Student-centered learning for extended learning processes in higher education: assessing international students on global challenges in "Teaching for sustainability".

Author(s):

Birgitta Nordén(presenting / submitting)Kerstin Sonesson

Conference:

ECER 2017

Network:

30. Environmental and Sustainability Education Research (ESER)

Format:

Paper

Session Information

30 SES 05 B, ESD Learning in Higher Education

Paper Session

Time:

2017-08-23

13:30-15:00

Room:

K6.18

Chair:

Matthias Barth

Contribution

Without a sense of adventure and an awareness that we all - students, teachers and educational developers - are on an endless journey of discovery, the good learning assessment (Sonesson & Nordén, 2015) or the good teaching does not take place. At the beginning of their teaching careers Prosser & Trigwell (2001) thought, as well as many teachers in science do, that the essence of good teaching was about to get knowledge in a scientifically correct manner and develop their teaching skills in presenting subject knowledge for the students. As teachers, they searched reliable ways to measure student learning, rather than trying to find valuable indications of the students´ understanding. No attempt was made to help students see how the topic they introduced related to the students´ previous subject studies. They did not about to sensitize students about their preconceptions or previous experiences, which might be needed again (Prosser & Trigwell, 2001). In-depth learning (with a deep learning approach) the learner searches meaningfulness and want to understand the behind-lying ideas (Marton & Booth, 1997). Enthusiastically and curiously integrating and relating the learning in a strategic manner to all the individual experiences, besides theorizing and being fully aware of that the words just are carriers of meanings. The meaning of the arguments is focused. On the contrary, with surface learning approaches, the learner focuses - without any reflection on the purpose or strategy of life-long learning - on the least possible effort to root memorize information (Tsui, 2004) only for the knowledge exam without any thought of enhanced meaning-making or understanding (Lundström et al, 2016). The focus is then on the text, formulas or words, actual data and they represent purely symbolically knowledge formation (Prosser & Trigwell, 2001). Anderberg (1999) argues that the expression of intent is of great importance regarding the student´s opportunities to develop meaningful theoretical conclusions and deep learning approaches. Thereby, the importance of experienced knowledge formation situations is emphasized. By activating students' experiences of word meanings and understanding, as during an assessing literature seminar, promotes access to their prior knowledge and could develop extended learning processes and deeper understanding within in higher education. Thus, for their upcoming teaching they are offered new opportunities heading for deep learning approaches based on the theoretical part (Anderberg, 1999).

Teacher education is of particular importance for developing competences and knowledge capabilities (Nordén, 2016) required for societal changes towards sustainability (Mochizuki & Yarime, 2016; UE4SD, 2015; Wals 2014; Rauch & Steiner 2013). This research is based on international teacher students´ learning experiences. In the campus course Teaching for sustainability (15 credits) at Malmö university,the perspective is learner focused with a holistic approach on education of the environmental and sustainability challenges in local-global contexts (Avery & Nordén, 2017). The heterogeneous group of students has a variety of knowledge on sustainability issues, different experiences of learning activities and examination forms, since attending the course in Sweden from different continents, cultures and countries worldwide. Consequently, a common foundation for further progression of knowledge formation among the students is valuable to achieve at the course start. One initial learning activity is to read World on the Edge (Brown, 2011) and thereafter construct three questions on environmental and sustainability challenges that the student considers urgent and of particular interest. These questions are sent to the lecturer, who chooses one question from each student. The student that raised it prepares and directs a discussion in the teacher student group with 5-7 students in a student-driven literature seminar. The student thereby introduces the topic, has the responsibility for actively chairing the discussion through the seminar, and sums up the shared thoughts, opinions and knowledge for meaning-making afterwards.

Method

The learning outcome is that the student will be able to describe what effect humans have upon their environment, actively discuss the scope of environmental problems and challenges in sustainable development in the participants´ respective home country and worldwide. The aim of this research is to investigate how heterogeneous groups of teacher students experience a student-driven, non-traditional literature seminar for learning assessment purposes within the extended learning process in higher education, and offered for meaning-making within environmental and sustainability learning and teaching (Anderberg, Nordén & Hansson, 2009; Lundström et al, 2016). Qualitative group interviews with semi-structural questions and analysis were conducted by a phenomenographic approach. Previous experiences of assessments, ways of reading the course literature and formulating questions, expectations and reflections, and student-centered learning processes were focused. The group interviews with the international teacher students (n=63) in 2012, 2014 and 2016 took place in 11 group meetings. The interviews were recorded, transcribed and thematically categorised from the reflected experiences made visible through the analysis of the qualitative data gathered. (P.M. This is work in progress and when analysis has been carried out more details will be avilable, which could be presented if accepted for the ECER 2017...)

