Challenge Lab - Where Learners Lead and Leaders Learn || Johan Holmén

In this episode of The (Re)generative Education Podcast I chat with dr. Johan Holmén, post-doc at Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden and co-teacher of Chalmer's Challenge Lab and accompanying courses. He recently finished his PhD at Chalmers in the field of transformative engineering education and was recently appointed to the head of the Swedish NGO Engineers for the environment. His expertise lies in backcasting from principles and guiding collective societal learning processes in the times of wicked problems. He started at the Challenge Lab as a master student before focussing his research on these forms of ecological learning configurations. And is currently working on Swedish materials for educator's to engage with these transformative forms of education in elementary institutions. 

In this discussion the following systemic barriers and opportunities emerged:  

1. The importance of creating space for engaging with complex sustainability challenges that plague society.  
2. The importance of mentorship in facing collective sustainability challenges.  
3.  Allowing the engagement of questions as part of the education and not just as preparation  for it.  
4. The importance of transformative and reformative forms of learning as complementary parts of higher education.  
5. The importance of combining the formal learning on societal change, leadership and transitions as well as practicing them.  
6. Using higher education as a safe place for trying out long term futures that don't depend on short-termism. Placing learning in the centre instead of concrete output.  
7. The power of working with people that engage with sustainability challenges on day-to-day basis and the humbleness that comes from this.   
8. Using the campus as a playground/arena for relating and starting this type of work.  
9. Training the inside-out dimensions of sustainability – dialoguing, design and co-creation, value-based interpretation and such.   
10. Learning from taking responsibility of taking sustainability seriously.  
11. The importance of methodological support, framework and tools to scaffold the learning experience as the learners engage with complexity.  
     
    External Links: 

Challenge Lab – Where learners lead and leaders learn (chalmers.se) 

Johan Holmén | Chalmers 

Johan Holmén (@assar56) / Twitter