Screw Loose Toolbox: 24 metaphorical tools to foster the transfer of learning and critical analysis in the realm of technology, nature, society and the individual with democracy as the mediating instance

Blue Engineering is a student-driven course on the environmental and social responsibility of engineers. It has been developed by student initiatives at two German universities since 2010. By 2023, there are more than 15 courses at universities in Germany and in the Netherlands using the open source course design. In assessing the learning outcomes of the participants, the need to promote the skill of transfer of learning of the students became clear. This practice paper presents the current approach: 24 metaphorical tools have been developed, each of which functions like a special lens, allowing to recognise certain patterns of action, discussion and collective decision-making that can be identified in many fields. The tools are intended to point out shortcomings in our familiar environment and to offer starting points for the search for possible alternative ways of negotiating, with the normative goal of strengthening democratic process to balance interests. This paper gives an overview of the competences addressed by the course, defines "transfer of learning" for the research, presents the developed tools and describes their current use in teaching and beyond. Findings show that the Screw Loose Toolbox can succesfully be used to promote student discussion and reflection. As there are no generally agreed methods to measure transfer of learning and no quantitative results have been obtained.