1 Introduction

The concept of “competence” is broader and includes the knowledge to be acquired, but it also includes skills and attitudes. It is not enough for a professional to have a lot of knowledge. It is necessary to know how to mobilize the knowledge in solving problems or in creating something innovative. It is the ability to mobilize knowledge, values, and decisions to act relevant in a given situation.

The UNESCO Delors Report—also known as “The Four Pillars of twenty-first Century Education”—is a cornerstone when we think about learning and skills needed in the contemporary world. It is the end product of the work of the International Commission on Education for the twenty-first Century, whose work was coordinated by Jacques Delors (1996). The report was published in book format in 1999, entitled “Learning: the treasure within”. It also proposed an education aimed at the four skills that are expected to be necessary for a citizen of the twenty-first century: learn to know, learn to do, learn to live with others, and learn to be. According to Perrenoud (2000), the meaning of competence is endowed with multiple meanings, but he defines it as an ability to act effectively in a given type of situation, supported by knowledge, but without limit. His research demonstrates that a situation can be faced in the best possible way when we synergize various cognitive resources complementarily. Almost every action triggers the mobilization of some knowledge, sometimes sparse and elementary, and sometimes complex and networked. These actions manifest competences that are not only knowledge, but mobilize it. The construction of skills, therefore, is inseparable from the formation of knowledge mobilization schemes with discernment, in real time, at the service of effective action (Perrenoud, 2000).

Perrenoud (2000) also presents the school in a more utilitarian view, being a place where students learn to read, write, count, but also to reason, explain, summarize, observe, compare, draw and dozens of other general capabilities. Knowledge is organized into subjects and, therefore, into acquired knowledge, but the school is not concerned with linking these resources to life situations.

The author relates this issue to the process of training teachers, and it is up to the teacher to have developed skills to: design and manage problem situations adjusted to the level and students’ possibilities; acquire a longitudinal view of the teaching objectives; establish links with the theories underlying the learning activities; observe and evaluate students in learning situations, according to a formative approach; make periodic assessments of skills and make decisions about progression (Perrenoud, 1999, 2000).

In this context, he defends the need to develop ten essential skills: organize and direct learning situations; manage the progression of learning; design and evolve the differentiation devices; involve students in their learning and work; work in a team; participate in the administration of the school; inform and involve parents; use new technologies; face the duties and ethical dilemmas of the profession; as well as manage your own continuing education.

2 Skills for Now and Then

Many of these skills listed are related to the concept of Future Skills that this chapter is based on. Future Skills, in the context of teachers’ training, allow individuals to solve complex problems in a professional and rapidly-changing context with an organized and successful action. The actions indicated require the development of communication, cooperation, reflection, decision-making capacity, pro-activity, ethics, innovation, and learning literacy skills.

It is recognized, therefore, the need to rethink education and pedagogical action to improve the quality of learning. However, little has been discussed about how to intentionally and explicitly develop twenty-first Century Skills, or Future Skills (Scott, 2015). Notice that, in the context of this chapter, it is more important to think about the skills needed to educate better teachers than a specific definition. We use several sources in order to build this foundation, as can be seen.

In this sense, Saavedra and Opfer (2012) recommend nine premises for teaching twenty-first Century Skills: (1) make learning relevant to the ‘big picture’; (2) teach through the disciplines; (3) develop lower and higher order thinking skills to encourage understanding in different contexts; (4) encourage transfer of learning; (5) teach how to ‘learn to learn’ or metacognition; (6) address misunderstandings directly; (7) promote teamwork; (8) exploit technology to support learning; and (9) foster students’ creativity.

Scott (2015) concluded that:

Above all, studies have found that learners are more successful at acquiring new competencies when they build strong metacognitive abilities, reflect objectively on new concepts learned, and integrate that information with their existing knowledge and skills. The process of adapting new knowledge for their own use and incorporating it into their existing conceptual frameworks will support further learning. Once new learning is integrated into existing ‘ways of knowing’, this in turn nurtures creativity and originality and establishes new cognitive habits. Critical thinking skills are also enhanced. (Scott, 2015, p. 3)

From this, the author researched several methodologies or pedagogical aspects that allow the teacher to help in the development of the skills of the future. They are: focus on quality; foster participation; personalize and customize learning; emphasize project and Problem-Based Learning; encourage collaboration and communication; engage and motivate learners; cultivate creativity and innovation; and employ appropriate learning tools.

