Teaching sustainability through active-learning: enhancing the learning experience and student citizenship

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Teaching sustainability through active-learning
enhancing the learning experience and student
citizenship

• Department of Geography
• Dr. Mary Dengler

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Active-learning and sustainability

• Active-learning means students are actively
  engaged rather than passively gathering
  information

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Case Principles of Environmental Sustainability

• One of two core courses for the MSc
  Sustainability and Management (2004 launch)
• Joint programme of Geography and the School of
  Management
• Focuses on corporate social responsibility and
  environmental governance for sustainability
• Course met once a week for 2.5 hours over two
  academic terms (20 sessions)

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Active-learning curriculum

• constructively aligned (Biggs, 2003) with the
  learning outcomes and assessments
• encourages a deep approach to learning (Gibbs,
  2002)
• includes both classroom and beyond classroom
  activities
• Biggs, J. (2003) Teaching for Quality Learning at
  University. Buckingham Open U. Press.
• Gibbs, G. (1992) Improving the Quality of Student
  Learning. Bristol Technical and Educational
  Services.

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Active-learning examples

• Mock negotiations
• Interactive role-playing
• Inclusion of different socio-cultural contexts
• Integration of writing exercises
• Online discussion forum

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Ex. 1 mock climate change negotiations

• Aim To explore the complexities and dynamics
  of developing multi-national agreements on
  environmental issues
• Exercise was structured to simulate
• multiple rounds of negotiation
• different levels of power
• Students were assigned a country or recognised
  grouping of countries
• Africa, Brazil, China, EU, French Polynesia,
  India, Mexico, OPEC, Russia, USA

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Ex. 1 (contd) negotiation structure

• Each student briefly stated their nations
  perspective (10 min)
• 2) First round of lobbying (4 sessions of 3 min
  each 12 min)
• 3) Proposal of resolutions (10 min)
• 4) Proposed mitigation measures are voted on by
  member nations (10 min)
• 5) The proposal with the most votes debated in
  greater depth (10 min)
• 6) Final lobbying session (3 sessions of 3 min
  each 9 min)
• 7) Agreement of wording (15 min)

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Ex. 1 (contd) negotiation outcome

• Developing nations passed resolution
• Required reduction in EU and USA emissions
• 15 yrs of unlimited emissions for others
• In response, USA and then EU withdrew from
  negotiations
• Crucial Negotiations were followed by 15 minutes
  of guided classroom discussion
• Enabled students to reflect on their experiences

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Ex. 1 (contd) Enhancing student citizenship

• One Chinese student commented
• Last week's lesson was excellent. I would
  never have had that lecture in China. It
  changes people's behaviour when people are in
  a different position - I found it hard to take
  care of China when I represented the EU. It
  was very good and I'll never forget it.
• Individuals challenged to think of themselves in
  a new way - as a global citizen rather than a
  citizen of a specific nation
• Easy to modify exercise for larger student numbers

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Ex. 2 role-playing on multiple spatial scales

• Individual behaviour can make a difference
• Example at local scale
  Managing fish in the commons
• Students played role of fishers in a small
  seaside village
• Students engaged in multiple fishing rounds

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Ex. 2 (contd) role-playing outcome

• Students developed complex set of collective
  action rules
• Rules grew out of multiple issues the students
  explored during role-play
• Rules governed the common-pool resource to avoid
  over-exploitation of the resource

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Ex. 3 Inclusion of different socio-cultural
contexts

• Internationalisation of the curriculum
• Student-selected themed articles
• Benefits
• Students could make unique contributions to
  guided discussions
• Encouraged students to interrogate credibility of
  different sources
• A Korean student stated The most impressive
  studying experience throughout this course was
  that we could analyse and discuss social and
  environmental issues in many ways from a variety
  of media, such as TV and newspapers, not only
  from a text book.

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Ex. 4 Integration of writing exercises

• Response to weak performance on their formative
  essay
• Modified each session to include themed writing
  exercises
• Benefits
• Average essay mark increased 20 points
• Increased student confidence
• Enriched guided discussions
• Student response
• Exercises excellent, very beneficial
• Recommended inclusion from very beginning of
  course in future years

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Ex. 5 Online discussion forum

• Extended student learning experience beyond
  classroom setting
• Consistent with goal of HEFCE strategy for
  e-learning to help the sector use new
  technologyso that it becomes a 'normal' or
  embedded part of their activities (20051).
• Benefits
• Comfortable space for non-native English speakers
  to contribute to discussions
• Further practice with developing written
  arguments
• Continuity between weekly sessions
• HEFCE, JISC, HEA. (2005) HEFCE strategy for
  e-learning. March. Available
  http//www.hefce.ac.uk/pubs/hefce/2005/05_12/05_12
  .doc June 23, 2005.

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Author
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Conclusions

• Active-learning
• Enhanced the quality of the learning experience
  and student citizenship
• Quantifiable improvements
• Analytical skills (argumentative)
• Writing skills (expression)

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Student Comments

• A UK student said
• The participatory approach to learning was
  definitely one of the key merits of the course.
• A Korean student said
• Before I studied this, I had absolutely no idea
  what problems we faced in a global world. This
  course helped me to open my eyes and find a new
  direction in my life.