The Use of Reflective Pedagogies in Sustainability Leadership Education—A Case Study

Abstract

This study aims to examine the use of reflective pedagogies in sustainability leadership education by investigating two specific pedagogical tools—the Portfolio and Pod—employed by the Master’s in Strategic Leadership towards Sustainability (MSLS) program at Blekinge Institute of Technology in Karlskrona, Sweden. The study analyzed data gathered from student surveys, teacher interviews, and staff reflections to determine the benefits and challenges faced by students and staff in implementing and engaging with these pedagogical tools. Benefits include the provision of distinct structures to guide student reflection towards individual skill development and the use of collective reflection to encourage generative dialogue between students and staff. This holds benefits for collaboration, self-awareness, understanding of multiple perspectives, and creating self-directed graduates. Staff and students also, however, suggest a number of challenges. These include the ‘constrictive’ nature of guided reflection and the emotional and mental load faced by staff in hosting and holding students through often challenging personal reflective processes. For the potential of reflective pedagogies to be truly realized for Education for Sustainable Development in higher education institutions need to develop an understanding of the impacts that reflective pedagogies have on students and teachers and create institutional structures to support them.

Cross-Disciplinary Analysis of Cooperative Learning Dimensions Based on Higher Education Students’ Perceptions

“…These results highlight, among other studies, that cooperative learning creates positive interpersonal relationships which are characterized by personal and academic support [3,4,14]. In this regard, promoting interaction within the group of students, fosters relationships through socialization and learning [66][67][68].…”

Identifying Assessment Opportunities in Postgraduate Learning for Sustainability

“…How these sustainability learning outcomes are assessed is another aspect of ESD that is suffering from the relative newness of the field according to Ayers et al (2020), as they point to a tendency for the development of assessment tools for measuring sustainability outcomes to be an ëapparent afterthoughtí. In contrast, Ayers et al (2020) provide a specific example from a Masterís programme in Strategic Leadership towards Sustainability of how a pedagogy can be linked to a form of assessment. They demonstrate how two reflective learning tools were successful in enabling studentsí self-assessment of their own learning.…”

“…Simply put, assessments are activities that require student engagement to complete individual or group exercises, the outcomes of which are placed under judgement that contributes to certification (Ashwin et al, 2015). Formative assessments aim to improve student performance by providing on-going assessment and are used to empower students as self-regulated learners (Nicol &Macfarlane-Dick, 2006;Ayers et al, 2020). Summative assessment indicates student performance after a programme but ìcan be learningoriented when, for example, it encourages deep, rather than surface, approaches to learning and when it promotes a high level of cognitive engagement consistently over the duration of a moduleî (Carless, 2015, p. 964).…”

“…ëIntentioní highlights the underlying agenda of the learner and the values associated with their motivation. Self-awareness through reflection plays a key role in recognising these motivational drivers as illustrated by Ayers et al (2020). These learning outcomes form an inter-related whole with each learning outcome having relevance to all the others.…”

“…Within ESD research literature there is a clear focus on pedagogical approaches (Lozano et al, 2017;Ayers et al, 2020) and on integrating sustainability learning outcomes in higher education curricula (Buckley & Michel, 2020). There have even been efforts to assess the financial sustainability of Masterís level programmes for the students enrolling on them (Maragakis et al, 2016).…”