Many of these pedagogical aspects can be seen in the Interdisciplinary Project (IP) at Virtual University of São Paulo State—Univesp (Brazil). The IP is guided by Project-Based Learning—PBL (Araujo & Sastre, 2009) and Human-Centered Design—HCD (Brown, 2010; Plattner et al., 2011). Pedagogical action in the IP is based on the principle of the inseparability of the relationship between theory and practice. In this direction, in methodological terms, the projects are planned by the students to be carried out in teams, a fundamental condition for developing Future Skills, focusing on problem solving and the formation of collaborative knowledge networks.

The main aim of this chapter is to present the concept of the IP at Univesp and correlate the skills proposed in the teachers’ education at Univesp with Future Skills. According to Ehlers (2020), Future Skills are related “to dealing with the social, organizational and institutional environment. This includes skills such as creating meaning and value, the ability to shape the future, to cooperate with others and to be able to communicate, criticize and reach a consensus, also in intercultural contexts” (p. 82). As a hypothesis, we assess that Univesp is a leader in this area, especially in Brazil, and can train teachers with skills for a better education in the future.

3 The Interdisciplinary Project Model

Created in 2012, Univesp is the fourth university in the state of São Paulo, Brazil, that offers education in the distance learning model. Currently, there are nine undergraduate programs on offer, totaling around 55,000 students. For face-to-face support for these programs, 330 learning centers are distributed in 290 cities, which allows the university to reach more than 44% of the territory of the state.

The university’s pedagogical model consists of five fundamental axes, which connect and complement each other: expansion of access to higher education; focus on student; interaction; digital inclusion; training for professional practice (Garbin & Oliveira, 2019). This model gains an interface in a Virtual Learning Environment (VLE), the way in which the university makes available to its students the training paths of each program.

Univesp, which is a public institution, has a curriculum for teachers’ education based on active methodologies, the Interdisciplinary Project (IP) and pedagogical use of technologies. Since its creation, its mission has been based on promoting knowledge as a public good, universalizing access to formal education and education for citizenship, applying innovative methodologies and intensive use of information and communication technologies applied to education.

The institution offers graduation in the distance modality, so it seeks to use the most effective and current technologies to support the entire learning process. Thus, the courses are offered through a Virtual Learning Environment, where all the contents are made available. In addition, all communication and learning are carried out with the support of digital technologies. Thus, teachers prepare a learning roadmap for students with materials and study guidelines. In addition, they have the support of tutors, who guide the development of activities, as a pedagogical facilitator.

In addition to the regular disciplines and internships, the university has what is called the Interdisciplinary Project (IP). The IP is guided by the concept of active learning methodologies such as Project-Based Learning (PBL) (Araujo & Sastre, 2009) and Human-Centered Design (HCD) (Brown, 2010; Plattner et al., 2011), that puts students in the center of the learning process. In PBL, students are invited to carry out actions in a collaborative way, based on curiosities, doubts and problematizations, giving rise to processes that will be researched in order to seek possible solutions. To arrive at solutions, students use the principles of HCD, which integrate multidisciplinary and interactive collaboration with the creation of innovative solutions, with an emphasis on the user. One of the foundations of this model is the construction of prototypes to solve the problem, which are continuously tested, until a model capable of being implemented is reached. Through problem solving and collaborative learning, students will be exposed to activities that aim to relate curriculum content to pedagogical foundations, to master not only the specific content, but also the pedagogical practices necessary to teach them.

This approach is supported by three phases for the development of these prototypes or solutions: hear, create, and implement, which are carried out continuously, as illustrated in Fig. 17.1.

