CREATIVITY AND THE FUTURE OF LEARNING: DESIGNING EDUCATION FOR WHAT COMES NEXT
 
SESSION DESCRIPTION: Education systems are navigating unprecedented challenges, from rapid technological change and growing inequities to increasing uncertainty about the future of work and learning. In response, creativity is often named as a critical competency; yet it is frequently treated as an add-on and narrowly framed as innovation, artistic expression, or isolated classroom activities, rather than as a core pedagogical approach. This space will invite practitioners and academic leaders to rethink creativity as a foundational capacity for navigating complexity and designing meaningful learning experiences. It proposes creativity as the basis for creative pedagogy, a way of teaching creatively, teaching about creativity, and fostering creative learning across educational contexts. Through this lens, creativity becomes a human-centered and strategic response to educational challenges, supporting learners and educators in developing self-awareness, adaptability, and purpose. Participants will leave with new ways of understanding creativity as an ethical and human response to the challenges shaping the future of learning, along with a renewed sense of agency to design education for what comes next.
 
ABOUT YOUR PRESENTER: Carolina Cuesta-Hincapié is an Associate Professor in the Marketing and Innovation area at the Business College of EAFIT University in Colombia. She holds a PhD in Curriculum and Instruction and a master’s degree in Education from Purdue University. Her research explores the intersection of creativity and instructional design, focusing on designing learning environments that foster creative thinking, futures thinking, creative self-efficacy, and learner agency. Her recent publications include a critical examination of the PISA 2022 Creative Thinking assessment, analyzing the alignment between creativity theory and large-scale educational measurement. With an interdisciplinary background in Microbiology, Innovation Management, and Learning Design and Technology, Dr. Cuesta-Hincapié brings both scholarly and practical perspectives to her work. She taught Entrepreneurship and Innovation for 7 years in Colombia, integrating creativity-centered pedagogical approaches to support creative learning and the development of an entrepreneurial mindset across higher education contexts. Beyond academia, Dr. Cuesta-Hincapié collaborates on regional initiatives that bridge research, practice, and policy in Latin America and the Caribbean. Her work includes Creativity: Skills for Life, published with the Inter-American Development Bank, and ongoing projects on intercultural creative thinking as an inclusive pedagogical approach that integrates futures thinking and human-centered design to advance educational innovation.