what is it?
Housed within the Gabelli Center for Teaching and Learning, the Education Futures Lab is a collaborative space for imagining new possibilities in teaching, learning, and democratic life.
why is it important?
Across higher education, faculty and students alike are grappling with profound questions about the future of teaching and learning. The rapid acceleration of artificial intelligence, the climate crisis, intensifying inequities, and growing social and political divides are reshaping what it means to educate for democratic life.
The Lab invites our community to respond to change while actively designing new possibilities. Drawing on critical and postfoundational theories, we cultivate practices of critical imagination—moving beyond human-centered assumptions about education to consider the entanglements of humans, nonhumans, technologies, and ecologies. Together, we can reimagine education for the complex challenges of our time.
Questions We’re Exploring
- What does K–16 education look like in an age of artificial intelligence?
- How can we reimagine the liberal arts to address planetary crises?
- What kinds of knowledge, skills, and practices will be necessary for education in the mid-21st century?
Our Goals
- Foster interdisciplinary community: Build relationships among faculty, graduate students, and undergraduates committed to the future of education.
- Introduce critical frameworks: Provide accessible entry points into posthumanism, design thinking, and futures studies.
- Develop innovative practices: Support participants in experimenting with new forms of teaching, research, and public scholarship.
Allyson Compton, Ph.D. 