Fig. 17.1
A cyclic diagram represents the phases of the interdisciplinary project. The 3 phases organized in a clockwise manner are labeled Implement, Hear, and Create.

The phases of the Interdisciplinary Project

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In the “hearing” step, dialogue between the project team and the educational community for which the solution is being developed is required. Thus, it is from the data collected in the initial phase of “listening” that solutions are designed. During the “creation” phase, students use digital tools for collective work that helps in the search for solutions that really impact the solution. The last step refers to the “implementation” of the solution, whose purpose is to verify whether the needs identified during the other processes with the community were met.

The focus on the subjects, which arises from curiosities, doubts, individual and collective problematizations, gives rise to themes that will be investigated by students in order to seek elements that help to respond to the problem that generated it.

The Interdisciplinary Project starts in the second semester and will be developed in each semester, totaling 6 projects over 480 h at the end of the program. Working in small groups and guided by a tutor, who works as a pedagogical facilitator, students must research and solve problem situations related to the reality and daily life of the program’s knowledge area, so that they complete the following steps throughout the semester:

  1. 1.

    Define the work team (maximum 7 students per group).

  2. 2.

    Conduct theoretical research or research on practices that have already been developed on the topic.

  3. 3.

    Choose a partner school for the development of the project.

  4. 4.

    Research with the school the viable possibilities for the development of the project and the proposal.

  5. 5.

    Propose and apply the proposal at school, identifying the steps to be taken.

  6. 6.

    Deliver the partially fulfilled IP for the professor’s assessment.

  7. 7.

    Finalize and deliver the activity, considering the professor’s suggestions.

All teams have a tutor specifically chosen to accompany the pedagogical actions of the collaborative work and who holds fortnightly meetings with the teams. Currently, the tutors are professionals from different areas, who are taking their master’s or PhD at universities in the state of São Paulo (Brazil) and participate in a training program at the institution in question.

Throughout the semester, as an evaluation process, students deliver: action plan, partial report, final report and project presentation by a video, as well as performing a collaborative evaluation. Each of these activities is evaluated by the mentor, who provides constructive feedback to the teams.

When developing the IP, students come into contact with professionals in the area of their program and, in this way, experience aspects of their future professional practice. From this methodological context, the teams analyze the professional context in which they are inserted as student-researchers, to identify problem situations that constitute the observed practices and propose solutions to them that must, in turn, be implemented and tested in a cycle of carrying out the project.

To support the performance of collaborative work by IP teams, especially in the face-to-face modality, the centers are configured as strategic spaces for teams to carry out meetings and research, in addition to offering technological infrastructure that helps communication and interaction. It is also at the hubs that teams have the opportunity to meet face-to-face with their IP mentors.

The IP was created to provide students contact with the professional world, in this case, the schools and classrooms. However, it also aims at the development of different skills throughout their own development, which allows the teacher in training to develop skills that will be important to them in their daily work. Thus, teacher education at the university seeks to train professionals beyond that utilitarian view of knowledge, as seen in Perrenoud (1999, 2000).

Future Skills can be found in the development of the IP actions. Through problem solving and collaborative learning, students will be exposed to activities that aim to relate curricular contents to pedagogical foundations, in order to master not only the specific contents, but also the pedagogical practices necessary to teach them. The Basic Education teacher’s competence is not restricted only to the specific knowledge of Pedagogy, but also to the relationship between this knowledge and “teaching–learning”, as well as the ways of being a teacher and teaching. It is necessary that the future teacher in training be exposed to reflections on content to be taught in Kindergarten and Elementary School I; know the school reality and its context; be in contact with research in the area of Education that addresses difficulties identified in learning basic content; analyze content and new approaches to school programs; and discuss the potential of technological tools for learning Pedagogy and developing teaching activities in these different environments. To program and execute new teaching experiences, both from the point of view of basic education and from the methodological point of view, is to experience a teaching practice in the classroom.

Future Skills enable individuals to efficiently solve complex problems in any given context. The IP allows undergraduate students to experience their work context and to understand the school context in depth. In this way, it allows a professional experience for undergraduates, which will impact the way they conceive of their profession, as will be discussed in sequence.

