Best Practices in Continuing, Professional, and Higher Education

Abstract

This issue of the journal contains four papers, including three articles and one report of practice paper, as well as five book reviews. The theme permeating the papers is the exploration of best practices in organizational processes, as well as in teaching and learning in courses and programs related to face-to-face, blended, and online environ-ments for continuing, professional, and higher education. Coming from a slightly different perspective, “Learning is Change: Creating an Environment for Sustainable Organizational Change in Continuing and Higher Education,” by Christie Schultz, examines best practices in organizational change processes that facilitate outstanding learner experiences in continuing education units. The author explores the ways in which learning in and of itself is a form of organizational change that supports organizational readiness for change, through an examina-tion of the challenges and benefits of moving from a decentralized and independent student records and administration system (student registration, student financials, student academic records) to the university’s central student management system. The article demonstrates that creating an environment for sustainable organizational change is supported by recognizing that learning itself is change, and that workplace learning may therefore help to create organizational readiness for change. The four key emerging linked elements of People, Previous Experience, Preparation, and Perspective (the 4Ps) contribute to the success of the change initiative, along with the underlying unifying concept of learning being change—both the “act of learning” and “learners who act.” Through this framework, the author offers practical best-practice observations for sustainable, technology-based organizational change initiatives in continuing and higher education. “The Use of Scaffolding and Interactive Learning Strategies in Online Courses for Working Nurses: Implications for Adult and Online Education” explores best practices Caswell, describes a blended-learning, best-practice model used to offer a part-time Baccalaureate of Science in Nursing (BScN) program for Registered Practical Nurses (RPNs) in North Bay, Ontario. The program bridges the nurses’ college diploma and a curriculum that enables them to continue to practice nursing as they study. Flexibility, accessibility, partnership, innovation, and excellence in teaching and learning are the hallmarks of this learner-centred, best-practice program model. Through synchronous and asynchronous online technologies, theoretical content is delivered along with face-to-face learning in the clinical settings, facilitated through partnership agreements with learners’ employers. The authors contend that the RPN to BScN blended-learning, best-practice program model demonstrates Nipissing University as a leader in continuing education for RPNs and its commitment to driving change in the field of professional and adult education. All readers, including those on a hunt for best practices in continuing, professional, and higher education, to improve teaching, learning, students’ learning experiences in face-to-face, blended, and online learning in a variety of formats, and their organizational practices for outstanding learner experiences, will find these documents well worth the read.