On February 16 & 17 2022, Lund University hosted a popular two-day online Education Innovation Symposium for U21 members on the topic Teaching for Sustainability. It was the most open educational innovation event to date, with almost 600 registrations of interest across the sessions and almost 200 individuals attending sessions.
We are pleased to provide an overview of the content as well as links to the recordings of the sessions below. If you have trouble accessing the recordings, please contact us.
Day One
Introduction to Teaching for Sustainability
U21 Provost Jenny Dixon and Lund Deputy Vice-Chancellor Lena Eskilsson opened the 2022 U21 Educational Innovation Symposium.
This session then featured speakers from the Lund University and The University of Johannesburg introducing their work establishing virtual exchanges, pedagogy for online international learning, and teaching in a global classroom. Some of the key points from the discussion were: to be inspirational, education must connect with the individual and the life they envisage for themselves, the complexity of balancing social needs and the needs of the biosphere and the indicators that can be used to measure success in teaching for sustainability.
Session Chair: Naoko Tojo
Our Speakers:
Emily Boyd, Director of Lund University Centre for Sustainaibility Studies and Professor in Sustainability Science. She is a leading social scientist with a background in international development, environment and climate change, with focus on the interdisciplinary nexus of poverty, livelihoods and resilience in relation to global environmental change. Emily Boyd is currently leading work on undesirable resilience, politics of loss and damage and intersectionality in societal transitions, including on transformations under climate change. Emily Boyd is an author for the IPCC, IPBES, and UKCCRA and a Earth System Governance Senior Fellow.
Solla Zophoniasdottir, Learning services Orchestrator at Climate-KIC where she is responsible for the strategic development of learning and capability building activities across the organization. Solla has over 15 years' experience in the facilitation of learning processes that focus on skill building for climate impact as well as being experienced in organizational change management and working within and across different cultures. Solla holds a MSc in Strategic Leadership towards sustainability and a BA in in Leadership and process management. In addition, she has accreditation in Organization & Relationship systems coaching.
Anisa Khan, will discuss establishing virtual exchanges, pedagogy for online international learning, and teaching in a global classroom. Anisa has 16 years of experience in the education sector supporting teacher education and environment and sustainability programmes through the Fundisa for Change Network and as part of International research and training programmes through SWEDESD, the GIZ Expertnet and Climate Leadership programme. She holds a Masters Degree in Education and was the higher education programme lead for the British Council in South Africa prior to moving to Stellenbosch University where she held the position of Manager for Global Partnerships and Internationalisation Support.
View a recording of the session
Teaching Approaches
A vibrant and dynamic session, which started with presentations by Gray Kochar-Lindgren from the University of Hong Kong and Kes McCormick from Lund University. Kes discussed how MOOCs can provide a pathway from research projects to online education, which many audience members had not considered before, and Gray provided examples of how to incorporate transdisciplinary learning across a large cohort.
We then heard from a student panel who discussed their views and answer questions from the audience on incorporating sustainability into their learning. We had over 70 students volunteer to be on the panel and were delighted to be able to feature a selection of these engaged volunteers from across the network and be joined by others in the audience.
Session Chair: Naoko Tojo
Our Speakers:
Kes McCormick will discuss the Greening The Economy MOOC at Lund University. He is Associate Professor at the International Institute for Industrial Environmental Economics (IIIEE) at Lund University, Sweden. With a background in political science and environmental science, and 20 years of academic and management experience, he engages in a combination of interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary research, education and collaboration activities. He works in the fields of sustainability, governance, innovation and cities. He is the most downloaded author at Lund University.
Access the slides from Kes' presentation
Read Kes' blog on his presentation at the symposium
Gray Kochhar-Lindgren will speak on Transdisciplinary Undergraduate Learning. Gray is Professor and Director of the Common Core at the University of Hong Kong. The founder of GLADE (Global Liberal Arts Design Experiments), he also served as the Lead for Transdisciplinarity-in-Action, which earned the Outstanding Teaching Award (Team) at both HKU and across the entire sector. His most recent book is Urban Arabesques: Philosophy, Hong Kong, Transversality and he is currently writing on wilding the university, choregraphing deltas, and the monochromatic infinite.