4 The Interdisciplinary Project: Developing Skills for the Future of Learning

Zabala (1998), whose work as an advisor to the Spanish Ministry of Education revolutionized teaching in the country, states about competence in the professional field that the school system must train people for innovation. They should become capable of evolving, of adapting to a changing world, but without losing sight of the individual committed to the social and economic transformation and with a society that guarantees the right to work. For him, in order to teach skills, the starting point must be work centered on the context of real problem situations, with a global approach.

In addition, Paulo Freire (1996) qualifies the activity of teaching as a human specificity that requires competence, professional skill, methodical rigor, affection among those involved in the teaching–learning process.

For Tardif et al. (1991), teaching knowledge represents a set of knowledge from different sources, among them: textbooks, school programs, contents, as well as the experience acquired in the profession. In this way, they present four distinct categories of knowledge:

  • Professional, which was built throughout the teacher’s training, based on the science of education, therefore, related to pedagogy, techniques and teaching methods.

  • Disciplinary, related to the different areas of knowledge offered in professional training institutions, for example, chemistry, physics, biology and mathematics.

  • Curricula is specific to the organization of educational institutions, and related to the objectives, contents and methods present in the specific teaching programs of each organization.

  • Experiential arises from the teaching action during the development of the profession, that is, from the pedagogical action.

Such knowledge is plural and heterogeneous, as the teacher, in his teaching practice, articulates it in different ways over time and in everyday situations. In contrast to this definition, Tardif (2008) points out that the practice of teacher training programs occurs in an applicational way, that is, future teachers consume theories in class formats and then apply their knowledge at the moment of practice, in the internship: “in a discipline, learning is knowing. But, in practice, learning is doing and knowing by doing” (Tardif, 2008, p. 271).

Therefore, teacher education acquires particular relevance in today’s complex, unstable and globalized world and should encourage reflection so that teachers are able to analyze teaching situations, institutional and social contexts based on their experience (Oliveira, 2019). Thus, the logic of skills presupposes the integration between training and teaching work, valuing personal skills, know-how, know-how-to-talk, know-how-to-undertake, know-how-to-use different technologies. In this sense, there can only be a significant teaching action from the construction of knowledge aimed at Future Skills.

Given this context, it is important to think of a teacher training curriculum that seeks to articulate theory and practice, so that future teachers can develop new knowledge, such as new experiences, as indicated by Tardif (2008), or even articulate professional skills from an early moment as Zabala (1998) points out. In the curriculum developed at Univesp, moments of practice occur throughout the training program, precisely to provide new experiences to trainees and to be able to articulate and to build different skills.

The IP, as mentioned earlier, is an application of professional practice articulated with the contents of each of the training programs. In it, students, through the resolution of a problem, articulate and develop at least six important skills for the contemporary global world. The skills can be seen in Table 17.1.

Table 17.1 Interdisciplinary Project Skills
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Such skills are related to the concept initially defined in this work, which is Future Skills. The IP promotes an interaction between subjects, emphasizing the need for interpersonal communication, which generates negotiations of meanings for the establishment of a common aim and cooperation. In addition, it takes place in a school, a place of cultural plurality, where the teacher in training is placed in a situation that generates knowledge about their professional, intercultural and organizational context. According to Ehlers (2020, p. 278): “higher education would mainly be organized around one key objective: to enable the development of graduates’ Future Skills, i.e. complex problem solving, dealing with uncertainty or developing a sense of responsibility”.

The first skill is the Investigative in which it is expected that students are able to use academic knowledge already built and relate it to the problem under study. To this end, they carry out actions such as: Search the scientific knowledge related to the program; Use scientific knowledge to solve the problem under study; Develop scientific knowledge related to the program area; Relate the scientific knowledge developed in the program with professional practice.

The second listed skill is Problem Solving in which it is expected that students are able to understand and solve a problem scenario related to professional practice. To this end, they carry out actions such as: Understand PBL and HCD; Identify problem scenarios facing a subject; Define a problem scenario for project development; Define an action plan; Develop actions that lead to the solution of the problem (data collection, field visits, reflection on the problem); Implementation.

