The New York Times recently highlighted some innovative approaches to teaching and learning in "Building Skills Outside the Classroom With New Ways of Learning."

To many of us, these are hardly "new."

In the last several years, the Basecamp team has tracked macro-trends that can prepare learners for our VUCA (Volatile, Uncertain, Complex, Ambiguous) world. Some of the most important trends are:

1. xBL. As the New York Times article indicates, project-based learning, inquiry-based learning, and other forms of xBL empower learners to identify and solve problems they've never seen before. The Basecamp team believes that most xBL should require learners to collaborate, because pluralism is a competitive advantage and a moral, ethical imperative--especially in an uncertain world.

2. Social impact. In a networked global community and economy, what happens to some of us impacts all of us. Basecamp created the Expeditionaries program to help schools to form agents of positive social impact.

3. Exponential technologies. Much of what is "VUCA" about our world derives from exponential technologies. The Basecamp team loves how a school like Mount Vernon Presbyterian School combines its mission to "design a better world" with a tool like virtual reality, because its learners will lead the way as VR exerts more and more influence on our lives. And Basecamp collaborates with FutureSculpt precisely because of Viktor Venson's work designing virtual reality learning experiences for students and adults.

4. Partnerships. Schools that operate as silos condemn themselves to linear learning. Schools that participate in network unlock exponential learning. Partnerships with alumni, local community, corporations, and non-profits mirror the networked world into which learners will graduate. Bishop Kearney, for example, leverages their proximity to the Calko Medical Center to provide learners with internships.

How does your school prepare learners for an increasingly uncertain world?

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