Elsie Anderberg

Global learning for sustainable development in higher education : recent trends and critique

Global learning for sustainable development in higher education : Recent trends and a critique

Academic Development for Knowledge Capabilities: Learning, Reflecting and Developing.

In this paper, we look backwards to educational development principles and practices as implemented in the 1990s at Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden, and forward to ideal principles and practices for the design of courses for teachers in higher education. The bridge between the two lies partly in an evaluation study, which we will describe, and partly in the theoretical work of John Bowden on knowledge capabilities for learning for an unknown future. The underlying framework depends on phenomenography, with its theoretical emphasis on learning as becoming able to discern the whole from its background, and how the constituents of the whole relate to one another and to the whole, and its empirical emphasis on qualitative variation in the ways in which students understand, conceptualize or experience phenomena they meet in their studies. A PET model and PET process are described, relating Practice, Experience and Theory through reflective problematization.

Learning in global settings : Developing transitions for meaning-making

Global teaching and learning for sustainable development reaches from the classroom to the world outside, and is therefore a particularly interesting setting for practising transition skills. The article suggests a number of features perceived as crucial in developing young peoples capability to act in a changing world and under circumstances that are difficult to predict. The suggestions are based on an empirical study of the Lund Calling project, which aimed at implementing a web-based international programme for teaching preventive environmental strategies in Swedish secondary schools. The article first presents some of the conditions in Sweden that particularly impact on young peoples transition to adulthood. Related research in sustainability education is also briefly outlined. Knowledge capability theory is used to discuss results from the empirical study of the Lund Calling project, where interviews were conducted with secondary school students, teachers and headmasters. Based on these interviews, features that appear to be particularly relevant as transition skills in global learning for sustainable development include transdisciplinary action, democratic collaborative action, as well as self-directed and independent initiative. The article concludes that young people today cannot, as in earlier periods of history, base their actions entirely on the traditions of the family or community. Instead, they also need to learn to form their own communities, capable of acting at both local and global levels. Education here plays an important role in developing the necessary transition skills that enable young people to be prepared for a rapidly changing and uncertain world.

Awareness of Language use in Conceptualization: A Study of Children's Understanding of Movement and Gravity

In this article the role of childrens awareness of the function of language use is examined in an empirical, qualitative investigation. Forty children of six and 10 years old were asked to make sense of a science problem in special dialogue setting where they were encouraged to reflect on their own language use. The article concerns the interplay between language use and meaning-making. Dialogue excerpts where the children expressed awareness of their own language and understanding were selected, and qualities of awareness were delimited in these excerpts and grouped in four descriptive categories. A widened definition of language awareness is proposed and discussed, in which awareness of the close relationship between language use and meaning-making is taken into consideration.

The epistemological role of language use in children’s explanations of physical phenomena

The article investigates the interplay between the meaning given to certain key expressions and pupils’ understanding of science subject matter, in a qualitative study of learning.The intentional-expressive approach to the epistemological role of language use served as a theoretical frame, within the wider context of phenomenographic research on learning. Data were collected using a particular dialogue structure. Micro-process analysis was employed to examine the data. Two descriptive categories emerged: 1) Exploring the function of meaning, and 2) Inventory of meaning. Pupils who explored the function of meaning related their explanations, both to other expressions, and to their personal understanding of the physical problem. Pupils who made inventories of meaning mostly directed attention towards expressions as words. Emphasis was on correct reproduction of scientific terminology. Inventory of meaning was most common in the dialogues with the fourteen-year-olds, while exploring the function of meaning dominated in dialogues with the ten-year-olds.

Sustainable Development Through Global Learning and Teaching

Towards sustainability the implementation of Global Learning for Sustainable Development (GLSD) is crucial. A better understanding of how to – from a global didactic angle – establish globally genuine dialogues forming nuanced conceptions of sustainable development (SD) is necessary. Global teaching as well as global learning has to identify the challenges in various contexts for transdisciplinary knowledge formation. Aiming to reach established and new target groups; higher education and secondary school as well as informal learning situations demands a holistic understanding. Highlighted from a perspective of preventive management strategies for SD, understanding collaboratively could serve as a tool to reach a deeper knowledge formation process through global learning i.e. GLSD. Notwithstanding, the global perspective has to be integrated in curriculum to achieve a competence-driven global curriculum. Thereby, capabilities through constructive interaction for various (intercultural) qualities of global learning and knowledge formation for sustainable development will be a central part of the outcome. (Less)