Embedding of ESD in engineering education

Abstract

If you would like to write for this, or any other Emerald publication, then please use our Emerald for Authors service information about how to choose which publication to write for and submission guidelines are available for all. Please visit www.emeraldinsight.com/authors for more information. About Emerald www.emeraldinsight.comEmerald is a global publisher linking research and practice to the benefit of society. The company manages a portfolio of more than 290 journals and over 2,350 books and book series volumes, as well as providing an extensive range of online products and additional customer resources and services.Emerald is both COUNTER 4 and TRANSFER compliant. The organization is a partner of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and also works with Portico and the LOCKSS initiative for digital archive preservation. AbstractPurpose -The purpose of this paper is to report on methods developed, within a three-year Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) project at Chalmers University of Technology in Gothenburg, Sweden, to achieve a higher degree of embedding of ESD in engineering programmes. The major emphasis is on methods used, results achieved and lessons learned from the work. Design/methodology/approach -The basic idea that methods and activities were built on was that the only way to achieve long-term changes is to increase the motivation and capacity of lecturers and program directors to perform the required changes. Findings -Activities that were developed and tested focused on coaching discussions and on workshops for teachers, gathering teachers from one programme at a time. These activities aimed at starting learning processes in individuals. Special care was taken into keeping the feeling of responsibility and initiative in the faculty members within the programmes. A special "resource group" of experienced ESD teachers was available as support for programme directors and lecturers. Originality/value -The methods reported on are further developments of a method that has been used in Delft University of Technology (the Individual Interaction Method) in the Netherlands. The experiences from Chalmers are discussed in such a way that they provide useful insights for others aiming at similar changes at university. IntroductionToday, there are more and more efforts to include education for sustainable development (ESD) in engineering education. Many projects relate to the development of learning objectives or strategies for curriculum or course development for inclusion of ESD (Knutson Wedel et al., 2005;Svanström et al., 2008;Segalàs et al., 2009;Hargroves and Desha, 2010). A frequently recurring challenge is to find an effective process of integration of sustainable development (SD) in the curriculum. Such a process often involves a change of attitudes. SD might for example have been perceived as something slightly off the core subject by tradition. New traditions and frameworks therefore need to be built and implemented.At Chalmers University of Technology (Chalmers), a reform project ...

Promoting sustainable human development in engineering: Assessment of online courses within continuing professional development strategies

“…Nevertheless, it is noted that the short duration and the full e-learning approach have not allowed the inclusion of, as part of the training, specific activities aimed at applying the concepts learnt in real teaching situations, ideally with the supervision of experts, as described by Barth and Rieckmann (2012) and Lozano García et al (2008). In order to overcome this shortcoming, courses included practical activities providing learners the opportunity to apply their acquired knowledge on the integration of SHD concepts, developing proposals of class activities starting from the respective disciplines and expertise of academics involved (Holmberg et al, 2008;Svanstr€ om et al, 2012). Course coordinators gave detailed feedbacks on each activity submitted, including suggestions aimed at further developing proposed ideas into full teaching modules.…”

“…The approach combined a moodle-based e-learning environment with five face-to-face seminars. A particularly successful approach, applied in Chalmers University of Technology (Holmberg et al, 2012;Svanstr€ om et al, 2012), combines individual interaction, such as individual coaching discussions, with specific workshops addressed to different engineering programmes (Holmberg et al, 2008). This approach, as reported by Mulder et al (2012, p.213) reversed the "teach the teacher approach", specifically because academics are engaged in the learning process by 'proposing contributions to SD' from their own expertise, instead of being trained.…”

“…As a consequence, continued education/professional development is critical to promote an aware and sustainable citizenship and, through specific programmes targeted to academics, can play a critical role in contributing to the integration of SD in universities. Despite the increasing need to improve the capabilities of academic staff, to support the integration of SD at a curricula level (Ceulemans and De Prins, 2010;Verhulst and Van Doorsselaer, 2015), literature shows limited research on staff development programmes on SD, particularly in the field of engineering (Holmberg et al, 2008;Lozano and Lozano, 2014;Lozano García et al, 2008;P erez-Foguet et al, 2005;Svanstr€ om et al, 2012).…”

A Methodology to Analyze the Presence of Sustainability in Engineering Curricula. Case of Study: Ten Spanish Engineering Degree Curricula

“…The European Higher Education Area therefore provides an opportunity to introduce Education for Sustainable Development in higher education. To achieve this goal, university teaching staff must be trained and motivated to include sustainability in the curriculum [22].…”

Profiling research of the engineering academics who successfully promote education in Sustainable Human Development

“…For these reasons, limited responses have been made to the calls of curricula reform in engineering (Fenner et al, 2005;Lozano and Lozano, 2014;von Blottnitz et al, 2015), and much of the effort has been focused on developing individual courses on SD (von Blottnitz et al, 2015). Diverse approaches aimed at embedding SD in a more integrated and holistic way have focused specifically on technical universities through complementary strategies, such as: i) developing specific, integrated curricula that holistically connect engineering with SD (Lozano and Lozano, 2014); ii) promoting unconventional ways of faculty empowerment and engagement (Holmberg et al, 2008;Svanström et al, 2012); and iii) fostering innovative pedagogical approaches (Pérez-Foguet et al, 2017;Segalàs et al, 2010). Furthermore, other efforts have aimed at reinforcing the alignment between engineering and development studies (Boni and Pérez-Foguet, 2008;Pérez-Foguet, 2008;Pérez-Foguet et al, 2005), in line with a Sustainable Human Development (SHD) theoretical framework, focusing specifically on addressing global inequalities and the promotion of a more socially just world.…”