The third skill is the Collaborative one, in which it is expected that students are able to jointly build skills in a group of people that have a common goal to be achieved. To this end, they carry out actions such as: Understand your role in the context of collaborative work; Understand the importance of establishing common goals; Interact with the team; Negotiate agreements and directions with group members.

The next skill is related to Communication, in which it is expected that students develop the ability to communicate using different languages and channels. To this end, they carry out actions such as: Make schemes to systematize communication; Writing; Spiking; Systematize and synthesize; Take ownership of collaborative writing; Academic writing.

The fifth is related to Professional skills, in which it is expected that students develop the ability to relate the knowledge developed in the program with the professional field. To this end, they carry out actions such as: Make schemes, systematize and synthesize; Application of information in IP; Actions to exercise autonomy.

The last one is related to Technological skills, in which it is expected that students develop the ability to use technological tools to solve a given problem. To this end, they carry out actions such as: Make schemes, systematize and synthesize; Appropriation of digital tools.

Thus, in the development of the Interdisciplinary Project, students are expected to develop at least these skills, which connect with the skill profiles as indicated by Ehlers (2020). We can observe organization-related skills such as Communication and Cooperation Competence; object-related ones such as Digital Literacy, Design-Thinking Competence, Innovation Competence; subject development-related ones such as Self-Efficacy, Reflective Competence, Decision and Ethical Competence, as we can see in the publications referred to in the next passage.

In this proposed model, it is important to mention that Univesp is a very new university, and the IP model has been developed by people linked to the institution since its beginning. The proposed model starts with the offer of continuing education courses for teachers and is adapted until reaching the current model. The trajectory and some results of this process has been previously published (see Garbin et al., 2017, 2020a, 2020b, 2021; Garbin & Favaro, 2021). The creation of IP in particular is described in Araujo, Fruchter et al. (2014) and Garbin et al. (2017). However, it was during the years 2020 and 2021 that a group of people from the university began to identify what are the expected skills developed with the IP. Table 17.1, therefore, summarizes the work developed.

The work to identify skills has gone through the following phases: 1) identify the main points for the training of professionals in university programs that have the IP in their curriculum; 2) Review the didactic material of all IPs offered; 3) Identify the actions carried out by students within the HCD and PBL process (listening, creating and implementing); 4) Categorize actions into main categories; and finally, 5) Create a list of skills to be developed by students over 4 years.

In this sense, it is important to emphasize that the student is not expected to develop all the skills in a single IP. As mentioned, a total of six IPs is developed throughout the programs and in each of them, students advance in the construction of skills. In this process, the idea that students learn at different paces and in different styles is also valued.

Therefore, the process is open, although there is a suggested agenda for students, and they must deliver the assessment activities. Throughout the semester, as an evaluation process, students deliver: action plan, partial report, final report, and project presentation video, as well as performing a collaborative evaluation. Each of these activities is evaluated by the mentor, who provides constructive feedback with the teams.

Each of these activities presupposes assistance in the development of a skill. In the reports, students need to demonstrate through theoretical foundations how the knowledge developed in the other subjects studied helped in solving the problem, in addition to graphically demonstrating the evolution of the solution conceived by their group. They also need to describe the location or community for whom they are developing their solution, thus relating to their professional field.

In the action plan, students are expected to plan the actions that will be developed throughout the semester. In the video, students need to demonstrate what the problem under study was and how they managed to solve it, with the participation of the community.

Finally, they take stock of the team’s participation, scoring how each member helped in the process and how they could improve their participation in future IPs. All activities are developed and delivered collectively.

The IP content is developed biweekly, precisely so that adaptations to the initial agenda provided by the university are possible. For the development of the PBL and HCD steps, the agenda initially indicates to students:

  1. 1.

    First fortnight—Definition of the group, approach to the topic, choice of location and on-site observation;

  2. 2.

    Second fortnight—Definition and study of the problem;

  3. 3.

