Our Principles

Futures Literacy

Futures Literacy (FL) is a skill that empowers individuals to understand and navigate the role of the future in their actions and decisions. It involves using the human imagination to envision and create new possibilities. FL is comparable to traditional literacy and is accessible to everyone. It helps individuals enhance their preparedness, adaptability, and innovation by harnessing the power of future thinking.

FL is a relevant skill because conventional images of the future are being disrupted by challenges such as climate change, pandemics, and social issues, leading to a poverty-of-the-imagination. By developing FL, individuals can overcome this poverty by actively imagining and shaping alternative futures. It fosters collaboration, inspires hope, and empowers individuals to make informed choices in an uncertain and changing world. UNESCO recognizes the importance of FL in democratizing the origins of future images and transforming human governance by moving beyond the illusion of certainty and effectively utilizing the future.

For (future) teachers, FL plays a relevant role  for their profession, as they need to prepare students for the future, but are, at the same time, invited to act as “Change Agents of the Future”. At the teff Kick-Off event in October 2023, teff Chief Development Officer Prof. Dr. Beatrix Busse addressed this challenge in her inaugural speech, which can be found here.

Accessibility

Learning opportunities subscribe to an understanding of mobility as a tool to guarantee accessibility and participation irrespective of location, circumstances, abilities or financial situation.

We are committed to providing open and accessible educational resources (OER) to everyone. Our content creation process ensures that we meticulously verify the licenses of all third-party materials used to guarantee their compatibility with open licensing requirements.

By adhering to the principles of OER, we aim to promote the unrestricted dissemination of knowledge. All the materials generated for our courses and educational content are intended to be published under the free and permissive Creative Commons CC-BY license. This license allows others to freely use, adapt, and distribute the content while attributing the original creator (us). By utilizing the CC-BY license, we ensure that our materials can be widely accessed and shared, fostering a collaborative and inclusive educational environment. With open educational resources (OER), digital educational materials can be used directly, shared with others, and existing content can be rearranged into new materials without incurring any legal risks.

Agility

The teff Academy adopts an Agile Project Management methodology to ensure efficient and coherent implementation. The management approach emphasizes flexibility, teamwork, and individual empowerment. 

The Academy utilizes a Project Canvas, provided by Over the Fence, as a basic working structure and method to organize and manage the interface. This tool facilitates creative processes, visualizes progress, and enables monitoring and quality control. It adapts to different meeting formats, whether in-person or online, and can be used throughout the project for orientation, evaluation, and review. The Project Canvas serves as a toolbox for overall management, including finances and subgroup activities within work packages, allowing for agile and consistent project management.