42701 Global Issues Studio
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Subject handbook information prior to 2025 is available in the Archives.
Credit points: 6 cp
Result type: Grade, no marks
Requisite(s): 42700c Professional Learning Studio OR 42030c Technology Disruptors Studio
The lower case 'c' after the subject code indicates that the subject is a corequisite. See definitions for details.
Anti-requisite(s): 42039 Global Technology Issues Studio
Description
In today’s workplaces, professionals are expected to understand complex global issues that shape current and future practice in organisations. The 17 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) summarise key global issues that we collectively need to address, such as achieving good health and wellbeing, sustainable cities and communities, and responsible consumption and production. The Global Issues Studio gives students an opportunity to learn how to tackle these real-world challenges in the context of their workplaces and lives.
Students identify, develop, and work on projects that examine global issues and how they manifest and are addressed in local contexts. The studio supports students to identify suitable projects that connect to their workplace context and design processes for engaging with the global issue. Weekly sessions use in-class workshops and engagement with community and industry guest speakers to explore different tools for addressing global issues and support students to propose and evaluate innovative solutions. As the SDGs are future-focused and transformative, the studio makes particular use of futures thinking methods and sustainability transformations theories to guide student responses to a global issue.
The studio encourages students to draw on knowledge from their other subjects, such as systems thinking and design thinking, to address global issues. Students are required to undertake preparation, especially by making observations of their workplace context to inform their project.
Subject learning objectives (SLOs)
Upon successful completion of this subject students should be able to:
| 1. | Discuss global issues as they manifest in student workplaces. (B.1) |
|---|---|
| 2. | Design innovative processes and actions for engaging with global issues. (C.1) |
| 3. | Apply a technical approach for engaging with global issues. (D.1) |
| 4. | Collaborate with guest speakers and other students to develop and test responses. (E.1) |
| 5. | Reflect on the process of generating responses to global issues. (F.1) |
Course intended learning outcomes (CILOs)
This subject also contributes specifically to the development of the following Course Intended Learning Outcomes (CILOs):
- Socially Responsible: FEIT graduates identify, engage, and influence stakeholders, and apply expert judgment establishing and managing constraints, conflicts and uncertainties within a hazards and risk framework to define system requirements and interactivity. (B.1)
- Design Oriented: FEIT graduates apply problem solving, design thinking and decision-making methodologies in new contexts or to novel problems, to explore, test, analyse and synthesise complex ideas, theories or concepts. (C.1)
- Technically Proficient: FEIT graduates apply theoretical, conceptual, software and physical tools and advanced discipline knowledge to research, evaluate and predict future performance of systems characterised by complexity. (D.1)
- Collaborative and Communicative: FEIT graduates work as an effective member or leader of diverse teams, communicating effectively and operating autonomously within cross-disciplinary and cross-cultural contexts in the workplace. (E.1)
- Reflective: FEIT graduates critically self-review their own and others' performance with a high level of responsibility to improve and practice competently for the benefit of professional practice and society. (F.1)
Teaching and learning strategies
Learning will be self-directed, supported by the studio facilitators, guest experts and peers. Students will bring their own project to the studio from their workplace, and their first task will be to document the project and draw out its connection to the SDGs.
Students will be introduced to possible tools they could apply to their global issue in the early weeks of the studio. These will include futures tools such as visioning, scenarios, backcasting and causal layered analysis and tools from the field of sustainability transformations, such as the multi-level perspective and large-system change frameworks. These tools will be documented in online resources in Canvas for easy access.
Having chosen tools to apply, they will need to design and present a process for applying that tool to their project and global issue. Students will then be supported through the process of applying it themselves. Students will work in small groups to provide peer support and learning. Guest speakers will provide examples of how the tools are used in professional settings.
Having applied their tool, students will present and reflect on their outcomes to an industry panel and their peers. The panel and peers will provide feedback, and students will finalise their documentation, taking the feedback into account.
Content (topics)
- Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)
- Approaches for translating the SDGs to workplace contexts
- Futures thinking tools and methods
- Sustainability transformations tools and methods
Assessment
Assessment task 1: Document a challenge in your workplace and its connection to one of the SDGs
| Intent: | Learn about the SDGs and make connections with your workplace context |
|---|---|
| Objective(s): | This assessment task addresses the following subject learning objectives (SLOs): 1 This assessment task contributes to the development of the following Course Intended Learning Outcomes (CILOs): B.1 |
| Type: | Case study |
| Groupwork: | Individual |
| Weight: | 25% |
| Length: | 1,000 word project description and 5-minute presentation |
Assessment task 2: Present proposed process design
| Intent: | Demonstrate the ability to choose a suitable tool to apply to a global issue, design a process to apply that tool and communicate with a peer audience |
|---|---|
| Objective(s): | This assessment task addresses the following subject learning objectives (SLOs): 2, 3 and 4 This assessment task contributes to the development of the following Course Intended Learning Outcomes (CILOs): C.1, D.1 and E.1 |
| Type: | Presentation |
| Groupwork: | Individual |
| Weight: | 30% |
| Length: | 10-minute presentation |
Assessment task 3: Present outcomes of the project for peer and expert review
| Intent: | Demonstrate competence in application of a process to a global issue and communication of outcomes |
|---|---|
| Objective(s): | This assessment task addresses the following subject learning objectives (SLOs): 3, 4 and 5 This assessment task contributes to the development of the following Course Intended Learning Outcomes (CILOs): D.1, E.1 and F.1 |
| Type: | Presentation |
| Groupwork: | Group, group and individually assessed |
| Weight: | 45% |
| Length: | 20-minute presentation |
Minimum requirements
No marks, pass or fail
Required texts
UN SDGs website
Recommended texts
Annual SDGs Report (https://unstats.un.org/sdgs/report/2021/)
Canvas site documenting tools that can be used to address the SDGs
SDG Compass (https://sdgcompass.org/)
Inayatullah, S. (2008), "Six pillars: futures thinking for transforming", Foresight, Vol. 10 No. 1, pp. 4-21. https://doi.org/10.1108/14636680810855991.
Waddock, S., Waddell, S., Goldstein, B., Linnér, B.-O., Schäpke, N., & Vogel, C. (2020). Transformation - How to spur radical change. In Our Future on Earth (pp.82-89), Future Earth.