Flip Chart Notes for Group No. 2

from

Sessions 1, 2 and 3

SESSION ONE:

• In the context of global issues and trends planners need to:
• Understand the mechanics of planning for a changing population with its changing preferences
• Understand and cater to the needs of the aging population and demographics are shifting in terms of profession and preferences
• Challenge the notion of a competitive city as demanded by global markets and instead focus on local needs and conditions
• Better understand the tremendous influence of international trade agreements and globalization trends on our cities and urban regions
• Become educated for global planning and different international and cultural contexts
• Challenge the rhetoric of stereotyping, prejudice and stigmatization of immigrant communities
• Engage in proactive planning and anticipate change
• Exercise humility in knowing that planning will not dictate trends but rather will have to respond to them
• Better understand the politics and distribution of power between urban and rural, east and west in Canada
• Study the long term implications of urban concentration and densification
• Be aware of the rural to urban migration and the hollowing of rural areas
• Work to reestablish the human connection to ecological roots in light of increasing migration away from farming communities
• Engage in effective and inclusive communication that invites citizens to planning processes
• Exercise leadership in multi-disciplinary teams working on planning projects

SESSION TWO:

• Core issues and core theories are essential. These might include history, theory, sustainability, introduction to planning and research methods.
• Some idea of all planning issues and processes is essential, deeper technical issues require knowledge of relevant specialists so that planners can refer to specialists
• Multidisciplinary literacy is important so that even when planners are not specialists in any particular area they must know the basic issues to be able to work with specialists
• The core is evolving and must be allowed to evolve to include increasingly relevant issues such as sustainability
• A balance between core content and specialization is important
• CIP requirements for accreditation are a good core for planning education
• 3-D visualization and literacy is important to be able to effectively communicate physical planning issues
• Real estate and finance knowledge is important to be able to converse with developers
• Students should be exposed to a sufficiently wide base of areas to enable them to grow and make future choices depending on the direction of their careers
• Management skills may be added to planning curricula through partnerships with commerce, and design skills through partnerships with architecture.
• Class size and student/faculty ratios are critical factors in enabling planning departments to teach people skills. A growing number of planning skills cannot be taught through large lecture format
• Thought should be given to the delivery as well as the content of courses
• Multi-disciplinary student teams addressing complete problems are an effective method for teaching complex problems
• New planning roles and issues could be taught through continuing studies
• Use a combination of inter university and intra university teaching to achieve breadth of areas required
• Remote courses could increase accessibility and allow different institutions to specialize in different core and specialty areas
• A combination of in-person intensive courses and prolonged long-distance courses may be more effective than purely remote electronic learning
• Life-long learning could be formalized through professional associations and requirements for continued registration

SESSIONS THREE & FOUR

A basic literacy and a basic skill set include the following:

• Ethics are a part of basic literacy
• Communication and process skills are basic skills, including the design of the discursive space
• The ability to ask and identify important, relevant and solvable questions and problems
• Computer skills including graphic and computational skills
• Self awareness of strengths and weaknesses
• Law, finance, governance, real estate, improvization, theatre, negotiation and persuasion
• Decision making and investigative journalism
• Urban management and integration of a variety of urban processes, learning from developing countries
• People skills including listening
  • Listening
  • Respect
  • Trust
  • Reciprocity
  • Self-reflection
  • Tough skin
  • Compassion
  • Reading between the lines in all kinds of communication
  • Interpreting multiple types of signals in communication
  • Self-reflection

What is needed is:

• A responsibility lies with each student to understand and develop their role in society
• Increase the knowledge base of teaching and teaching strategies as they relate to planning
• Team teaching and team learning
• Learning by applying skills to real-life situations
• Greater generosity and support for practitioner programs
• Longer courses
• Inviting visiting lecturers
• Continuing relationships with alumni
• Looking for and cultivating a passion for planning
• Early childhood planning education
• Role-playing
• Interdisciplinary teaching
• Self-reflection through diary keeping, free writing and self-analysis
• Playing games with education objectives

End of Day Plenary Discussion

• Switch is occurring and should continue to occur from negative to positive attitudes about change
• Engage in ongoing self-definition as planners
• Build connections to other educational experiences
• Create a high school planning curriculum
• All current societal problems are planning issues so how do we grapple with the "failure" of our cities
• Use community building to address urban and civic problems
• Planners having input on education decisions
• Exercise courage and increase risk-taking
• Employ multi-contextual planning that is capable of catering to the particulars of the context at hand
• Employ ethics and a commitment to ethics in planning
• Increase experimentation and alternative structures to planning programs
• Many of the issues discussed and which are relevant from the day's discussions are not exclusively planning education issues and could be brought to different planning forums
• We've avoided discussions of age, multi-cultural literacies, and emotional content of planning, including pain and healing