Who are we?
We are Kenji and Zoe, students at Homerton, currently acting as research assistants for the Hawkwood Circle Project as well as Homerton Changemakers Ambassadors for this academic year. Through working together we have been prompted to ask ourselves a series of questions about our own educational journey thus far and are interested to discuss thoughts and ideas with our peers.
Session details
Education has largely been accepted as an indispensable driver in tackling the social, economic, and environmetnal challenges that we face now and in the future. Designed to promote critical thinkings among undergraduate students regarding their education, this workshop will ask participants to consider what a University degree is for and how it should be taught.
There are three fundamental questions to be addressed:
(1) Why: "Why do we need Universities?"
Asking ourselves the purpose of Universities. What values Universities are contributing to the overall human society?
(2) What: "What are we learning in Universities?
Carefully examine what students are learning and what kind of person we are educating ourselves to become?
(3) How: "How do we promote learning?"
What do we need to create an ideal learning environment? How does the school curriculum and way of teachings should look like?
By answering three core questions, students will re-visit the purpose of University education as a whole and evaluate what has been working and what needs to be changed in our education system. This exercise aims to develop a critical and broader perspective in their University education and promote the dialogue of positive educational transformation.
The session will start with a short presentation introducing concepts to prompt reflexive and critical thinking. Participants will be asked to consider their own experience with learning to identify some of the positive and negative elements. Then in break out rooms of 4, we will work through some prompt questions to help formulate what a hypothetical 'ideal' university might look like. We will finish together to share some of these ideas.
