The Norwegian 2020 curriculum renewal opens for schools to meaningfully integrate Education for Sustainable Development (ESD). For example, all schools are now required to facilitate learning in three sustainability-oriented interdisciplinary topics; 1. health and life skills; 2. democracy and citizenship; and 3. sustainable development (UDIR, 2020). However, it is arguable that for Norway the challenge still is, as Sandås (2018) discusses has been for some time, to figure out how to; “[…] go beyond successful pilot projects and create the necessary culture of legitimacy, the organisational framework, the competences, and the financial mechanisms to ensure that pupils experienced effective ESD” (Sandås, 2018, p. 89).

A Whole School Approach (WSA) is one model that takes a broad understanding of ESD interconnecting all three of the Norwegian curriculum-renewals interdisciplinary topics. A WSA to ESD also highlights the importance of engaging all school-related stakeholders to stimulate collective learning and meaningful participation (Wals & Mathie, 2022). Despite an increase in interest in WSAs to support educational innovations, such as ESD and Global Citizenship Education, a gap in research concerning how schools can utilise a WSA in practice still exists (Hunt & King, 2015). Moreover, Continuous Professional Development (CPD) of all staff that supports creating a culture of reflexivity, as opposed to a culture of accountability, is central to integrating a WSA (Wals & Mathie, 2022). Thus, understanding better the role of reflexivity in CPD, and exploring how a WSA can support Norway’s curriculum development within a professional development setting is a relevant research focus.

This paper is part of a PhD research study situated within a School-University partnership based in the southeast of Norway. The partnership involves the teacher education department, school district, and four upper-secondary schools. The partnership was established in 2017 to develop a common focus on ESD in practice. An overarching aim for the PhD was established: To create insight into how a Whole School Approach can facilitate the enactment of Norway’s educational innovation in the interdisciplinary topics; ‘health and life skills’; ‘democracy and citizenship’; and ‘sustainable development’. Participatory methods were employed throughout the research and involved collaboration with multi-stakeholders; university lecturers; researchers; school leaders, and the study’s main participants - 11 teachers from the four upper-secondary schools. Through a series of collaborative professional development workshops, meetings, and interviews, taking place between 2021-2022, reflexive CPD methods that utilise a WSA as a thinking tool were co-developed. The research focus and questionaddressed in this paper are: How can a WSA be utilised as a thinking tool for co-developing reflexive CPD methods to support sustainability-oriented educational innovation? This paper focuses on analysing four of the reflexive activities and methods (based on existing WSA-related models - Sinnes, 2021; Sterling, 2004; and Wals & Mathie, 2022) utilised in the CPD workshops, alongside critically examining the act itself of approaching CPD as a reflexive meeting place for multi-stakeholders to co-develop collaborative professional development methods.

Collated WSA literature and theory (Mathie, 2019; Mathie in press; Wals & Mathie, 2022) form the conceptual framework utilised throughout the design, facilitation and preliminary analysis of the research. Preliminary analysis identified the concepts such as Reflexivity (Hizli Alkan & Priestley, 2019; Archer 2013) and an ecological understanding of Agency (Priestley & Drew, 2019) as central themes. Therefore, what role reflexivity and agency play in the context of developing WSA-related CPD methods is critiqued. This type of collaborative CPD, involving multi-stakeholders, shows promise for fostering supportive partnerships necessary for ESD, while simultaneously developing practical methods to support the integration of sustainability-oriented educational innovation. 

Education Design Research (EDR) is the main method of enquiry. EDR is a participatory research method that combines scientific enquiry with systematic development in order to co-develop with stakeholders’ practical solutions to issues educators face in real-world learning contexts (McKenney & Reeves, 2018). In other words, the research scope is to go beyond the two main university deep-rooted missions of teaching and research, by also contributing to the more recent equivocal but evolving third university mission; to strengthen the impact and relevance within society and local communities (Brundenius & Göransson, 2011). Ambitious in its nature EDR provides practical design processes whereby multiple stakeholders have a shared aim to co-design innovative solutions to a specific challenge, whilst also contributing to theory building in a specific field. EDR, also has similarities to Design Based Research (DBR), which is framed as a viable method for learning scientists whose research is commonly seen as having transformative agendas (Barab & Kurt, 2004). EDR enables solution-orientated research to be operationalised through its core iterative process, whilst also allowing for key theoretical and analytical frameworks to guide the design process. Moreover, collaborating with key stakeholders, so the school is part of co-designing and contributing to all the stages of the research, seeks to ensure the development of collective usable knowledge that remains relevant and valuable to the stakeholders themselves is achieved (Barab & Kurt, 2004; Lagemann, 2002; McKenney & Reeves, 2018). Akin to EDR, participatory creative methods, such as utilising and creating World Café, Open Space, sustainability walks, visual time-lines, and Photo-voice related workshop activities, were employed throughout the design and data-collection phases. Multiple data sources, video and audio recordings of the workshops, meetings, and interviews, as well as visual content, for example, photographs, logbooks, and mind-mapping, were first analysed and utilised to create reflexive timelines in Miro of the 11 teacher participants' CPD development process, the collective CPD process and a joint timeline representing each of the four schools journeys throughout the school-university partnership. These timelines were then employed as a reflexive guide and visual prompts in a second round of qualitative interviews with each of the 11 teacher participants. Video recordings of these reflexive timeline-based interviews form the data source analysed for this article. NVivo software, and Thematic analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2006, 2020) is adopted as the data analysis methodology.

Preliminary findings suggest that reflexive CPD methods co-developed, such as mapping, visioning and lesson development activities, can contribute to fostering a proactive ‘culture of change and collaboration’ within schools. The act itself of approaching CPD as a meeting place to co-develop collaborative professional development also shows promise for supporting meaningful integration of the curriculum-renewals interdisciplinary topics. This type of CPD involving multi-stakeholders also provides a structure for establishing supportive partnerships necessary for ESD while also developing practical methods to support sustainability-oriented educational innovation. Like Hizli Alkan & Priestley’s (2019) findings concerning the role of reflexivity in teacher mediation of curriculum making, preliminary findings indicate the importance of cultivating constructive modes of reflexivity, and that collective sense-making activities, such as the methods co-developed in this partnership, can support this. The role of participatory research and creative methods are also indicated as central to developing a culture of reflexivity. The findings also show that it is both plausible and of significance to develop dual ‘CPD’ roles; where all participants, including the CPD facilitators, school leaders, and other involved stakeholders, are learning from and with each other. The importance of identifying dual roles in oneself is also of significance: For example, the dual role of one’s own personal professional development concerning self and subject, while simultaneously identifying one’s own role in contributing to collective sustainability-related institutional development. Therefore, the methods and activities co-developed have the flexibility to support both individualised professional development and sustainability-oriented transitions. In terms of future considerations, the findings identify one of the strongest WSA entry points is for staff to learn from and with each other and to develop and build upon competencies already present within the school community. Therefore, participatory research that can support the development of supportive peer-peer CPD structures and methods should be considered.

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