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Recent articles have introduced ideas from Physics, specifically, negentropy, to the social sciences. Applications have been primarily in higher education, online learning, and organizations. This article applies negentropy to PK-12 school contexts, discussing the principles for application of systemic school reform and improvement. Negentropy is the reversal of common disintegration and degradation of systems through explicit attention to the reversal of energy losses. Negentropic actions can be taken by school stakeholders to release new energy and recapture energy that is leaving the organization. This paper describes the principles of negentropy in schools, distinguishes it from other common school change theories (systemic school change, entrepreneurial, innovation) and offers implementation advice.

The first year of faculty members' time at an institution of higher education is spent learning their role and institutional culture. Quite often new faculty members need more support, guidance, and mentoring than they receive. But how can we help new faculty to create new energy (act negentropically) toward the institutional advancement? This qualitative phenomenological, exploratory case study of eight first-year and early career faculty (FYECF) provides insight into the lived experiences of this population and expands the utilization of the concept of negentropy into higher education organizations and socialization of FYECF. Through the data analysis, six major themes emerged: (1) Ambiguity, (2) Performance Expectations, (3) Collaboration, (4) Entrepreneurial/Innovation, (5) Finding a Voice, (6) Sharing Knowledge. While these themes may be anticipated in a study such as this one, it is the overlay of negentropic actions that makes this contribution unique. Implications for policy and practice are discussed for promoting a negentropic university environment.

Lessons learned during the COVID-19 pandemic, through trial and error and sharing stories of successes and failures, have resulted in progress in the quest to resume what we refer to as normal or regular college life for students, faculty, and staff. However, it is doubtful that we will ever get back to the exact same situation that we were in prior to March of 2020, and that may not even be an appropriate goal for which to strive. We can learn from this pandemic and continuously improve what we do based on lessons learned rather than simply focusing on getting back to some sort of prepandemic "normal" state. This article and this entire edition of New Directions for Adult and Continuing Education are part of those efforts to document our experiences so we all can learn from them and move forward with that knowledge in mind.

This study examines the uses of education experts in mass media broadcast outlets through content analysis to determine the reliance on pundits, political correspondents and educational experts. Utilizing Wimmer & Dominick's content analysis procedure, an examination of reporting related to DeVos' confirmation across media outlets were analyzed and quantified. The study finds a significant lack of reliance on educational experts, teachers, professors, scholars, or others who have spent time studying education. Instead, most of the reporting relied on correspondents, pundits, a few video sources from the hearings, and precious few educational experts. This study explores the few experts that were consulted, what is lost when experts are left out of the equation and the extent to which this tendency is more marked because of the educational context.

This paper explores the role and history of systems theory and thinking in the fields of instructional/educational technology and design. The foundations of ID/ET as fields are rich in behavioral, systematic, and positivist notions of process, but we assert that it is weaker in the reflective, thoughtful, deep and meaningful orientations. Woven into the history of the role of systems in ID/ET are connections to constructivism, learning sciences, qualitative research, holistic ontological and epistemic philosophy as foundations to the impact of systems theories on our field. Understanding systems theory histories without the broader contexts of the other similarly focused and highly influential movements in educational change keeps the perceptions within the field as unidimensional. A more complete and textured analysis of the history of systems theory and thinking is offered through the interdisciplinary lens of intersective, but heretofore rarely integrated, perspectives on related disciplines and their force upon the implementation of systems thinking and theories in our field. The ultimate assertion here is to push the envelope of the history of our field toward interpretive or anti-positivist boundaries.Our purpose in this paper, however, goes beyond just history. While historical perspective is useful and important in and of itself, we are interested in a different kind of generativity. Specifically, we wish to begin to explore the edges of where we might go next. Ideally, the proper integration of systems theory within ID/ET can gradually move us toward anti-positivist approaches which we believe will then lead us out of the philosophical desert toward a form of ID/ET for human flourishing and profound living. With the foundations and backdrops of the history of systems theories including those mentioned above, we believe that the intellectual history can then feed a synthetic activity and a potential new direction. We believe that the recent work in profound learning can offer a new direction where we can see beyond our current milieu. We assert that Educational Technology, Instructional Design, Learning Sciences are all in a bit of a philosophical desert at present. A potential endpoint in profound learning and living can help to inform and expand the broader sense of systems thinking. This paper adds significantly to the theoretical discussions of systems theory and thinking.

