Case Study in Brief
Description
This activity was part of the opening phase of a professional development workshop for teachers.
This activity was part of the opening phase of a professional development workshop for teachers.
It invites participants to imagine and design the school of the future, focusing on learning spaces, tools, and values understood as evolving processes.
The objectives of this activity are:
- To engage teachers in envisioning how to embed integrated, transdisciplinary, and experimental STEAM learning;
- To identify key elements and insights for designing learning environments that promote disciplinary integration and active student participation.
Dispatch From the Field
We propose this generative activity to imagine and reflect on how learning environments might evolve to support a STEAM approach based on experimental, inclusive, open, transformative, and participatory learning processes.
The activity is inspired by the artistic project What Education for Mars? by Valerio Rocco Orlando — a sort of inspiring “Article for the future” that served as the starting point for our session.
Participants work in pairs and in small groups to read selected excerpts from the introduction to the exhibition La società è un laboratorio (“Society is a Laboratory”). This is followed by a collective discussion on the themes and key concept explored by the artist such as listening, deep observation, care, transformation, and space as process. Key insights are noted on a flipchart.
We then introduce the Lifelong Kindergarten experience from the MIT Media Lab — a lab that promotes creative, exploratory, and interactive learning environments where children and young people learn by doing, making, sensing, playing, collaborating, and following their natural curiosity. Once again, insights from the group are collected, shared and recorded.
Next, we invite participants to take a leap into the future, just as Valerio Rocco Orlando did in his vision of education for Mars. Teachers can imagine working in a school where integrated, STEAM based, emotional, and real-world learning could easily take place, guided by reflective questions: What does this school look like? Do traditional classrooms still exist? What kinds of spaces are available? What do the walls, floors, and ceilings look like? What objects, tools, or technologies would they expect to find? What services, environments, type of relationships would be essential to support students as active participants in their own learning—and unlearning—processes?
Each group of teachers is invited to write a short and detailed description of their imagined school of the future, aiming to shape a concrete and transferable idea.
Then participants turn their written concepts into visuals using an artificial intelligence tool to generate images based on their descriptions. In our practice, w used accessible platforms like Canva but we also discussed the potential of more specialized AI tools. Comparing the generated visuals with the original ideas helped participants refine their descriptions and sharpened their choice of words to clarify their understandings and the underlying values.
Finally, each group can share and discuss their images for the future. The goal of this discussion is not only to exchange visions, but also to identify recurring or essential elements that could guide the next steps of our work in the workshop.
Some of the ideas that commonly emerge include: interactive walls for writing, projecting, and manipulating content; living natural elements growing inside the classroom; and soft, welcoming spaces to support students during moments of emotional distress.
Practical Details – Facilitator’s Notes
How did you modify the activity?
The activity “Article for the Future” was redesigned as the opening session of a workshop we held with teachers from various educational levels as a generative activity to outline key elements for STEAM and future making learning.
How did you organize the space?
We chose an indoor space, and organized it to support both group and collective work. Tables and comfortable seating were arranged to facilitate small group discussions and collaborative tasks. For the plenary moments and whole-group phases of the activity, we used a central room, which allowed everyone to come together to share insights and reflect collectively.
Who did you work with?
A group of Italian teachers from various educational levels
What resources did you use?
We used simple, accessible materials: post-its, pens, and flipchart paper for note-taking and visual mapping. Each group also had access to a tablet with the Canva app installed, which was used to create AI-generated visual representations of their imagined learning environments. These tools helped participants move fluidly between written ideas and visual experimentation.
What did you learn?
The use of artificial intelligence to create the images for the future proved particularly interesting, as it encouraged participants to refine, specify, and enrich their written descriptions and to work deeply with imagination. The interplay between words and generated visuals created a meaningful process that helped clarify the elements, solutions, and tools they were envisioning for the school of the future.
The recursive nature of the use of the AI generative tool also facilitated the sharing of ideas and supported a growing awareness of the key characteristics participants would like to see developed in their learning environments.
