Supporting students to become agents of change

Introducing and evaluating the Transition Cycle approach to teaching transformative skills

Bibliographic Data

ID9845790
AuthorsLuca Bertolini (0000-0003-0777-2620, University of Amsterdam, corresponding author), Debby Gerritsen, Debby L Gerritsen (0000-0002-3356-0237, Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences), Katusha Sol (Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences)
Year2024
Volume164
Pages103459
Publication date2024-12-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueFutures (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0016-3287 • E-ISSN: 1873-6378
PublisherElsevier BV (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1016/j.futures.2024.103459
OpenAlexW4402333455
LanguageEN
Citations received4
References cited16

Human societies are dealing with urgent and daunting societal transition challenges, such as those posed by climate change, inequality, pandemics, and digitalization. In all these cases, we know that they must fundamentally change the way they do and think about things, and urgently so, but do not know how. Uncertainty about the direction of change and resistance to change are ubiquitous. Future generations must be equipped with capabilities for dealing with these challenges. However, there is an apparent mismatch between the skills currently taught and the skills needed to address complexity, uncertainty, and resistance. Using relevant existing frameworks and experiences we created and taught a course focusing on fostering these skills. For this purpose we developed the Transition Cycle, an original educational approach in which students work on a societal transition challenge in four distinct but related phases: imagine, connect , act , and assess . In this paper, we introduce and evaluate the Transition Cycle and its underlying concepts, basic components, implementation in the course, and learning outcomes. We conclude by reviewing lessons learned and raising questions for future research and experimentation. • Future generations must be equipped with skills for dealing with societal transition challenges. • There are, however, few examples of how to combine relevant skills in an effective learning process. • To fill this gap, we developed and applied an original educational approach, the Transition Cycle. • In this paper, we introduce the Transition Cycle and assess its implementation in a course. • We find that the approach’s overall structure provides a robust and flexible framework for learning transition skills

Business · Engineering ethics · Mathematics education · Pedagogy · Process management · Sociology · Transformative learning · Transition (genetics · Adult and Continuing Education Topics · Chemistry · Engineering · Higher Education and Employability · Psychology · Sustainability in Higher Education

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