finding is the effectiveness of the neutral space that a concept such as the Leaming City provides. By providing a conceptual space that is non threatening, non competitive and belongs to the whole community rather than any one organisation, it is possible to develop cross sectoral partnerships among organisations that may be competitors in other environments, that add value to communities, overcome barriers and develop creative responses that address local issues and build community capacity. The research describes the experience of building a learning community, of lessons learned and insights gained. Through example, it provides a foundation for other communities that may be interested in pursuing this concept. However, while it is possible to develop a learning community through the commitment and initiative of local leaders, it is made more difficult in the absence of a national policy commitment to lifelong learning. Despite this, the research concludes that through the careful development and nurturing of all partners, the process of developing a learning community is effective, sustainable and makes a positive impact.

This study is situated within the everyday practice of nurses around the world, engaged in discourse with colleagues through listserv discussion forums, and immersed in Schon's swampy lowlands of important problems. Taking computer-mediated communications (CMC) to be an integral part of nursing informatics, the study begins by examining the literatures on CMC and nurses' reflection on and in practice. The study is congruent with emerging mixed method research approaches within both nursing and the study of CMC, and comprises an electronic ethnography, coupled with the development of a model of reflection within nursing listerv discussions. Using a corpus of discussion threads from the NURSENET list, together with questionnaires,interviews and Virtual Focus Group discussions, all conducted by CMC over a six-year period, a tapestry ofa virtual community, united through discussion of shared practice issues, emerges. The narratives of everyday discussions dispel some of the urban myths of CMC and show the possibility of real social engagement. A model of reflection derived from Kim's phases of critical reflective inquiry and Johns'framework for reflection on action is used to examine a pilot sample of NURSE NET discussion threads. This pilot version of the model is shown to be insufficient to describe the reality of reflective discussion in this forum, and a revised model is developed, essentially inductively, from the data. This new model, tested against a larger sample of discussion threads, demonstrates a qualitatively different form of reflection from that encountered offline. The online reflection is a group, as opposed to an individual, process, is action-oriented, and shows a form of 'online reflection around action' as nurses engage in ongoing practice situations, as well as post hoc reflection on-action. It also provides evidence of nurses using the reflective discussions to change practice, and so illustrates reflection akin to that envisaged by Kemmis.

Despite the steady growth of coaching science over the last two decades, research on coaches of persons with disabilities is scarce. This study examined how an adaptive sailing coach learned through and from experience using a single case study methodology. Jarvis’s (2009) lifelong learning approach and Gilbert and Trudel’s (2001) reflective conversation model framed the thematic analysis. The findings revealed that the coach, Jenny, was exposed to collaborative environments that optimized her learning process. Social interactions with a number of people (e.g., mentors, colleagues, and athletes) possessing different types of expertise made major contributions to Jenny becoming a coach. As time progressed and Jenny was exposed to a mixture of challenges and learning situations, she advanced from recreational Para-swimming instructor to developmental adaptive sailing coach. This study informs future research in disability sport coaching.