Many of the jobs in the future have not been invented yet. How therefore does an educational system prepare learners for such a future? What skills/attributes will the teacher of tomorrow need to deliver effectively in this environment? How shall we know this teacher and what type of teaching and learning world will he or she inhabit? (Fitzgerald, 2016). Sustainable development cannot be achieved by technological solutions, political regulation or financial instruments alone. We need to change the way we think and act. Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) is about enabling us to constructively and creatively address present and future global challenges and create more sustainable and resilient societies. This requires quality education and learning for sustainable development at all levels and in all social contexts, and even more so, in Higher Education. ESD requires participatory teaching and learning methods that motivate and empower learners to change their behaviour and take action for sustainable development. ESD consequently aims to promote competencies like critical thinking, imagining future scenarios and making decisions in a collaborative way (UNECE, 2005). In order to address this challenge, there are three different dimensions to consider:
- Human sustainability in teaching: includes elements such as resilience, wellbeing, emotional intelligence and the role of personality and gender as a teacher
- Educational sustainability: comprehends open pedagogies, your legacy as a teacher, engagement with communities and society, and lifelong learning (including digital capacity)
- Social and environmental education: gathers these issues within each ecological environment and with reference to our contribution to society as educators
Attention to ESD requires providing ‘possibility portals’ (Clancy, 2013) in the form of space and time to consider these issues, a protected space that encourages discussion and debate on the difficulties and uncertainties of the nature of academic identity and the changing climate of Higher Education. These spaces propose the idea of ‘lifewideness’ (Jackson, 2011), this is, how a ‘lifewide education could enhance a university’s ability to recognise and value learning and personal development that is essential for survival, success and personal fulfilment in a complex modern world’. In the context of the Shannon Consortium (UL, LIT and MIC) collaborative endeavours, we have explored with these concepts using creative pedagogies in the context of a postgraduate programme in teaching and learning with a group of higher education teachers. This group had a very diverse representation from several disciplines and levels of experience.
We initially facilitated the interactive ‘storytelling’ activity ‘The teacher of tomorrow’ (text below). After an initial exercise of visualisation and dialogue, the following challenge was posed to the participants:
It is June 15th, 2027 and you just woke up in the morning. It is a beautiful summers day, and you have a bit of time for a cup of tea in your garden. For some reason, you remember the programme that you (very successfully) completed now ten years ago, and reflect on the main personal characteristics and skills that you have developed since in order to sustain your practice and yourself as a teacher. You get into your electric car, which automatically drives you to your destination, while you review your tasks for the day, and arrive to work…
In groups of 2 to 4 people, they were then encouraged to use their imagination and creativity to make an artefact to represent themselves as teachers in and of the future. In order to produce their artefact, participants were invited to project themselves and their teaching into the future and imagine what their classroom (and/or other spaces for learning) will look like in 2027. We posed questions such as; what materials will you have? How will technology have influenced your pedagogical practice? What might the typical student profile look like? What will the educational priorities be then? How will students’ learning be assessed – written, visual, oral, digital, holographic, or will assessment as we know it even exist? What will environmental, social and human sustainability look like? There were advised that there is no right or wrong answer, only many possibilities, and were encouraged to really use their creative and critical thinking to change existing perceptions about what teaching and learning in higher education means.
Participants were allowed to use any medium to produce this artefact, including a recorded monologue, written diary entry, a conversation with a colleague, a collage, video recording, comic strip, animated video, or any other format that inspired them to use their creativity. They were provided with a series of materials and a suitable space to work during that time. The final products were captured in video and photographed. After the session, participants were invited to share their insights with their peers in a Google+ Forum. They could also link to their website page containing their creative artefact, and provide feedback to others on their work. Finally, students were asked to develop a website e-folio where they would upload their recorded/photographed artefact and reflections. This was an opportunity to deploy some imaginative design, personalisation and creative self-expression to convey their insights from the experience. Some of these insights and e-portfolios will be showcased in the session as a way to trigger discussion with the audience about the potential of this pedagogical approach.