About Learning Futures
The challenge
COVID-19. Globalization. Racial and economic injustice. Climate change. Human migration. Artificial intelligence. Quantum computing. The Internet of things. Bioengineering.
A child born today will be shaped by accelerating change in technology, demography and our physical and social environments. The speed and convergence of change across so many dimensions of human experience will shape this child’s life in ways that are as profound as they are unpredictable.
It is not clear that the education systems we have today are doing enough to prepare this child to thrive as an individual in the future. And it is not clear that societies are preparing children collectively to thrive as citizens at local, national and global levels.
Meeting the challenge
Learning Futures at ASU proceeds from the conviction that, in a world experiencing faster and bigger change, we need education leaders who can make informed, ethical and effective decisions about what to do and not do.
Our work is rooted in a core value of principled innovation, which holds that education should answer to three imperatives:
An equity imperative
We need to deliver excellence in education to all learners regardless of any human characteristic that might lead to unfairness or discrimination in learning opportunities.
An economic imperative
We need to prepare learners for the next economy and equip them for success in the workforce of the future.
A democratic imperative
We need to prepare learners to be caring, responsible citizens capable of balancing individual ambition and the public good.
Through Principled Innovation, Learning Futures at ASU brings collaborative leaders, creative thinkers and innovative ideas together to design the futures of learning and advance equity and excellence in education systems.
We approach this work in a variety of ways, from using a collaborative design approach, to emphasizing the role of technology in education, to engaging in scholarly discourse and research on the futures of learning. We work with educators and leaders from a range of education spaces, such as K-12, higher education, and our own faculty, staff and students at ASU.
Who we are
There are many people and teams at ASU who are engaged with the work of Learning Futures. Our team in the Office of Scholarship and Innovation has partnered with the following, among others. We would love to hear about others advancing this work and welcome additional opportunities for collaboration!
Learn about the unique hiring process our office has developed: The OofSI hiring process case study.