    Third fortnight—Field visit and solution definition;

  4. 4.

    Fourth fortnight—Definition of the solution;

  5. 5.

    Fifth fortnight—Collection of suggestions with the external community;

  6. 6.

    Sixth fortnight—Rethinking the solution;

  7. 7.

    Seventh fortnight—Finalizing the solution;

  8. 8.

    Eighth fortnight—Delivery of the final solution and evaluation.

In this way, students and future teachers, through actions planned for the development of the IP, develop skills and abilities that will be useful to them in the future.

As mentioned by Perrenoud (2000) and Tardif (2008), teacher education needs to encompass practice together with content, so that students and teachers in training do not conceive theory as something disconnected from practice. And the interdisciplinary project at Univesp is the way the institution managed to transcend this relationship.

So, IP aims to provide students the skills that allow the formation of these teachers’ skills. In order to educate individuals who will be able to solve complex problems in many emergent contexts in a self-organized way, this is how Univesp applies Future Skills:

  • All the IP actions make the students develop and use their communication and cooperation skills, by working in groups, doing activities together and taking decisions collectively;

  • Once they need to take decisions about how to approach the theme and how to solve the problem, the students are willing to develop learning literacy, self-efficacy, self-determination and self-competence;

  • At the same time, since the educational process is virtual and directed by Design Thinking, the students need to be open to new technologies and methodologies for innovation, systems, and digital competences.

The rest of the Future Skills, obviously, are also developed by the IP actions. It is a complex set of educational issues that, in theory, can help to educate better professionals and better citizens.

5 Conclusion

The aim of this chapter is to correlate the skills proposed in the teacher’s education at Univesp with the Future Skills as proposed by the NextSkills Study (Ehlers, 2020). The Interdisciplinary Project (IP) developed by higher education students at Univesp (Brazil) is guided by Project-Based Learning (PBL) and Human-Centered Design (HCD), in which the pedagogical action is based on the principle of inseparability of the relationship between theory and practice. In this scenario, students develop at least six essential skills, such as: Investigative; Problem Solving; Collaboration; Communication; Professional; and Technological.

It was possible to perceive that the skills expected in the Univesp IP relate to the skills indicated by Ehlers (2020) such as communication, cooperation, Digital Literacy, Design-Thinking, Innovation, self-efficacy, reflective, decision and ethical, among others.

The work of including these skills in the students’ learning process is long and has been improved over the years. Although from the beginning, in 2014, the objectives of including the Interdisciplinary Project in the curriculum were clear, it was only in 2021 that it was possible to clearly identify which were the competencies involved in the pedagogical process. We believe that now new work must be tackled, which is to identify, in the students’ learning process, evidence of the development of these skills and how the activities carried out by them throughout the semester can actually support this process.

One of the challenges found at the institution was precisely to think of an interdisciplinary project that could be developed by different people in different contexts and regions, since the university in question is present in a diversity of cities in Brazil. In order to solve that, it was important to initially think about the audience for whom to design the project and how this design can help in their professional growth. In addition, it is significant to have a multidisciplinary team that can assist in raising different issues.

In teacher education, as mentioned earlier, it is essential to break the dichotomy between theory and practice, providing students with a differentiated experience during their undergraduate course. The Interdisciplinary Project was the way Univesp managed to put this need into operation. Teaching about the importance of respecting ideas, new perspectives, values, and how to deal with difficulties is something to be considered in contemporary society.

We hope that the example set at Univesp can inspire other institutions to consider the inclusion of work with competences in their curricula, especially in teaching education, as it provides a consolidated training for the professionals of the future.

Future Skills in Practice: Our Recommendations

  • Future teachers cannot be educated in the same way teachers were educated some years ago. We need to make them experience new teaching practices, like active methodologies and problem solving, in order to develop Future Skills.

  • In the same way, it is mandatory to include critical thinking about technology in teacher’s education. This can be done by distance education, e-learning and massive online open courses (MOOCs).

  • Promoting the future teachers’ skills such as collaboration, problem solving, and critical thinking can be a start of a new standard to the whole educational system.