Grand Challenges

Situation / Context

Grand Challenges is a 20 ECTS year-long capstone module offered in the Business School to 4th year undergraduates (BUU44540 – Grand Challenges).

The module has been running since 2022, thus currently in its third year. The aim is to have a class size capped at 30 - 35, however over the past three years it has had 26, 80, and 43 students respectively.

The learning from the module focuses on leadership development through challenge-based learning. A large portion of the course is student-led with the lecturer acting as a guide and facilitator of the process and learning environment.

Task / Goal

What was your goal regarding embedding sustainability into the module (or programme)?

The Grand Challenges capstone module aims to develop critical, collaborative, and independent students who do not just hold knowledge but know how to synthesise and apply the learning they have gathered over the past four years of their degree (and indeed, across their lifetimes).

Students who successfully complete the Grand Challenges capstone module should be well-equipped to lead in uncertainty, which aligns with the competencies required for ESD. They should be aware of their own skills and abilities and know how to work with others to achieve more than they could alone.

Actions / Implementation

1. SDG’s - which ones did you cover, and have you followed the wedding cake approach?

Providing a learning framework through CBL, and reflective practices of leadership the Capstone supports SDG 4 in terms of creating lifelong learners.

The application of other SDGs align to the challenge, and thus some years the SDGs are directly addressed (eg. Food in 2022/23 links SDG 2 and 4) but other years the topics are much broader (eg. Fabric in 2024/25) and thus clusters appear once the students have refined the challenge to their own personal challenges. In 2024/25 SDGs 3, 5, 8, 10, 13, and 16 have emerged strongly through the range of challenges refined by the class.

2. ESD Competencies – which ones are embedded in the learning outcomes and how?

There are seven module learning outcomes. Each outcome captures a leadership skill and is elaborated with a learning description (Table 1), and a link to an ESD competency.

LO1 Leadership:	Understand how to apply content knowledge of leadership competencies and theory in a challenge-based context.	Normative Competency & Integrated Problem Solving
LO2 Initiating transformation:	Use own (or group) leadership and business capacity to prototype solutions through real actions to overcome identified challenges.	Strategic Competency
LO3 Communication:	Successfully communicate ideas, and facilitate conversations, to develop your research, goals, network, or empathy.	Normative Competency & Critical Thinking
LO4 Collaboration:	Foster networks that value personal growth, inclusivity, and creativity.	Collaborative Competency
LO5 Self-awareness:	Recognise own emotions, values, purpose and drivers and how these influence your leadership style.	Self-Awareness & Critical Thinking
LO6 Synthesis:	Develop logical connections between research, actions taken, work done, skills developed, and competencies built.	Systems Thinking
LO7 Readiness:	Prepare oneself to engage with grand challenges beyond graduation and be proactive in future business.	Anticipatory

Competencies developed under each outcome on examination are closely linked to ESD competencies (UNESCO, 2017, p. 55).

3. Teaching & Assessment Strategies – what was the teaching, learning and assessment strategy and how were students supported in completing the teaching, learning and assessment activity types?

Challenge Based Learning is used as the teaching and assessment strategy for this module.

Challenge Based Learning (CBL) provides an efficient and effective framework for learning while solving real-world Challenges (Nichols et al, 2016). CBL has three iterative phases: Engage; Investigate and Act. Figure 1 illustrates how these phases are distributed throughout the two semesters.

Figure 1

Table 2 illustrates how the students are supported through activities to develop the ESD competencies.

