Festival of Learning

Pre-Registration Required: 30 Participants Maximum

Educational developers work in various places within postsecondary institutions, some within teaching centres, others within academic departments. What many of us seem to have in common is a very thorough insight into the needs and problems of instructors and institutions, but little power to affect change on a large scale.

The purpose of this session is to analyze the current situation in our various institutions, and to develop realistic ideas for improvement within and across our institutions.
 
We will use a method called “Zukunftswerkstatt”, invented by Robert Jungk et al. in the 1980s to stimulate creativity for the solution of social/political problems. It consists of three phases:

Phase 1: Assessment and critique of the current situation. What works, what doesn’t, what are the problems. Important: No analysis at this stage.

Phase 2: Utopia. What would the situation ideally be like? Important: Focus on the ideal situation, ignoring any concerns about whether and how the ideas can be realized.

Phase 3: Praxis. What can be realized, and how? Develop a strategy based on the ideas from phase 2 that will address the issues brought up in phase 1.

We will start the workshop with a  "practice-run" of  this method to specify the ideas for change we will then use in the main part of the session.
 
Presenter
Daria Ahrensmeier, Educational Consultant, Teaching and Learning Centre, Simon Fraser University