Listen to the episode:

You can find the shownotes through this link.

---

Are you interested in how to future-proof STEM education?

---

Our summary today works with the article titled Becoming future-proof STEM teachers for enhancing sustainable development: A proposed general framework for a capacity-building programs in future studies from 2022 by Hanaa Ouda Khadri, published in the Prospects Journal. This is a great preparation to our next interviewee in episode 144, Morley Muse, where we talk a lot about the need for STEM education. Since we are investigating the future of cities, I thought it would be interesting to see why it is important to include future studies to STEM education. This article presents why STEM needs to prepare students for an unpredictable future and the skills and basic knowledge that can be useful.

[intro music]

---

Welcome to today’s What is The Future For Cities podcast and its Research episode; my name is Fanni, and today I will introduce a research paper by summarising it. The episode really is just a short summary of the original paper, and, in case it is interesting enough, I would encourage everyone to check out the whole paper. Stay tuned until because I will give you the 3 most important things and some questions which would be interesting to discuss.

---

[music]

STEM stands for science, technology, engineering and mathematics. In recent years STEM was increasingly linked to sustainable development. STEM education is considered to be one of the major pillars that support sustainable development through building the capacities of future generations. One objective of STEM education is to confront and solve global and grand challenges in a transforming world, where even governments are forced to address future challenges. Unknown unknowns and uncertainties and unprecedented complexities in these global and grand challenges require revolutionary thinking – in teachers and students alike. Therefore, there is an urgent need to identify new roles for STEM education that will prepare students for the post-normal world and the sustainability mindset it requires.

Unfortunately, science and technology are rather feared by the younger generation than seen as possible solutions for the global challenges. Thus, STEM reformation is also needed to be future-oriented. STEM education should enhance the capabilities of students in innovation, creativity, scientific thinking, and problem-solving skills as well as develop their sustainability mindsets. It must enable them to engage with the interdisciplinary learning methodologies that address the complex economic, social and environmental aspects of both the formal and informal curriculum. This will empower students to become active players in their societies and contribute to improve the quality of life.

Education for sustainable development needs to impart the competencies for understanding such real challenges as the COVID-19 pandemic, identify current problems and anticipate those that may occur in future societies, and collaboratively find innovative solutions to them. The students of today, who are the generation that will live in these future societies must acquire the appropriate knowledge and skills to define and solve sustainability problems. Although STEM education should include these, it is difficult and sometimes impossible for STEM teachers to forecast global grand challenges and translate forecasting results into workable projects. This study explores what knowledge base and skills in-service STEM education teachers should possess and demonstrate to become future-proof STEM teachers who can enhance sustainable development.

The concept of future-proof is rarely used in the field of education. Future-proofing can be defined as the process of using forecasting methods to prepare for unknown future shocks and risks and develop suitable alleviating strategic plans. Futures thinking is one of the basics of Futures Studies, an integrative, interdisciplinary group of methodologies, theories and principles that enable individuals to think in a constructive and systematic way about the future and reflect on the fundamental changes that might happen over the next 10-20 years in major areas of life.

Futures Studies is an application in strategic planning field that considers distinctive possibilities of the future, like possible futures, plausible futures, preferable futures and probable futures. Individuals and groups engaging in future studies or foresight explore the future from various perspectives in order to inform the current process of decision-making. While Futures Studies focuses on predicting all alternative images of the future, foresight focuses on strategizing how navigation of a certain issue or a phenomenon can be carried out in a future full of uncertainties. Futures Studies as a discipline has four general aims:

1. Developing appealing future visions, images and scenarios,
2. Directing and enhancing planning and decision-making processes,
3. Answering the great global questions, and
4. Creating an applicable interdisciplinary methodology.

Khadri used the literature and interviewed education experts to collect the skills and basic knowledge needed for future-proofing STEM teachers. Basic knowledge incudes 8 fields, like problem solving in post-normal science, systems thinking, tools for forecasting future critical issues and opportunities. Basic skills includes analytical skills, interpretation skills, system thinking skills and many others, amounting to 29 different skills. Additionally, Khadri prepared a 15-step program for how to prepare and run futures studies in STEM context.

The global grand challenges that STEM education has to address have emerged in an ambiguous, complex and uncertain era. The human-centred economy and post-normal times and science will increasingly require new innovation in the capacity building of STEM education teachers. One of these innovations is the inclusion of the discipline of Futures Studies in the content of STEM. Futures studies will enable teachers to optimise STEM education for all learners since it helps STEM teachers to have a better understanding of the complex sustainability issues – hence employ the appropriate methods, approaches and tools of Futures Studies to handle them in innovative ways. However, innovative ways are not just required from the students but from the teachers as well so they also need capacity-building programs. To support sustainable development efforts, not only STEM teachers but all educational practitioners in all types of educational system should prepare for post-normal times and science.

[music]

---

What was the most interesting part for you? What questions did arise for you? Do you have any follow up question? Let me know on Twitter at WTF4Cities or on the wtf4cities.com website where the transcripts and show notes are available! Additionally, I will highly appreciate if you consider subscribing to the podcast or on the website. I hope this was an interesting paper for you as well, and thanks for tuning in!

---

[music]

Finally, as the most important things, I would like to highlight 3 aspects:

1. In post-normal times, science, technology, engineering and mathematics, also known STEM fields need to prepare the students and the educators for the uncertainties and ambiguity of the future.
2. Futures Studies, which could be involved in STEM education, is an application in strategic planning field that considers distinctive possibilities of the future, like possible futures, plausible futures, preferable futures and probable futures.
3. Individuals and groups engaging in future studies or foresight explore the future from various perspectives in order to inform the current process of decision-making.

Additionally, it would be great to talk about the following questions:

1. What do you think – are you future-proof? How can you become future-proof?
2. What kind of possible, plausible, preferable and probable futures can you imagine for your city?
3. What can you do to engage more with imagining your own and your city’s future? I would recommend reading the book titled Imaginable by Jane McGonigal!
4. What decision would you like to influence with your imagined futures?

[outro music]

---