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Science & practise of navigating professional work in the FIKTage

Sem02 (2024-2025) Learning to (un)learn*

Learning to unlearn: the science and practice of navigating professional work in the fast-paced, interconnected, knowledge-driven, and tech-heavy (FIKT) age. How do we not only survive, but thrive when explosion of information, sudden changes, and breakthrough innovations question pre-existing knowledge and mindsets? How do we ensure that we can keep a right balance between over-reacting to hypes and under-estimating the need for expanding of our capabilities? Especially, when powerful technologies (e.g., GenAI and robotics) challenge the very relevance of our traditional skills and knowledge, how can we engage in an effective, timely, and joyful (un)learning journey?

These questions are crucial for us as we constantly play three roles in our day-to-day work:

  1. As self-learners: each of must proactively identify the essential skills and actively develop them in such a way that is effective, joyful and efficient for us (you do not want to wait for others to drag you with hand!)
  2. As learning mentors/coaches: in our roles as a team-mate, team-lead, manager, or responsible for working with some clients, we are (in)formally involved in mentoring and coaching others in their learning (think of a team-mate who lacks “design thinking” or “emotional resilience” and you want to help him/her in developing that capability).
  3. As learning designers: almost in any kind of work, we design products, services, or experiences for others (e.g., users of a mobile App) where we must have the knowledge and skill of designing these products, services, or experiences for an efficient and effective learning so that users and clients can best engage with and use them.

For all these roles, we need to master the knowledge and skills of “designing”, “engaging”, “evaluating” effective, joyful, and efficient learning journeys.

The course content is designed around a systematic, practical framework, “Learning Wheel”, which integrates the six interrelated dimensions of any learning journey:

  • What: Discovering the most essential, and potentially overlooked skills for our specific conditions?
  • Why: Engaging in learning with meaningful rationales and motivations and sustain our energy and enthusiasm throughout the learning journey.
  • Who: Discovering and leveraging the preferences and strengths as well as fears and boundaries that we have during learning process.
  • How: Selecting and using the most effective ways of learning that suit ourselves and our learning journey.
  • When: Seizing the most opportune moments of learning, establish an effective pace and rhythm of learning for a timely and sustainable journey.
  • Where: Gaining most synergy and support from our digital, social, physical, and institutional environments for our learning journey.

Students use the Learning Wheel as a guiding methodology for tackling a “learning challenge” of their own choice to apply the methods into practice. They have the freedom to choose any  challenge as long as it is a significant and meaningful capability that you want to develop for the coming 1-3 years. They turn their own learning challenge into a learning journey (presented and evaluated as their “learning manifest”), by each week reflecting on one specific dimension and its alignments with the other ones. At the end of the course, their learning manifests will be assessed on the cohesion and internal alignment of their choices, informed by what they have learned about the science of workplace learning.

This course is suitable for students at different levels of their bachelor programme (1st, 2nd or 3rd year).

For more information and course details, go to 'Curriculum' at the top of the page.

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