ESD Competency	Description:
Systems Thinking	Applied in the Grand Challenges module through challenge formation using a systems approach. Students engage with materials on systems thinking and wicked problems to understand and formulate a systemic challenge.
Anticipatory Competency	Students use anticipation when forming their ‘evidence-based plan’ by investigating their systems challenge and then using this information to develop an action that they will undertake in Semester 2. Planning the action is creating their own visions for the future that they will then undertake and log their real time delivery of this future with assessment of pivots and changes as they occur.  This is captured in a portfolio.
Normative Competency	Students explore Theory U as a leadership principle that engages with the three spheres of self, other, and system in order to underpin and understand their own decision making based on their self-biases, network / peer influences, and systemic conditions.
Strategic Competency	Throughout the Grand Challenges module, students collectively develop and implement innovative actions at the local level (and some further afield depending on their access). The basis of challenge-based learning is to develop and carry out an action. Whilst students do not have to explicitly choose a sustainability action, by the process of using systemic challenges to develop their actions from, they have all been in the broad remit of sustainability (social, environmental or other).
Collaborative Competency	Grand Challenges uses a number of collaborative learning methods both implicitly and explicitly over the course: Explicit: All students must host sessions throughout the course by bringing in speakers, setting up speed networking sessions with researchers, or delivering book clubs. Peer feedback methods are used at several points through the course to: 1. Support with challenge formation, 2. Assess each other’s evidence-based plans, 3. Provide action learning sets during the action phase. Students can choose to carry out their investigations and actions in small groups if desired. Implicit: Every class has at least one interactive exercise where students will collaborate in class groups to discuss topics or debate ideas using a variety of formats such as fishbowl, troika, ‘self, pair, share’ etc. When undertaking their actions students will interact with a number of people who they must work alongside to deliver their action. While the actions are self-selected these people vary hugely, but always provide insights into collaboration, negotiation, network management, and empathic leadership.
Critical Thinking Competency	Critical thinking is applied throughout the capstone from the development of a challenge through to the portfolio of self-development, students are asked to critique themselves and the world around them. They are provided with a variety of inputs to help challenge their own thinking from researcher speed meetings, to class feedback, to peer action learning sets.
Self-Awareness	Journalling is practised in the course with taught content on how to journal, and different methods to suit different students. In addition the material on Theory U, personal values, world views, and circles of influence all contribute towards engagement with self-awareness.   The final portfolio is a reflective document that describes and showcases how each individual has developed skills and competencies across the course, it is a gathering of personal information combined with self-reflection.
Integrated Problem Solving	Challenge-based learning is a problem solving framework, and within this students also engage with texts on decision making (e.g. Student-led book clubs on: Thinking Fast and Slow, Daniel Kahneman(2011); Thinking in Bets, Annie Duke(2018); The Elements of Choice, Eric J. Johnson (2021)) and have to overcome a number of pivots and issues when carrying out their actions as almost all of the self-chosen actions do not unfold as the students had anticipated.

Assessment Strategies

• LO1 and LO7 are practised across the full course and captured in the leadership essay (Assessment, 25%, Semester2).
• LO1, LO3, LO5, and LO6 are demonstrated in the evidence-based plan. (Assessment 30%, Semester 1).
• LO2, LO3, and LO7 are practised in the hosted sessions. (Assessment 10%, Semester 1 or 2).
• LO2 – LO6 competencies are used as the section headings for the students’ final leadership portfolios (Assessment 35%, Semester 2), showcasing how they have developed these skills / competencies during the delivery of their action.

Evaluation

What feedback, of value, did you receive from the students who attended the module?

During the module: Regular contact with the students is used to adapt content to their learning needs both through in-class exercises that encourage them to discuss and share their support needs, and from one-to-one conversations with the students.

Via assessments: The assessments are designed to support the students' progress through the challenge-based learning methodology, as well as to assess them summatively. Each assignment provides valuable feedback to me (the lecturer) on the development of the students and how well they are engaging with the process, allowing support to be put in place as required.

The module assessments are designed to allow for creativity and flexibility, through the use of personal choice within assessments.

End of course feedback: Trinity carries out course feedback surveys that support with yearly planning and allow adaptation of the course from one group to the next.

Some examples of feedback from students:

• “Enrolling in this module in my final year has really enriched my educational journey. Each lecture brought new insights and I really enjoyed the challenge-based learning aspect of this module, which will prove especially beneficial as I transition into my future career in the finance sector. The practical applications of the theory and academic literature we explored in class have given me a solid foundation to apply these learnings and leadership competencies effectively in real-world scenarios post-graduation.”
• “I enjoyed the challenge of putting together a big project. The responsibility and creative control to do any action. The ability to do a practical project rather than a big thesis.”
• “I liked the concept behind the module that it's based around a topic and you have to do something outside the classroom”
• “I enjoyed: Collaboration with classmates; group based project approach; interactive classes; continuous assessment”

How would you rate student engagement with the module?

