Honors programs as forerunner for 21st century skills?

Abstract

Honors programs are frequently regarded as inspiring for redesigning curricula in higher education that incorporate 21st century skills. This explorative study focuses on eliciting students’ perceptions regarding their learning gains related to these skills in honors programs. Results demonstrated high learning gains. Moreover, based on students’ insights, each honors program can be characterized by its own profile regarding the type of 21st century skills. Further, in two honors programs students were asked to compare their learning gains with the perceived learning in their regular program. The majority of students emphasized that their skills were highly promoted in their honors program in comparison with their regular program. Finally, students suggested varying possibilities to incorporate honors activities in their regular program. However, from a curriculum design perspective, adjustments are needed to fit the regular groups of students.

Influências do Programa de Educação Tutorial (PET) sobre a vida profissional: um estudo de caso do PET Administração da UFAM

“…a extensão. (EIJL et al, 2017;OLIVEIRA;SANTOS;DIAS, 2016;CASSUNDÉ et al, 2015; WONFESBERGER; EIJL; PILOT, 2012).…”

“…A relevância deste estudo se apresenta pela necessidade de identificar os impactos que o PET Administração teve na trajetória profissional de seus egressos, visto que, atividades de cunho extracurricular podem trazer uma gama de experiências que não seriam possíveis de se aprender vivenciando apenas a grade curricular comum de um curso de graduação (EIJL et al, 2017;SOARES et al, 2010;BRASIL, 2006;BALBACHEVSKY, 1998). Por sua vez, enquanto há estudos semelhantes acerca do PET nacionalmente, foi observada certa escassez de pesquisas relacionadas aos PETs de Ciências Sociais Aplicadas e de Administração, em especial na UFAM.…”

Highlights of the 2019 honors session at the International Students’ Conference in Siberian Federal University, Russia

“…It is critical for honors education to develop global citizenship values in honors students. International collaboration and teamwork and different kinds of international internship are the key skills of the future (Van Eijl et al, 2017). SibFU honors student Daria Diatlova proposed the idea of the International Honors Internship project designed to meet the needs of the honors students striving to become global citizens and building a career in the international community.…”

The W-shaped model of professional competencies for the Fourth Industrial Revolution and its relevance to honors programs

“…Based on the above analysis, the following four competencies for success in the twenty-first century have been identified: human literacy, digital fluency, hyper-learning, systems and design thinking (Toffler, 1970;De Waal, 2009;Thomas & Brown, 2011;Davidson, 2011Davidson, , 2017Neumeier, 2013;Colvin, 2015;Aoun, 2017;van Eijl et al, 2017;Kosslyn, 2019;Seldon & Abidoye, 2018;Tse et al, 2019;Meister, 2019). These competencies include capabilities or "observable human attributes that are demonstrated independent of context" (Hagel, Brown & Wooll, 2019, "The good news"), such as human literacy, and the remaining metacognitive skills that are transferrable from situation to situation and from domain to domain.…”

“…Researchers still consider communication (Tse et al, 2019) and collaboration skills (Davidson, 2011;van Eijl et al, 2017) as pertinent components of human literacy since most of "the great advances of the future will not come from a single man or woman, but from a concentrated effort of a group" (Neumeier, 2013, 30). One cannot express empathy or collaborate without communication.…”