Expected Outcomes

The analysis of the assessment seminars suggests that for many students this form of assessment was a new learning experience. While reading the book students were mainly concentrating on bigger concepts. A few students were afraid as they were unfamiliar with planning and taking responsibility for a discussion. However, the participatory and collaborative learning assessment with sharing of experiences among the students resulted in a rewarding challenge based learning process. After the assessment students continued to reflect and talk about the questions raised. According to them, it generated a deep learning opportunity compared to written examination. This meant that they had a deeper understanding of the questions at hand, and they could draw on richer contextualised resources from their own experience to develop school oriented subject matters through the discussion. A tentative result shows some categories of the students’ experiences of meaning-making: developing critical thinking, focusing on learning and understanding, learning by collaboration, seeing a bigger picture, and taking responsibility in learning for understanding. Besides assessing the learning outcome, the learning needs are identified through the learning activity to be promoted for continued learning in the course. When students share their knowledge and experiences of global environmental and sustainability challenges, extended learning processes for sustainability enhanced literacy seems to develop. The students describe their learning processes as consistent and progressively on-going also after the closing of the seminar (Sonesson & Nordén, 2015).

References

Anderberg, E. (1999). The relation between language and thought revealed in reflecting upon words used to express the conception of a problem. Lund Studies in Education 10, Lund University Press. Anderberg, E., Nordén, B. & Hansson, B. (2009). Global Learning for Sustainable Development in Higher Education: recent trends and critique. International Journal of sustainability in higher education, 10(4), pp. 368-378. Avery, H. & Nordén, B. (2017). Working with the divides: Two critical axes in development for transformative professional practices. International Journal of Sustainability in Higher Education. Marton, F. & Booth, S. A. (1997). Learning and awareness. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum associates. Lundström, M., Åström, M., Stolpe, K. & Björklund, L. (2016). Assessing student theses : differences and similarities between examiners from different academic disciplines. Practitioner Research in Higher Education, 10(1), pp. 217-226. Mochizuki, Y. & Yarime, M. (2016). Education for sustainable development and sustainability science: Re-purposing higher education and research. In M. Barth, G. Michelsen, M. Rieckmann,& I. Thomas (Eds.) Routledge Handbook of Higher Education for Sustainable Development, (pp. 11-24). Nordén, B. (2016). Contemporary Sustainability Literacy Counting on Critical Knowledge Capability. AAEE 2016, 19th Biennial Conference on environmental education: "Tomorrowmaking our present to the future”, Adelaide. 2-11 Oktober 2016. Paper presentation. Sonesson, K. & Nordén, B. (2015). International teacher students´ meaning-making of environmental and sustainability challenges through a learning assessment. WEEC 2015, Theme 7: n Lundström environmental and sustainability education in times of accountability. Prosser, M. & Trigwell, K. (2001). Understanding Learning and Teaching: the Experience in Higher Education, The Society for Research into Higher Education & Open University Press. Rauch, F., & Steiner, R. (2013). Competences for education for sustainable development in teacher education. C.E.P.S Journal, 3(1), pp. 9-24. Tsui, A. B. M. (2004). The shared space of learning. In: Marton, F. and Tsui, A. B. M. (2004). Classroom discourse and the space of learning. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum associates. UE4SD (2015). Leading Practice Publication: Professional development of university educators on Education for Sustainable Development in European countries. Kapitulčinová, D., Dlouhá, J., Ryan, A., Dlouhý, J., Barton, A., Mader, M., Tilbury, D., Mulà, I., Benayas, J., Alba, D., Mader, C., Michelsen, G., and Vintar Mally, K., (Eds.), Charles University in Prague, Prague. Wals, A. et al (2014). Convergence Between Science and Environmental Education. Science, 344(6184), pp. 583-584. DOI: 10.1126/science.1250515

Author Information

Birgitta Nordén (presenting / submitting)

Malmö University, Sweden

Kerstin Sonesson