Developing the future curriculum at ESCP Berlin
Wow, January 2020 is over. What have we been up to at GrowbeYOUnd? We worked on the #futureofeducation and #futureofcurriculum with the ESCP Berlin and tried out a new webinar series with TU Dortmund. Rona writing an overview for you:
ESCP - Future of the Curriculum
This January I worked with 30 dedicated and passionate students at the ESCP on the future of their curriculum. We discussed what the future might hold, how we can best prepare for it, what skills are needed and how university can/will/should prepare for it.
The three key concerns they had, were that they are not enough prepared in three top areas, which they ranked as very important for the future:
Dealing with uncertainty
Self-learning (especially digital literacy)
Critical thinking and debating
Other concerns were Communication and Collaboration. Further, they said that they would prefer if 'teachers' become facilitators, learning becomes more interactive with real-life experiences and generally there is more space for questions, debate and feedback. Courses should be shorter, so that there is more time for social activities and social work.
They also think online offers should be further incorporated in their courses. For me personally I realised again how hard it is to have these conversations and the current system..
How hard it is to discuss the future in an 'old school setting' and how difficult it is to break the rules (e.g. just working in a different style in the 'Frontalunterricht'/ex-cathedra teaching setting). However, a lot of great and important ideas emerged and I am looking forward to see how we can further this conversation, also in other universities.
Webinar Series - Future of Work and International Career
With the TU Dortmund I tried a new very interesting format. We wanted to try a webinar series, but I wanted to be student engagement as high as possible. Often I find webinars very "one way", not interactive enough.. We tried a "Webinar series barcamp style". We had a kick off workshop at the TU Dortmund in person, with a group of ~20 students. In this workshop we developed the topics for the webinars 'barcamp style'. Everyone could suggest ideas, we discussed topics and then always 3 students became the 'hosts' of one topic. We scheduled 5 webinars with the topics of Global Opportunities, International Applications, Personal Branding, Skills for the future, Intercultural differences. In the following 4 weeks we met up 5 times online - each time the students gave some input (the hosts of the respective webinar) and I shared my knowledge/views/ideas. The webinars were open to all students, so each time we had the original crowd from the barcamp and an additional ~20 students joining.
What was really great, was that there was a room at the TU Dortmund reserved - so each time around 10 people met up in person - the rest joined online. This created a very special atmosphere. Also the fact that many of them had met before at the kick off in person was great.
I also really enjoyed their inputs and thoughts and learnt a lot.
It was a great 'blended learning' format, combining the new technologies, with perosnal vibratons :)
Other than that I have been touring my 'usual universities' working with the students on the #futureofwork and their careers.
Further, si:cross took a lot of my time - we are deep in the founding process and you will HEAR a lot about that in the next few months... Stay tuned!
Have a great February! 🚀💫❤️
