A Global Classroom for International Sustainability Education

Abstract

<div style="text-align:justify;"> <span style="line-height:1.5;">Sustainability studies put emphasis on social-environmental-technical problems with local manifestations and global impacts. This makes especially poignant the need for educational experiences in which students confront the challenges of crossing cultural, national, and geographical boundaries in a globalized world and</span><span style="line-height:1.5;"> </span><span style="line-height:1.5;">understand the historical, epistemological and ethical underpinnings of these diverse cultural conditions. The success criteria to evaluate the educational experiences demanded by the globalization of education, however, are yet to be specified and used in novel educational opportunities. A brief review of international sustainability education options currently available to students reveals a gap between the knowledge students may need to succeed in a globalized world and the opportunities available. Into this landscape, we introduce The Global Classroom, an international collaboration between Leuphana University of Lüneburg in Germany and Arizona State University in the US. The project strives for an interdisciplinary and cross-cultural approach to equipping students with the knowledge, skills, and attitudes required to take on sustainability challenges in international settings. We discuss the structure and organization of the Global Classroom model and share preliminary experiences. The article concludes with a reflection on institutional structures conducive to providing students with the international learning opportunities they may need to tackle sustainability problems in a globalized world.</span> </div

Utilizing international networks for accelerating research and learning in transformational sustainability science

“…However, this is not an exhaustive typology of international collaborations in research and education. Rather, this work adds a practical typology that could guide the development or extension of international collaborations in transformational sustainability science to the growing literature on university partnerships (Corcoran and Wals 2004;Wiek et al 2013;Trencher et al 2014a;Trencher and Bai 2016).…”

Tracing physical movement during practice-based learning through multimodal learning analytics

“…Parallels can be drawn to action competence thinking (Almers, 2009), which prefigures some of the contemporary approaches as a critical approach. An important aspect of this type of knowledge capabilities concerns transboundary competencies (Wiek et al, 2013).…”

“…From which positions and perspectives should we (now) discuss and evaluate notions of depth in learning, teaching and curriculum? Wiek et al (2013) have pointed to a gap between the knowledge needed among students tackling sustainability problems in a globalised world, and the forms of knowledge they are given opportunities to acquire. In a globalised world, schools that provide students with international learning opportunities on sustainability issues play a critical role (Wiek at al., 2013), since these are the issues young people will need to deal with to address contemporary and future sustainability problems.…”

“…Wiek et al (2013) have pointed to a gap between the knowledge needed among students tackling sustainability problems in a globalised world, and the forms of knowledge they are given opportunities to acquire. In a globalised world, schools that provide students with international learning opportunities on sustainability issues play a critical role (Wiek at al., 2013), since these are the issues young people will need to deal with to address contemporary and future sustainability problems. Teachers can support processes for educational development of teaching and learning SD, and through changes in teaching both facilitate for students and motivate them.…”

“…Parallels can be drawn to action competence thinking (Almers, 2009), which prefigures some of the contemporary approaches as a critical approach. An important aspect of this type of knowledge capabilities concerns transboundary competencies (Wiek et al, 2013).The competence discourse has largely come from higher education and vocational areas, and is not always compatible with school level curriculum frameworks or transdisciplinary approaches. However, in this thesis, it has been argued that critical knowledge capabilities (Study II) can be developed through teaching approaches involving complex open-ended tasks and stimulating students' learning of SD in global-local settings.…”