Can it really be true that artificial intelligence will sweep away jobs, industries, professions and more, revolutionising almost everything we currently do? Certainly, our jobs, our cars and our homes are already being transformed. But those of us hanging onto a vestige of hope for our species can point to the prediction that AI is unlikely to ever replace some skills. Foremost among them is our ability to be creative, problem-solve and innovate.

At Edinburgh College, we, along with our partners, have been concentrating on those skills for many years. Recognising the need for colleges and industries to be linked up more closely, we developed a mentoring programme to encourage employers to become involved in further education and give hands-on, vocational guidance to students. However, as the work evolved, we realised we should also extend our reach in the other direction, back towards potential students still in secondary education. But what would be the best way to do all that?

We started by analysing the problem. We felt strongly that, on a general level, schools and colleges were not always providing an overlapping, integrated approach to secondary school subjects. This would allow pupils to understand that the subjects they studied at school were precursors to those they could take in FE and that they would connect with their working lives.

Another issue was that it can sometimes be a challenge to persuade educators, students, and parents that something as amorphous, intangible and subjective as “creativity” could lead to a fulfilling, stable career to rival the more traditional alternatives.

We knew we would have to make those links clear to secondary teachers and pupils. That would mean highlighting the plethora of reports predicting that technology, computerisation and AI are going to affect the labour market by targeting process-driven roles for automation. We would also need to explain that most forecasters believe the roles that cannot be readily replaced are those requiring invention, creativity and innovation - the individuals with the most protection in the job market will be those who dream for a living.

So we decided to focus on developing creative skill sets within an integrated work-learning environment; the value we placed on them already in our college was significant. Our challenge was to support teachers in schools to also value and deliver these essential skills, and to examine ways that our partners and employers could connect and share their expertise.

Seeing is believing

What we came up with was Daydream Believers - a programme containing resources to facilitate the teaching of creative thinking, problem-solving and innovation, designed for secondary school teachers to deliver across a range of disciplines.

It happened like this. In June 2017, 20 pupils aged 12-14, from schools across Edinburgh, became our first “Daydream Believers”. The aim of the week-long project was to introduce those pupils to creative thinking, similar to that taught at college and used in the work environment. The initiative was run by our student ambassadors.

We gave the pupils a brief to brand and promote a product. Our student ambassadors introduced them to the structure and processes involved throughout the project. Along the way, they were guided on how to explore initial concepts, and then to identify the strongest solutions and develop them through to a finished product. The culmination was a final presentation to the prospective client.

The structure of this exercise contained elements that could be applied across a range of subjects in the curriculum.

The advantages of the project were twofold. The ambassadors benefited from the opportunity to teach and guide younger learners, and to increase their confidence and self-belief. Those still in school were not only introduced to an FE style of teaching and learning but were also given an insight into what was possible. For some of those school pupils, it would have been the first time they had seen “someone like them” pursuing a creative route through education.

It was a success. The number of school pupils taking up placements with employers in creative and non-creative industries increased on the back of their experience of the project. Teachers also reported that students who had been part of the initiative appeared to benefit in regard to their overall engagement and success at school.

But the issue of delivery and upscaling needed to be addressed. Although the pilot project was successful, its format was always going to have practical and resource limitations - the most obvious of which were staffing, location and scheduling. At the forefront of those problems was our intervention being limited to schools in Edinburgh when we wanted to reach across the country. And the experience was just a week long. Real change called for a more sustained intervention.

Clearly, we had the right idea and methodology, but we needed to address the shortcomings and develop the vehicle for delivery. So we looked for alternatives. The most obvious solution seemed to be an online resource that would be free and accessible regardless of location. It would need to give teachers the skills to coach and facilitate ways of learning based on play, innovation, context and purpose. That platform would require significant initial investment and resources, but would result in a high-value, low-cost asset in the long term. We got to work.

At the start of the project, we partnered with Skyscanner, AmazeRealise and Whitespace. These companies each designed a project and provided resources for a one-hour weekly class, working with 12- to 13-year-olds in secondary schools for 15 weeks. We asked our partners to provide the context for three essential skills: complex problem-solving, critical thinking and creativity. They achieved this through various mediums, including case studies, video content and digital presentations.

With the support of the teachers and the six high schools involved in the pilot (Tynecastle, Balerno, Ross, Liberton, Royal and Drummond), we created lesson plans and helped our employers to pitch their content at the relevant level.

In one case study, pupils were set a project called “Ditch the Device” by designers at Whitespace, using their design tool Stand Out. The brief was to come up with a way to persuade pupils to spend less time on their phones, using such methods such as an advert or campaign, a film or animation, a product or digital experience, or a stunt.

In another case study, pupils were set a project about problems they faced on a day-to-day basis and were supported with creative tools to come up with solutions.

But putting this together was not easy. Funding was a challenge. Everyone involved has a day job and this is a non-profit programme, reliant on the huge goodwill and enthusiasm of its contributors. To make this happen, we had to learn new skills, such as how to write funding applications and pitch the idea. However, after a long but enjoyable gestation, the Daydream Believers website (daydreambelievers.co.uk) was launched last month with more than 215 hours’ worth of lessons from 10 contributors, employers, colleges and universities.

Based on our pilot data, we expect this to be a success. Shionagh Primrose, a teacher at Tynecastle High School in Edinburgh, which has trialled the resources during the past year, says it has been “an incredible experience, not just for the students, but for myself”.

Real-world impact

Primrose adds: “It’s been amazing watching their confidence grow over the weeks, seeing skills such as cooperative working, problem-solving and critical thinking being developed and used to produce really creative solutions to briefs. It has affected my teaching and learning content and how I will deliver the design element of our course.”

Indeed, we found teachers were eager and willing to take up the offer of the Daydream Believers programme once they understood it. They could see we that were providing them with a tool that was built on their core skills as teachers. The direct association with employers and employability also provided them with the satisfaction that what they were doing could be applied in the real world.

If we are to continue delivering impactful content, then we must keep up with the pace of change and will need help. We are asking other colleges to share the link to the resources with schools and to consider how they could engage with them. Ultimately, we want to break down barriers between education sectors and get everyone working together, not against each other.

When people with the same dreams, passion and energy sit around a table, things happen. And that has certainly been our experience on the Daydream Believers programme. Here’s to the dreamers and the believers!

Helena Good is a design lecturer at Edinburgh College. She tweets @helenamgood

This article originally appeared in the 27 September 2019 issue under the headline “Dreaming for a living”