Engagement is high.

Class is well attended. Students are motivated during peer exercises and participate well. Students are vocal in discussing their challenges and actions through in class interactions, one-to-ones, and by email.

Successful engagement has also been noted through the participation of the students in extra-curricular events such as promoting Grand Challenges to their peers, speaking about Grand Challenges at University events (such as the Undergraduate Forum), and returning in future years to support the course as assessors and mentors.

How would you rate student learning from attending the module?

Students learn skills applicable in real world settings.

A sample of feedback follows:

• “I liked the fact that we were encouraged to get out of our shell and comfort zone which helped me be more confident and take initiative, taught me to try new things and take the first step to make a change.”
• “I really felt I was actually learning skills that would be useful to me in the future. I also felt engaged with my project as its something we all spent time selecting a researching.”
• “I have built my confidence in acting on ideas and challenges, which I was afraid to do in the past, and I think this will benefit me most once I graduate.”
• “This is a really informative module as I picked up real skills which will surely help me in the future.”

Reflections

What did you learn?

Feedback throughout the process is very important, in both directions.

• Students did not fully engage with the methodology of challenge-based learning when presented to them by the lecturer / in text. Engagement was much better after I adapted this to have a student-led session where they had to present challenge-based learning to the class in their own words.
• Grading rubrics are provided. However, students have reported, both in the first and second year, that they found the grading to be unclear. This has caused a level of dissatisfaction. I continue to try and hone the rubrics and assessment outlines to provide a balance between clarity and freedom of expression. Students are very happy with the feedback that supports the process, but not always with the grades.

Each class also has a class personality, so it is important to be flexible to tap into this.

Is there anything you would do differently?

In the third year of delivery, I have changed the initial sequence of the course from starting with self-engagement with a challenge, then broadening to other, and system, to starting from a systems perspective on a challenge (then channelling to other, and self). This change has resulted in a much more varied set of challenges being identified by the studebts to work on during the module. I assume this is due to students not having such clear ownership of their first challenge idea, since they are thinking systemically instead of personally, and thus can dissociate themselves from the challenge somewhat in the beginning, allowing them to be more open minded.

In the first year, students stated that the final portfolio didn’t have a high enough weighting in the overall mark scheme, so this was given higher weighting for future years.

Continuing to refine the assignments and rubrics with relation to clarity for grading. Generally, I continue to iterate and hone the experience.

Was there anything which surprised you or which you didn't expect?

The students are very capable and resourceful, and whilst this was not a surprise, it is always a pleasure to see just how much they can achieve.

Students are highly grade driven and this can stop them from being creative. They can worry about the assignments to the point that it affects their engagement in the process. They are seeking the ‘right’ answer rather than seeing the process as the learning experience from which there is sometimes no right answer, only a reflection of that process.

What are the main advantages of the approach to teaching, learning & assessment that you took? 

Learner buy-in: When students choose their own learning topic, they can become very passionate and driven to learn more / enact change.

What were the main challenges for using this approach?

Student engagement with this module is high when class numbers are kept low. While challenge-based learning is student-led, it requires a high level of facilitation to ensure students are engaging with the process and making good choices for themselves (using self-reflection and critique). With high class numbers it is possible for students to disengage and they can either get lost in the process or fabricate their actions.

Highly facilitated processes require smaller class sizes to be truly effective, and are fundamentally different from lecturing knowledge (even with interactive elements) which can be done with very large class sizes.

What advice would you give a colleague thinking about using this type of approach? 

Challenge-based learning approaches use strong facilitation and coaching skills that require both the teacher and learner to have faith in the process. Allowing the students to be leaders of their own learning journey is both challenging and enriching but must be approached with a strong methodology to underpin the process. This is for both the teacher’s comfort, and to show the students that there is a process. By taking it step-by-step they will learn more than by simply jumping to the end point.