Learning Curves: Autumn 2024 Edinburgh Futures Institute Events

10 Sep 2024
Redfish in a lightbuld in the shape of a balloon. Blue background with Edinburgh Futures Institute logo.

 

The Edinburgh Futures Institute autumn 2024 events season is starting soon: Learning Curves features 20 live events, free and open to all, examining the future of education. The series includes panel discussions, poetry readings, live music and performance, as well as deep intellectual debate and discussion.

Centre colleagues led on the development of several of the events.

 

The Future of Education: Crisis 

21st October 2024, 6:00 PM – 8:00 PM

In-person and online

Speakers: Yasmine Sherif, Kainat Riaz, Marjorie Lotfi

Chair: Sarah Brown

Centre director Prof Sian Bayne introduces the work of the Iranian poet Marjorie Lotfi.

Link to the event page, with registration information: The Future of Education: Crisis - Edinburgh Futures Institute

Abstract

The intersecting, planetary-scale crises we face bring new urgency to the debate about the purpose of education. Climate catastrophe, widening inequalities, conflict, pathogen spillovers, new diseases, failures of governance and technology acceleration all challenge us to ask again what education might be, and what we need it to do. The first conversation in the series will focus on education through the crises of war, emergency, unrest and exclusion. It brings together a panel of high-profile leaders and campaigners for education in such contexts and will include the opportunity to hear from students who have lived through education in crisis in Pakistan and Gaza. It will also feature the launch of a new commissioned work from the Iranian poet Marjorie Lotfi, based on the words of displaced and excluded women in Scotland.

 

The Future of Education: Utopia

29th October 2024, 6:00 PM 7:30 PM

In-person and online

Speakers: Koumbou Boly Barry, Radhika Gorur, Joelle Taylor

Chair: Prof Sotiria Grek

Centre director Prof Sian Bayne supported the design and coordination of the event.

Link to the event page, with registration information: The Future of Education: Utopia - Edinburgh Futures Institute

Abstract

Visions for fair, inclusive and democratic education futures have long been expanded through the work of UNESCO and others. However global education policy is still powered by visions of economic growth and operates through the day-to-day machinery of measurement and performance management. This panel brings together a group of high-profile academics, activists and creatives to debate what kind of alternative education futures are desirable. What do we need to unlearn in education, as we work toward more just and sustainable futures? How might we re-think measurement and standardisation? What is the role of education for democracy in an increasingly polarized world? Can education become a living utopia, and what waystations are available to us as we build it? The event will also include the launch of a newly commissioned work from the award-winning poet Joelle Taylor.

 

Entanglements: Studies in falling, flowing, following

7th November 2024, 6:00 PM 7:30 PM 

In-person and online.

Speakers: Karen Christopher, Tara Fatehi, Jemima Yong, Matthew Whiteside, Hannah Lavery, Rhubaba Choir, David Overend.

Dr David Overend leads the workshops.

Link to the event page, with registration information: Entanglements: Studies in falling, flowing, following - Edinburgh Futures Institute.

Abstract

How can we move from making studies of the world to learning with the world? Entanglements takes a creative approach to learning and teaching, exploring the educational potential of collaborative art making. The event will entangle human and aquatic worlds, moving between freshwater and the deep ocean, learning through performance, video, music, poetry and song. Falling, flowing and following offer different models for an entangled education.

To draw, to write with words, to sculpt, to design, to compose music or dance, to collaborate with others in the making of performance and all other forms that art can take, all require that we study our subject, with our bodies, with our eyes, with our minds, with our hearts. The learning process makes the artwork; the art of making is an act of learning.

To teach these ways of making is also to learn. This holds true not only in the preparation for teaching but in the event of teaching itself which brings new insight through the interaction with other minds asking questions or making observations from other points of view.

This event will gently entangle a number of collaborative projects, and include a post-show discussion.

Karen Christopher, Tara Fatehi and Jemima Yong will share material from their new collaborative performance Skywater, Facewater, Underwater Waltz, which explores the movement of time in the deep sea via conversation, connectedness, durational work, and song-like structures.

David Overend (artistic researcher and EFI’s lecturer in interdisciplinary studies) and Matthew Whiteside (composer) will share their collaboration with the Waterways Collective of artists and scientists, in an exploration of a journey from river to sea, inspired by their time following Atlantic salmon.

Rhubaba Choir will present work developed for an entangled collaboration with Marie-Chantal Hamrock and Noah Tomson. Rhubaba invite artists to make works for and with the voices of the choir.

Award-winning poet, playwright and performer Hannah Lavery will respond creatively to the event’s theme and contents. Hannah was appointed Edinburgh Makar (city poet) in 2021.

Related workshops will be offered by Karen Christopher and Rhubaba Choir.

 

Future Library and Futures Literacy: Making Futures from Where We Are

22nd November 2024, 6:00 PM 7:30 PM

In-person and online

Speakers: Katie Paterson, Anne Beate Hovind

Centre co-director Prof Jen Ross chairs the session.

Link to the event page, with registration information: Future Library and Futures Literacy: Making Futures from Where We Are - Edinburgh Futures Institute

Abstract

To mark the 10-year anniversary of Katie Paterson’s 100-year artwork, Future Library, we gather to discuss what it means to be “futures literate”. We explore relationships between place, knowledge, imagination and time in making meaning from and engaging with different futures.

 

The Future of Education: AI

26th November 2024, 6:00 PM 7:30 PM

In-person and online

Speakers: John Warner, Araba Sey, Ben Williamson, JL Williamson

Centre director Prof Sian Bayne chairs the session. Dr Ben Williamson, Centre Chancellor's Fellow, is a panel member.

Link to the event page, with registration information: The Future of Education: AI - Edinburgh Futures Institute

Abstract

Artificial Intelligence is the latest in a long series of high-profile technology ‘disruptors’ of education. What futures for education does it promise, and are these desirable? Who is driving the discussion about its potential? And what might it mean for the act and profession of teaching? Current debate on AI in education is intense, and often torn between competing visions of education’s social purpose. This panel brings together researchers, writers and thinkers working in the area of AI to discuss what a future of education permeated by AI might look like, what it should look like, and how it might support education for public good.

 

The Future of AI at School

3rd December 2024, 6:00 PM 7:30 PM

In-person and online

Speakers: Louise Hayward, Ollie Bray

Prof Judy Robertson, Chair in Digital Learning, chairs the session.

Link to the event page, with registration information: The Future of AI at School - Edinburgh Futures Institute.

Abstract

How are school leaders, policymakers and teachers planning to work with AI in the classroom? What does AI mean for the way we teach, assess and understand learning and the cultures and practices of schooling? This event will bring together key figures from the Scottish education landscape to talk about AI in schools and our education futures.

The event will be public-facing, and carefully designed to provoke active discussion and debate with the audience. It will build on research taking place over recent years at the University of Edinburgh with the Data Education in Schools and BRAID research programmes and draw on the wide network of schools and sector leads who have cocreated this work . It will provide audiences with engaging insights from colleagues working with AI at the chalk-face of teaching and policy development, opening up debate to a wider public audience.

The event will be relevant to anyone with an interest in schools, schooling and education policy futures.