Yesterday we ran a workshop on Teaching about Wicked Problems in the University with some excellent colleagues. I shared ideas about curricula for wicked problems that I’d been developing since our last workshop and learned so much from participants’ ideas. Sharon gave everyone a helpful reminder of the project and our main findings and Andy drew together participants messages for key stakeholders in the University.
We invited along my colleague Daphne Loads to do some work with us on a contemplative pedagogy – Lectio Divina. This involves slow careful reading of short texts, including reading aloud and paying attention to our bodily reactions. This was a really thought provoking experience. Alfy Gathorne-Hardy, from the Global Academy of Agriculture and Food Security, gave a lovely entertaining talk about his own teaching. He emphasised how helpful he had found it to work with students in the outdoors when dealing with challenging topics. Rachel Chisholm, from Social Responsibility and Sustainability, helped us understand all of the great opportunities in the University for students to work on sustainability issues as part of the curriculum or co-curriculum. Harriet Harris, from the Chaplaincy, got us thinking hard about what the University is really for and how that relates to wicked problems.
One of the main messages for policy makers in the University was that excellent teaching about wicked problems requires innovative interdisciplinary teaching. To enable this University practices and models need to support these developments more fully. Interdisciplinary teaching requires deep academic engagement to set up and more extensive training for tutors who have not previously studied the interdisciplinary topics. This needs to be recognised and resourced. We talked about how the consultation process for Near Future Teaching and the Edinburgh Futures Institute could provide good models for this kind of work.