Abstract:

Education is the main pillar of human evolution and development. The 21st century brought a very fast development of human society and education needs to be in constant update to adjust its methods to the needs of the new generations. It has been estimated that over 80% of the jobs that will exist in 2030 haven’t yet been created (e.g. OECD). Considering such an accelerated and unpredictable development, it is important that, more than a list of isolated pieces of curriculum content, we teach our students how to thrive and succeed in such world. This means that students need to realize the importance of their education, be inspired and most importantly to be trained on how to learn, how to critically think, how to solve problems, how to communicate and how to adjust and innovate in a vast future of possibilities.

IDiverSE is a project that brings together a selection of key innovative methodologies in science education to promote students' learning, engagement, motivation and development of fundamental life skills. By aggregating interdisciplinarity and Inquiry Based Learning, applying Design Thinking in the educational setting and adopting an Open Schooling approach, the project provides students with a meaningful learning experience and puts them in contact with their environment, working together with their community.

By following the innovative methodology and implementing the proposed activities, students travel a path that leads them into the most relevant problems and features of their communities while developing fundamental social, psychological and cognitive skills, learning fundamental scientific, daily life related concepts and translating them into a relevant outcome to share with the community and promote development. The school becomes an important knowledge base for the community, while teachers and students see their work is applied, valued and recognized.

In sum, IDiverSE offers a powerful learning experience for students that enables them to understand their ability to make a vital contribution to their community, by being able to provide solutions based on their skills and acquired knowledge. All this reinforces the motivation of the students and leads to an improvement in their learning results. In this paper we describe the methodology behind IDiverSE with concrete examples of practical applications and results.

Keywords:

Design Thinking, Deeper Learning, Inquiry, Interdisciplinarity, Community.