Individual reflection for topic 3: Didactic approaches to teaching and learning in ESD

How should we teach in higher education to promote sustainability competence in our students? That has been the focus during the last weeks of the HEDS241 course. We have been introduced to five didactic models for teaching sustainability, and in webinars and group we have discussed how to interpret the models and how we can use these models to improve our own teaching. In this text I will first make a short resume of the different models we have learned about, and next I will reflect on how I can use some of these models in my own teaching.

Five didactic models for teaching sustainability:

1)     Constructive alignment and Tree of science.     

Wilhelm et al. 2019 describe two models that can be used to help organize teaching in sustainability. The Tree of science is a tool that can help faculty staff operationalize ESD-coherent teaching and learning. Wilhelm et al. couples this model with the Constructive alignment-model, that basically conveys the message that learning outcomes, content, learning activities and assessment activities need to be in alignment for students to learn.

 

Figure: Tree of science. From Wilhelm et al. 2019.

2)  Tackling wicked problems in teaching and learning.

      Block et al (2019) uses a typology of types of sustainability problems developed by others and discusses how to approach these types of problems in teaching and learning. They argue that sustainable development teaching shouldn’t be seen as one homogenous kind of practice. Instead, teachers should consider which kind of problems they are dealing with and choose a suitable approach; fact-based, normative or pluralistic. Block et al argues that a fact-based approach can be useful for structured sustainability problems, and normative approach can be used when there is little or no disagreement on norms and values. The more unstructured or wicked the sustainability problem, the more the teacher needs to use a pluralistic approach. 

      They also offer some principles to handle wicked types of problems in teaching; 1) treating facts modestly, allowing room for uncertainties and a plurality of normative perspectives; 2) engaging pluralistically with the basic principles of sustainable development, recognizing that there are no simple definitions or objective indicators that allow us to define what is sustainable or unsustainable once and for all and 3) designing issue-driven and problem-oriented teaching and learning practices; exposing students to concrete sustainability problems.

 

3)     Different teaching traditions on ESD.    

I read this article as more a description of a situation than a didactic model. Öhman and Östman (2019) described three traditions in environmental and sustainable education in Sweden; fact-based, normative and pluralistic. As the authors argue, it is important for teachers “to be aware of the traditions that exist within a subject in order to be able to make critical and conscious choices of educational content and methods.” In the fact-based tradition sustainability problems are regarded as knowledge-based problems. In this tradition more research, technology and information to the public are expected to lay the basis for sustainable development. The normative tradition treats sustainable problems as moral problems, and the problems are resolved by adopting environmentally friendly and sustainable values, norms and lifestyles. Finally, the pluralistic tradition treats sustainability problems as political issues, where people might agree on facts but still have different ideas about which solutions are the best.

 

4)    Five forms of democratic participation. 

In In their article, authors Lundegård and Caiman (2019) present a didactic framework for sustainability teaching and learning where students should be involved in democratic participation. Their model lists five types of participation:

                           I.          Deliberative discussions. The pedagogical paradox. For humans to learn they need to engage with others, but without communicative reflection tools it is impossible.

                          II.          Agency. Who we are and what we will become depends on the context. Planning the context, environments, artefacts in education (Biesta & Tedder, 2007)

                        III.          Creativity. Educative moments allow students to build new knowledge on their own experience, by being critical to and creative about new innovations and society trends

                        IV.          Critical reflection. A way to meet populistic trends in society. Being critical in this context mean especially being critical to natural science models of e.g. energy, biodiversity, gender or other models based in natural science.

                         V.          Authentic participation. Direct engagement, emotionally and bodily. Building relevance of knowledge in education-meaning making. (Meaning making by authentic participation)

 

5)     A didactic model of sustainability commitment. 

In this model the authors Öhman & Sund (2021) build on the idea that schools should support the creation of students’ desire and ability to contribute to a sustainable transformation of our world; sustainability commitment. The authors list three central aspects of sustainability commitment; Practical aspect, Intellectual aspect and Emotional aspect. The authors also describe how teachers can help students obtain sustainability commitment by certain teacher moves, e.g. actions that the teacher can carry out to create a learning environment for students, such as staging inquiry or scene-setting. Something I like about this article is that it stresses that emotions such as hope and fear are essential if students are to become dedicated and want to do something.  

Figure: Aspects of sustainability commitment. From Öhman & Sund (2021)

The models in relation to my own teaching

I have enjoyed reading about the different models, and have found interesting points in all of them. But I think I like best the model of Five forms of democratic participation . I like the principle of democratic participation and the focus on democratic ways of organizing the teaching. Also I found the five democratic ways of participating meaningful and do-able. For me it is easy to see how I can incorporate several of the democratic forms in teaching / learning activities we already do i in my classroom, I just need to make it explicit to myself and the students that this is what we are doing. 

One example: My colleges and I are now planning a new course for teachers in the use of school gardens for sustainability teaching. Through a simple activity where students learn to collect their own seeds from local plants and plant them, it would be possible for students to particpate in several of the forms of democratic participation. The garden and the activity of collecting seeds could function as an authentic setting for learning, in an environment and a situation that is relevant for the students' daily lives. The activity can also help develop the students agency and critical reflection, as students can learn to collect their own seeds, and also discuss why we buy seeds, and why it might be worrying if big companies control the seeds that farmers need.    

Coming up next time: The role of universities in sustainability teaching and learning. Looking forward to that topic as well!

Literature:

Block, T., Van Poeck, K., & Östman, L. (2019). Tackling wicked problems in teaching and learning. Sustainability issues as knowledge, ethical and political challenges. In Sustainable Development Teaching (1st ed., pp. 28–39). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781351124348-3

Lundegård, I., & Caiman, C. (2019). Didaktik för naturvetenskap och hållbar utveckling - Fem former av demokratiskt deltagande. Education for science and Sustainable Development-Five forms of Democratic Participation. Nordic Studies in Science Education, 15(1), 38-53. (In Swedish)

Wilhelm, S., Förster, R., & Zimmermann, A. B. (2019). Implementing competence orientation: Towards constructively aligned education for sustainable development in university-level teaching-and-learning  Sustainability, 11(7), 1891.

Öhman, J., & Östman, L. (2019). Different teaching traditions in environmental and sustainability education. In Sustainable Development Teaching (pp. 70-82). Routledge.

Öhman, J., & Sund, L. (2021). A didactic model of sustainability commitment. Sustainability, 13(6), 3083.