I have just completed a free online course that I recommend to all adults, young and old, who are interested in the world we live in and its future.
Transforming Development: The Science and Practice of Resilience Thinking
“With concerns about climate and global environmental changes, extreme events, and increases in social, economic, and political shocks, the concept of resilience is proving popular across a range of sectors as a way to understand and respond to our surprise-riddled world. … Resilience thinking is more than a theory, more than a set of tools. It is a way of seeing the world, offering a new perspective of how change in the world happens.”
Resilience may be getting back up every time you are knocked over. But it's a higher level of resilience if you change tactics, so you find a way to not get knocked over again at all.
The focus is on doing it in such a way that you don't just hold your ground or adapt, but instead "change track".
The course takes its starting point from the fact that we have gone from being a small civilization on a large globe to being a large civilization on a small globe.
The situation in the world today is both volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous all at once.
Resilience is adaptability to our world as it is now, but also more than that. It is an ability to develop new solutions today and in the future, but not necessarily new inventions. It is also about understanding to a greater degree than before the complexity of the slow-moving parts of a system and the feedback systems that keep them moving.
Through the 7 modules of the course, you are introduced to the issues and the conceptual framework. Each module consists of 4-5 video lessons of 10-15 minutes each with subsequent quiz questions and opportunities for supplementary reading.
The 7 principles mentioned in the poster above for how resilience is built are not only explained and exemplified, but video clips are also shown with inspiring examples of how it works.
Such principles can help us foster resilience and develop the ability to deal with surprises. "Resilience thinking" means getting strategies and policies in place to deal with the unknown. Without such a capacity, we cannot deal with the future.
The turbulent times we live in demand that we do not just react to symptoms, but act on basis of deeper understanding and create much more comprehensive changes.
I recommended to watch this video, which shows examples of solutions that can be arrived at with the help of "Resilience Theory" / "Resilience Thinking": https://www.stockholmresilience.org/research/research-videos/2018-09-30-finding-transformative-potential-pockets-of-the-future-in-the-present.html
Quote from the end of this video:
“So, what's the take home message? Well, the future doesn't actually have to be bleak. As people become aware of threats to society and nature, many are increasingly engaging in strategies to create a more just, prosperous and ecologically diverse world, what we call a good Anthropocene. In fact, we can point to an emergence of new thinking, innovative ways of living and different means of connecting people and nature, which promises very well for the future.
This is an empowering story that needs to be shared.”
Deepening:
"The Anthropocene marks a new period (from about 1950) in which our collective activities dominate the planetary machinery." (source: https://www.information.dk/udland/2011/06/velkommen-antropocaen )
Here is a list with links to all videos in this MOOC ” Transforming Development: The Science and practice of Resilience Thinking”
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLzW0Ub5HJkzQdJM50bF4aiTpRPSZoJdrN
"Resilience Thinking" connects all the United Nations goals for sustainable development (SDGs), which all UN member states have agreed to achieve by 2030.
If you haven't come across MOOCs before, here is…
A brief introduction to learning opportunities in MOOCs
The first 3 MOOCs with over 100,000 "learners" each were created and run by teachers at Stanford University in USA in 2011, and now there are more than 1,200 universities worldwide offering such courses, and the numbers of offers and participants are growing every year. (source: https://www.classcentral.com/report/mooc-platforms/ )
MOOC is an abbreviation for Massive Open Online Courses. These are learning courses that are made freely available to everyone on the internet. The basic idea of MOOCs is that teaching at university level is made accessible through video lectures, assignments, supplementary literature and communication with teachers and participants.
The course participants are often called "learners", because the offer is for both young and old, and it doesn't matter whether you are a student or not.
The MOOCs are online courses,
- where you can take parts of a university program (or a bachelor/master with a fee)
- where you can pursue the interests you have,
- ask questions to which you seek answers,
- and find areas of knowledge that you want to deepen.
Learners collaborate in many of the courses.
There are thousands of MOOCs on the web.
As a start, I would recommend checking https://www.edx.org/search
Danish examples of MOOCs from the University of Copenhagen
Deepening about MOOC`s
”Capturing the Hype: Year of the MOOC Timeline Explained" "In October 2011, Stanford started offering three of their courses online for free. A year later, there were 250+ free online courses offered by 40+ universities. MOOCs were born” (klik https://www.classcentral.com/report/mooc-hype-year-1/ )
Wikipedia article on MOOC's development, strengths and weaknesses:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massive_open_online_course
”Making sense of MOOCS: a guide for policy makers in developing countries”
MOOCs are considered to be an important tool for achieving the UN's Sustainable Development goal 4 ("SDG 4: Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all"). Open education can now reach far more people worldwide, see the rapport here https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000245122
 |
| Source: https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000245122 |
Teach GLOBAL CITIZENSHIP Newsletter no. 49