Access the slides from Gray's Presentation
Our Student Panel:
- Siri Blomberg, Lund University, Chair
- Pratham Malik, University of Delhi
- Jean Rochat, Lund University
- Nour Al Zouabi, University of Conneticut
- Victoria Ivory, University College Dublin
- Susana Scott Ayala, Tecnológico de Monterrey
View a recording of the presentations
View a recording of the student panel
Faculty Development
This session focused on how staff are supported to deliver sustainable education through their curricula, with speakers from U21 members and the chance for attendees to share their experiences and ideas in breakout rooms.
Susanne and Ellen's presentation picked up on a theme that has become clear throughout the symposium, that interdisciplinary approaches are essential to approaching sustainability, and giving people the skills to work in an interdisciplinary manner is key. Kirti & Gloria shared insights on masterclasses run by academics for academics, and the successes they've had using committees to highlight issues that need to be considered when thinking about what a 21st Century curriculum should look like.
Session Chair: Stacey Sörensen
Our Speakers:
Susanne Arvidsson & Ellen Hillbom, Lund University. Susanne Arvidsson is Senior lecturer and Associate professor, Accounting and Corporate Finance, Ellen Hillbom is a professor in the development of the Global South at the Department of Economic History. They will be sharing their experiences with interdisciplinary teacher teams as an efficient way to promote faculty development within Agenda 2030.
Dr. Kirti Menon & Gloria Castrillon, University of Johannesburg. Gloria Castrillón, the Director of the Centre for Academic Planning and Quality Promotion, Dr Kirti Menon is the Senior Director of Academic Planning, Quality Promotion and Academic Staff Development.
View a recording of the session
Day Two
Introduction to Teaching for Sustainability
Professor Ian Holliday, Chair of the U21 Educational Innovation cluster introduced day two of the symposium which will feature contributions from colleagues across the network with experience of implementing sustainability into their programmes. Maja Essebo from Lund University discussed sustainable pedagogy from an international perspective, and Christelle Not from the University of Hong Kong University explained how she incorporates the sustainability agenda in her universities courses at the University of Hong Kong, with a particular focus on the use of augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) tools.
The speakers and audience had a vibrant discussion about one of the major challenges for sustainability is the lack of interaction between other ideas, experiences and beliefs. Maja discussed the concept of Agonism as a way to get students to a point where they can talk constructively with people they disagree with and Christelle demonstrated the ability of AR and VR to enable students to visualise changes related to sustainability.
Session Chair: Naoko Tojo
Our Speakers:
Maja Essebo from Lund University will speak on sustainable pedagogy from an international perspective with a focus on the international LUMES programme. Maja is a researcher at Lund University Centre for Sustainability Science (LUCSUS). She has a master in political science from Lund University and a PhD in human geography from Gothenburg University. Her research background covers a wide range of issues, including transition to sustainable mobility, urban laboratories, and, first and foremost, all things related to the (political) use of myth. Her current project focuses on the role of myth in American environmental politics.
Christelle Not, University of Hong Kong will discuss incorporating sustainability into university science courses: how can AR and VR be useful? Dr. Not is an assistant professor in the Earth Science Department and Swire Institute of Marine Science of the University of Hong Kong. She is an environmental geochemist. Her research interests focus on the impact of humans on the ocean and the climate. She is actively working in paleo-climate reconstruction, palaeoceanography and plastic/microplastic pollution. She is dedicated to enhancing the communication of scientific discoveries to society and she is working closely with corporates and NGOs on different topics related to climate change and plastic pollution. She is a fellow of the David C. Lam Institute of East-West Studies (LEWI), HK..
