Teaching and Learning for Challenge Driven Education in a Global Context

This teacher training supports teachers in higher education in developing and implementing Challenge-Driven Education (CDE) and other forms of project-based and problem-based learning. It is built around a number of aspects that are characteristic for CDE, for example: societal challenges; wicked problems; sustainable development and transformation; open ended student projects; key sustainability competencies; design methodologies; frugal innovation; external stakeholders in student projects; facilitation, supervision, and assessment, of student teams.

The training is project-based where you as participant is expected to work with a course/module development project in parallel with actively participating in the online webinars. Your project can be performed individually or in collaboration with a colleague and could for example be about: infusing some elements of project-based or challenge-driven learning in an existing ‘conventional’ course/module; or improving some parts of an existing project-based or challenge-driven course/module, for example enhancing the focus on sustainability and/or external stakeholder interaction; or developing a completely new challenge-driven course/module. Your project can either be aiming for being implemented in a near future or be more visionary or something in between. It is up to you to come up with an initial idea of a development project that suits your contexts, teaching practices, and aims, and then you will get support in further developing that idea and project from experts and peers through this training. 

This teacher training is part of KTH's ambitions to better support our students in preparing for working in the collaborative, inter- and trans-disciplinary contexts of real world wicked societal challenges and contributing to sustainable development and transformation of society. The training is also promoting enhanced collaboration between universities, industry, public sector, and civil society, and involvment of more teachers, students, and other stakeholders, in the activities of the KTH Global Development Hub (GDH). More information about CDE and GDH is provided below.

Elegibility: You should be an experienced teacher with formal teacher education corresponding to LH231V Teaching and Learning in Higher Education 7.5 credits or equivalent from KTH or other universities.

For more information, please contact Anders Rosén, aro@kth.se.

Course format and schedule

The course is conducted online, blending synchronous online webinars with asynchronous home assignments. All course information, zoom links for the webinars, etc, are provided through the course's Canvas learning management system. Since you should be an experienced teacher to participate, and since CDE is a relatively new concept that is still in evolution, you will as participant be considered a co-creator of this course and co-developer of the CDE concept. Well prepared and active participation in the webinars is therefore required for your own learning as well as for your contribution to the other participants' learning and our joint explorations. The course corresponds to 3 ECTS credits which means that you in total, including webinars and homework, are expected to spend about 80 hours on completing the course.

Webinars 2025:

Intended learning outcomes

The objective is that the participants after finishing the course should be able to design and implement challenge-driven project courses. This implies that the participants should be able to:

1. explain and discuss the concepts challenge driven education, sustainable development, innovation, key competencies, and implement these concepts in learning activities;
2. identify and analyze societal challenges and solutions in relation to UN’s Sustainable Development Goals;
3. describe, apply and introduce students to specific design methods and creativity methods suitable for open ended socio-technical projects;
4. formulate relevant learning objectives for challenge-driven learning processes and plan for and perform appropriate assessment and grading of individual students in team projects;
5. apply methods for engaging external stakeholders in challenge-driven projects;
6. plan for and assess the impact of challenge-driven projects;
7. select, apply, and motivate methodologies and exercises facilitating collaboration and innovativeness in multi-disciplinary student projects.

Examination

The course is examined through prepared and active participation in all webinars, a short project report including a personal reflection, and peer review of other participants' reports.

Background to CDE & GDH

The grand challenges for humanity in the 21st century, for example as expressed by UN:s 2030 Agenda and the Sustainable Development Goals, are calling for substantial transformations of society to ensure a healthy planet and peaceful, just, and sustainable living conditions for ourselves and future generations. These challenges are also drivers of change of the education system, where the traditional focus on developing students' knowledge within specific disciplines must be complemented to better support the students in preparing for living in and acting on these challenges.

Challenge-Driven Education (CDE) is an evolving learning approach that is implemented somewhat differently in different contexts. It is a project-based approach where students are learning by developing solutions, interventions, or deeper understanding of societal challenges related to sustainable development. The challenges, that constitutes the targets for the projects and the context for the learning, are commonly identified and explored in close collaboration with some external stakeholders, it can be industry, public sector, civil society, or a mix.

The purpose of CDE is to create conditions for active, experiential, inter- and transdisciplinary learning where students’, in addition to applying and deepening disciplinary knowledge and professional skills, get opportunities to develop key sustainability competencies. CDE can also enable transformative learning where students can question and change their own and others' ways of seeing and thinking about the society and the world, and take action for transformative change. CDE has potential to have actual impact on the sustainable development and transformation of society, through mutual learning and innovation-capacity building, innovations emerging from the student projects, and by empowering students in becoming sustainability change agents.

The teacher training LH233V has been developed and is run in collaboration with the KTH Global Development Hub (GDH), where KTH in close partnership with universities in sub-Saharan Africa, through challenge-driven education, innovation, and research, engage in mutual capacity building and interventions that address UN's Sustainable Development Goals. Through a mobility program and online collaborative opportunities, our students can come together either physically or virtually at KTH or at any of the partner universities, to collaborate with various external stakeholders in projects that are addressing local challenges related to the SDGs. 

Information about other teaching and learning courses at KTH

Overview of all courses in Teaching and Learning in Higher Education