SCHOOL FUTURES

Researchers of the SCHOOL FUTURES Project stage a collaborative process for sustainable school development by developing methods for learning to think in terms of complex systems and open futures.  The process targets learning at three levels:

  • By individual students and teachers in class and in interdisciplinary projects: The researchers are developing learning concepts, methods and materials for future-oriented systems thinking in class or interdisciplinary project work with engaged students and teachers.
  • Learning at the level of the school: Within the remit of new legislation for school development, researchers offer workshops to develop a school vision and additional activities that can be drawn upon by participating schools for school development.
  • Insights drawn from working with three schools and the SCRIPT can inform about conditions for successful embedding learning opportunities for future-oriented systems thinking in the national curriculum.
Within this project frame, the three schools have chosen different objectives for themselves. 

For more up to date information check the german version of this side! You can find it in the top right corner.

The school Athénée de Luxembourg, mostely refered to as “the Kolléisch” decided to leverage activities of the SCHOOL FUTURES Project in contribution to the recent policy on the reform of the ‘division supérieur’ in Luxembourg’s secondary education – the section that prepares students for higher and university studies. 

Accordingly, the school has chosen to develop and implement a vision for re-organising the curriculum and to open specialised tracks towards more student-centred flexible options and future-oriented systems thinking as a skill set and disposition.

The school Fieldgen would like to develop a comprehensive approach to providing a sustainable learning environment for the pupils by staging collaborative projects and processes with students and teachers towards more sustainable buildings and infrastructures, and by engaging in the co-design of didactic materials for future-oriented systems thinking based on practical projects e.g. on urban gardening or renewable energy.

The school Lycée Guillaume Kroll is offering an organizational setting for developing learning materials and a process to establish, teach and evaluate interdisciplinary projects.

The precursor project by the Luxembourg Council for Sustainable Development (Conseil Supérieure pour un Développement Durable): 

The SCHOOL FUTURES project has evolved from a project of the Conseil Supérieure pour un Développement Durable that served to develop national scenarios for education in 2030 in the face of sustainability challenges.  The overarching aim of this project was to develop an innovative future-oriented framework to think out of the box on the question ‘How can school better equip children to deal with accelerating change in technology, society, environment and economy?’

SCENARIOS – OF WHAT?

  • The future of learning and teaching in elementary and upper school (ages of 3-18)

WHAT IS THE GOAL?

  • Offer a new framework and perspectives for discussions and decisions on policies for education in the face of sustainability challenges
  • Foster future-oriented thinking and doing in support of learning competences, skills and the capacity to assume responsibilities…

FOR WHOM?

  • Luxembourg Government
  • Members of the school system
  • Society

More information on the three-year-long participatory scenario development process and detailed documents describing each of the scenarios can be found at https://csdd.public.lu/fr/scenarios.html .

These scenarios were developed into a short animation on Youtube, that have also been used in the SCHOOL FUTURES Project: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gyiatfImw4k&feature=youtu.be

The project is coordinated by the University of Luxembourg.

The project is funded by the Luxembourg Ministry for education and executed together with the national school development agency (SCRIPT).

The project has a close cooperation with the Luxembourg Centre for Educational Testing (LUCET) and the University of Trier.