View a recording of the session
Faculty Development
Kate O'Brien and Mathew Pryor shared their experiences of supporting faculty to embed sustainability into their courses.
Some notable points made were: flipping the approach upside down can really help with engagement - starting with the benefits of environmental processes instead of always starting from a view of how humans are negatively impacting the planet, guest lecturers can be key to incorporating sustainability into courses, it's ok to have clumsy solutions to wicked problems, it is important to note the difference between what we see before our eyes and what is genuinely sustainable.
Session Chair: Naoko Tojo
Our Speakers:
Kate O´Brien, University of Queensland. University education is a excellent intervention point to tackle the sustainability crisis, since universities educate future decision makers across all disciplines. There are multiple barriers to expanding sustainability education in tertiary institutions, however, including the lack of a single clear definition, and the implicit assumption that impact is associated with research rather than teaching. However the wicked nature of the sustainability challenge also provides an opportunities: the competencies required to tackle unsustainable systems and practices are the same competencies in demand by employers, and needed by graduates to tackle a changing workplace and other grand challenges.
Mathew Pryor, University of Hong Kong. Using his entry level Common Core course Designs on the Future as a case study, Mathew will discuss how teachers can enhance their instructional design and teaching practices by encouraging students to examine the language, medium and form of argumentation that has been used throughout history to advocate for sustainability projects, rather than just the project itself.
View a recording of the session
Looking Beyond the Campus: Partnerships for Sustainability
The final session of the symposium featured contributions from external partners including PwC, Save the Children and Climate-KIC discussing what types of competencies and skills they look for when recruiting our students as change agents. Attendees had the opportunity to participate in a Q&A with the panel.
Some of the key points from the discussion were: digital skills are what have evolved most in the competencies and skills that are sought after in graduates, collaboration, connections, curiosity and allowing ideas to flow were important to all the panel and indeed what was interesting and perhaps surprising to some of the audience was the commonalities between all the panel in what they are looking for.
Session Chair: Stacey Sörensen
Our Speakers:
Solla Zophoniasdottir is Learning services Orchestrator at Climate-KIC where she is responsible for the strategic development of learning and capability building activities across the organization. Solla has over 15 years' experience in the facilitation of learning processes that focus on skill building for climate impact as well as being experienced in organizational change management and working within and across different cultures. Solla holds a MSc in Strategic Leadership towards sustainability and a BA in in Leadership and process management. In addition, she has accreditation in Organization & Relationship systems coaching.
Sally Jeffrey is the Leader of the Global Education & Skills Network, at PricewaterhouseCoopers . Sally is based in Dubai and leads PwC’s global education and skills practice. She has a broad range of strategic and operations consulting experience across all the sectors of education. Sally is now driving the development of PwC’s education service offering. She will shortly be publishing a paper at the 2021 World Government Summit, on the recommendations for regulating education in the post-covid world.
Helen Mehrens, Project Leader at Save the Children at Lund, Sweden. Helen Mehrens is an entrepreneur within holistic health since 1996. She works actively with the Save the Children project “Girl to Girl” where her course “Inner resources” is now a part of the programme. To inspire awareness about the whole, body-mind-spirit-planet is Helen’s life purpose and daily life.
View a recording of the session
Closing Ceremony - Climaginaries
Johannes Stripple and Ludwig Bengtsson Sonesson from Climaginaries. This session may be of particular interest to those who enjoyed the Faculty Development session with Mathew Pryor and Kate O'Brien.
Climaginaries is a three-year research project initiated in September 2018, financed through the Swedish research council FORMAS with the aim of understanding imaginaries as means through which to catalyse the forms of political, economic, and social responses required for transitioning to a post-fossil society. Through different techniques of imagination, from modelling and scenario techniques to experimentations etc. they explore the transformative capacity of imaginaries; how compelling narratives are told, and how they can shape and enable efforts to confront climate change.
View a recording of the session
If you have any questions about the symposium or the work of the Educational Innovation Group please contact U21 Secretariat.