Year 9 Futures Week

SIMON FINNIGAN, DIRECTOR OF EXPERIENTIAL LEARNING

Year 9 Futures Week was new to the College this year.

By promoting future-focused thinking, we enable our young people to take an active role in shaping their futures, rather than simply reacting to events as they unfold.

The Year 9 Futures Week program allows students to explore Geelong and Melbourne through a 5-day schedule of relevant, engaging and contemporary educational experiences.

Our focus was guided by the following question:

“How can we continue to refine and further develop the skills, knowledge and dispositions needed to navigate an everchanging world and shape our own futures?”

Through each of the student experiences, we encouraged reflection and allowed students to consider the complex social, economic, technical and environmental issues that exist today; as well as those likely to occur in the future. We also focused on the possibilities these bring.

Students recognised the importance of developing a wide range of skills and knowledge to prepare them for the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead. We also used our guiding question as a prompt for discussions and activities around topics such as adaptability, resilience, and lifelong learning - each of which are important factors for success.

The value of a week like this is that it exposes students to a number of external presenters, different concepts and new ways of thinking and creating. It also encourages students to be architects of their own futures and to envision what that might potentially look like.

Futures Week also raises contemporary themes and issues that we, as a society, are grappling with and attempting to resolve. Specifically, those set to become a part of everyday work.

Fundamentally though, it sows a seed in our students to start thinking about and acting on their futures.

• Where they are going?

• What interests them?

• What are their strengths?

• What is their purpose?

These questions are good to sit with, contemplate and act on as students navigate their pathway through a complex social, economic, technical and environmental world that is rapidly evolving and changing.

Students engaged with the following themes and concepts:

- Creative and critical thinking

- Leadership and communication

- Habits and leadership

- Wellbeing

- App design and construction, CAD- IT 3D printing and coding and robotics

- Leadership and followership

- Problem-solving

- Collaboration and teamwork

- Ideation and design thinking

- Entrepreneurship

- Social justice and social enterprise

- The power of purpose and hope, encouraging students to consider and take decisive action on who they are and where they are going.

Each student will have their own highlights from the program, but these included:

The Amazing Race

‘The Amazing Race’ activity was based on the television program of the same name. It involved students breaking into teams and navigating their way around the Docklands and Southbank precincts of Melbourne, collecting clues to guide them and complete challenges. Their team’s approach to lateral and creative thinking was put to the test. Strategic thinking, effective communication, collaboration and problem-solving skills were also key to success.

Geelong Tech ‘Tech Taster’ workshops

Students chose one of three workshops: App and Away, Cad-It or Tinker Time - each an exercise in applied learning

Students were presented with a social, economic or environmental issue and also introduced to a specific technology to utilise in their solution.

Students were required to work to a set process, using design thinking to first establish a ‘brief’, before then creating their prototype. Teamwork, again, was key with collaboration often required. Problem-solving, too, was at the forefront as students actualised their prototype.

Ideation Day at the Wade Institute of Entrepreneurship, University Melbourne

This workshop sparked the entrepreneurial interests of students, and even helped generate some potential business ideas.

The day required students to don their entrepreneurial caps and experience what it means to be an innovator and entrepreneur as they went through an ideation process to find a problem worth solving and then begin work on a sustainable commercial solution.

Students worked in small groups as they were lead through an entrepreneurial process. It culminated in delivery of a pitch to an audience consisting of their peers, staff and in-situ entrepreneurs at the Wade Institute.