Pedagogical tools for transformative learning
The XP framework integrates a range of practical tools developed to support transformative, sustainability-oriented education. These tools are mapped to the five levels of the XP framework and are designed to foster critical thinking, collaboration, and embodied learning.
While many tools were created by the XP team – including unique methods like the COLLAPSE game set – others originate from international educators and design researchers. Wherever possible, open access versions are available, with links provided on the relevant subpages. These tools aim to inspire educators, facilitators, and learners to engage deeply with complex systems and drive meaningful change.
Tools used in XP
This toolkit is not exhaustive
Problem-based learning (PBL)
PBL places learners in small groups and challenges them with ill-structured, real-world problems. Instead of providing ready-made solutions, facilitators guide the process of collaborative inquiry, where students identify what they need to learn in order to solve the problem.
This approach encourages critical thinking, role-play, experimentation, and creativity. Materials and lectures are introduced after the initial exploration phase, making space for experience-driven learning and the integration of new cognitive frameworks.
PBL was first implemented at McMaster University and further developed at Maastricht University in the 1970s. Today, it remains central to many progressive education models, including XP.
Recent innovations have expanded the PBL approach, adapting it for diverse contexts and disciplines. One notable contribution is the project Future-proofing PBL Research and Practice, led by Ginie Servant-Miklos, Xiangyun Du, Jette Egelund Holgaard and Nikolaj Stegeager.
This research explores how PBL can evolve to remain relevant in an age of rapid social and technological change, promoting adaptability, resilience, and lifelong learning.
Double-skin / Double-mind
This practice helps learners become more aware of their physical presence and break away from preconceived notions, enhancing bodily sensitivity before engaging in creative expression.
Participants explore guided movement sequences for over an hour, including breathing, stretching, shifting, and jumping. This physical engagement allows the body to lead the learning process beyond rigid cognitive patterns. Afterwards, participants reflect — first individually, then collectively — on how their bodies acted as agents of insight.
Jigsaw Method
Jigsaw is a cooperative learning method that makes students rely on one another to achieve shared learning goals.
Learners are split into expert groups, each assigned a specific topic to master. After researching their sections, they form jigsaw groups where each member teaches their segment to the others.
This method encourages responsibility, peer-to-peer teaching, and a sense of interdependence, giving all students — including quieter voices — the chance to actively participate and contribute.
The jigsaw method fosters collaboration, equity, and deep learning by turning students into both learners and teachers.
It has proven especially valuable in diverse classrooms, helping learners build mutual respect and communication skills while reinforcing subject mastery.
Project work (PPL)
PPL follows three core principles:
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Learning starts with reality: Students explore societal issues through theoretical frameworks.
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Disciplines are transcended: Interdisciplinarity is used to challenge academic silos.
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Hierarchies are questioned: Professors and students collaborate as equals.
Projects span full semesters and combine theory, field research, and practice. In the first two years, students focus on interdisciplinary basics; from year three onwards, they specialize.
Developed at Roskilde University and Aalborg University, the model prioritizes real-world relevance, interdisciplinarity, and equal collaboration between students and staff.
In semester-long projects, learners co-design their own research paths — blending theory, fieldwork, and critical reflection. Students gain the tools to analyze complex societal issues while dismantling traditional academic hierarchies.
COLLAPSE
COLLAPSE is an educational board game developed by Ginie Servant-Miklos to teach systems thinking in the context of the climate crisis. Players work in teams to build a resilient infrastructure for a fictional society in the year 2100.
They must manage resources like energy, agriculture and culture – while facing the cascading effects of simulated climate disasters. When a team’s system collapses, they’re out. The winner is the team with the highest wellbeing score.
Ideal for classrooms, workshops and anyone teaching climate resilience through participatory learning.
Implosion
Implosion is a critical thinking exercise inspired by Donna Haraway’s concept of object entanglement in global capitalism. Students select an everyday object, person, or process and “implode” it by uncovering the materials, labour, technologies, legal, political, and sociological structures involved in its production and consumption.
By tracing an object’s real-world production journey, students reflect on often-invisible aspects such as working conditions, resource use, or geopolitical factors — encouraging deeper awareness of how global capitalism shapes even the most ordinary things.
The method also challenges students to consider:
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What would happen if fossil fuels were removed from the equation?
Grounded in interdisciplinary learning, Implosion promotes critical reflection, systemic analysis, and awareness of global interdependence. Developed by Joseph Dumit, the exercise is based on his 2014 pedagogical tool “Writing the Implosion.”
Pedagogical method by Joseph Dumit (2014)
This exercise trains students to map the hidden global systems behind everyday objects – including labour, resource extraction, policy, and consumption.
A powerful tool for interdisciplinary education, ethnographic methods & systemic thinking.
Science fiction writing
Science fiction writing is a creative learning tool that helps students explore complex societal and environmental issues through speculative thinking and storytelling. By suspending reality, participants imagine alternative futures and examine how humanity might respond to climate change, technological shifts, or social transformation.
Inspired by authors like Ursula K. Le Guin, Octavia Butler, and eco-feminist cli-fi writers, these workshops foster utopian and dystopian imagination, encouraging students to question dominant narratives and rethink what life could become.
Projects take the form of workshops or group assignments like the “history of the future” project. Students create futurist artefacts — oral histories, essays, podcasts, videos or speculative fiction — imagining life under radically different conditions.
Reflection
Reflection is the integrative tool that allows students to pursue their learning with purpose and a forward drive. It plays a central role in Experimental Pedagogics and is structured along the levels of XP: students use learning diaries and workshops to reflect throughout their learning process.
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At the Cognitive Level, students apply the Kolb Cycle to identify ways to improve their performance and address challenges.
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At the Individual Level, they conduct a phenomenological reduction on their own learning diaries.
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At the Group Level, they use empathy maps to explore relational aspects of learning.
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At the Societal Level, they engage with the sociological imagination of C. Wright Mills.
This multi-layered approach enables learners to critically assess their progress, uncover blind spots, and make sense of their personal and collective educational journeys.
The “Sweet Spot” for Reflection in Problem-oriented Education
by Lorenzo Duchi, Ginie Servant-Miklos, Liesbeth Noordegraaf-Eelens and Lois Kooij
This publication outlines the reflection method used in Experimental Pedagogics. It explains how reflection can serve as a bridge between cognitive insight, emotional awareness and societal understanding – helping students become more self-aware, collaborative and socially engaged learners.