Negentropy is a construct drawn from physics that can be conceptualized as the opposite of energy losses associated with normal organizational life. Over time, physical systems tend to "wind down" or entropy, eventually into disintegration. The application of negentropy to social systems, metaphorically, is the primary purpose of this paper--to propose negentropy as a tool to fight energy loss and consequent organizational disintegration. The application of negentropy to organizations and the limitations of that application are explored. Four specific tools for energy-creation are briefly reviewed. The theoretical assertion in this paper is that negentropy can be a powerful tool for sustainable, progressive models of organizational advancement.

This article focuses on the application of "Savage Inequalities"-based analyses of data from the state of Idaho with a focus on equitable rural school funding. While Kozol's famous 1991 book-length work examining school inequalities was focused on urban centers and completed several decades ago, this article offers an updated examination of imbalances in funding and practice across the primarily rural state of Idaho. By examining state documents through a secondary data analysis, this paper extends an earlier exploration of the intricacies of school funding such as implications for casino income as well as the recent history of state level funding. Findings from the current examination indicate that while per-pupil funding by school district in the state of Idaho was equalized by state distributions through 2008, impacts of state cuts at that time increased inequities again when comparing school funding across the state. Because of this, rural, remote, and tribal schools are often dramatically underfunded relative to perceived need.

The first year of faculty members' time at an institution of higher education is spent learning their role and institutional culture. Quite often new faculty members need more support, guidance, and mentoring than they receive. But how can we help new faculty to create new energy (act negentropically) toward the institutional advancement? This qualitative phenomenological, exploratory case study of eight first-year and early career faculty (FYECF) provides insight into the lived experiences of this population and expands the utilization of the concept of negentropy into higher education organizations and socialization of FYECF. Through the data analysis, six major themes emerged: (1) Ambiguity, (2) Performance Expectations, (3) Collaboration, (4) Entrepreneurial/Innovation, (5) Finding a Voice, (6) Sharing Knowledge. While these themes may be anticipated in a study such as this one, it is the overlay of negentropic actions that makes this contribution unique. Implications for policy and practice are discussed for promoting a negentropic university environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent articles have introduced ideas from Physics, specifically, negentropy, to the social sciences. Applications have been primarily in higher education, online learning, and organizations. This article applies negentropy to PK-12 school contexts, discussing the principles for application of systemic school reform and improvement. Negentropy is the reversal of common disintegration and degradation of systems through explicit attention to the reversal of energy losses. Negentropic actions can be taken by school stakeholders to release new energy and recapture energy that is leaving the organization. This paper describes the principles of negentropy in schools, distinguishes it from other common school change theories (systemic school change, entrepreneurial, innovation) and offers implementation advice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on the negative or opposite of entropic disintegration as understood in physical sciences and applies this, metaphorically, to the online enterprise. Negentropic behaviours are those that bring re-integration, renewal, and eventual positive states to the institution. Online learning, which has now been a staple in most college and university strategic plans, has the potential for significant negentropic impact on the enterprise of higher education within individual institutions. Here we focus on how to apply negentropic theoretical constructs to the leadership of online enterprises with the expectation of increased positive forward motion for the higher education institution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the uses of education experts in mass media broadcast outlets through content analysis to determine the reliance on pundits, political correspondents and educational experts. Utilizing Wimmer & Dominick's content analysis procedure, an examination of reporting related to DeVos' confirmation across media outlets were analyzed and quantified. The study finds a significant lack of reliance on educational experts, teachers, professors, scholars, or others who have spent time studying education. Instead, most of the reporting relied on correspondents, pundits, a few video sources from the hearings, and precious few educational experts. This study explores the few experts that were consulted, what is lost when experts are left out of the equation and the extent to which this tendency is more marked because of the educational context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]