In the context of multiple global crises and respective societal transformations, universities have become increasingly under pressure to not only achieve carbon neutrality, but also align their core activities of research, teaching and learning towards sustainability. In Freie Universität Berlin’s case, these demands were vehemently voiced by our groups of Students and Scientists for Future and eventually led to our Declaration of a Climate Emergency in December 2019. Among seven aims, we clearly commit ourselves to “comprehensively integrating climate protection and sustainability in [our] curricula”. In this context, we aspire to not only develop new study formats - which may only be accessible to a selected group - but to also build sustainability thinking and competences into existing curricular frameworks. This is grounded in our vision that a truly transformative teaching and learning environment allows everyone to grapple with “wicked sustainability problems” (Murphy, 2012) – irrespective of their social, cultural or economic capital or background (Bourdieu, 1985).
This workshop aims to mutually discuss and exchange innovative, broad-based approaches to integrate sustainability teaching and learning into higher educational institutions (HEIs). In our view, this involves not only a critical, inter- and transdisciplinary systems understanding of sustainable development questions and strategies, but also an awareness of related pedagogies.
While numerous academic frameworks and discussions on transformative learning (TL) and higher education for sustainable development (HESD) have focused on sustainability competences for students, recent attention has also been devoted to necessary competences for educators. Easily agreeable in theory, these frameworks raise various questions and challenges for university teachers and teaching coordinators, such as: How can we build up, transfer and evaluate these competences? Which incentive structures can best motivate teachers, coordinators and students to participate in the process? Which didactic formats can best promote widespread knowledge transfer in this field?
These and other questions will be discussed in the live session. More details on key speakers and contents will follow soon on this page!
The workshop was organized in the framework of the University Alliance for Sustainability and open for interested universities. For further information on the workshop please contact Katrin.Schweigel@fu-berlin.de.
Keynotes by:
