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Work in progress, expect frequent changes. Help and feedback is welcome. See discussion page.
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Flexible Learning
Flexibility, when incorporated into curriculum design enables people more choice in their learning.
In this topic you will be exploring the meaning of sustainability for your practice and how to be a more sustainable educator. Before you can do that, it is necessary to understand the concept of sustainability in an educational context. For example, workload for teachers and students and the ways in which course materials, activities, assessments and class interactions can be structured or designed to support learning which is time and cost-effective and enduring while providing a high quality experience. The six principles of education in What is Education for? by David Orr is a good place to start your exploration. For example, principle 2: The goal of education is not mastery of subject matter, but of one's person.
The Education for Sustainability Swirl. Click to enlarge
Activity Six: Sustainable Flexible Learning.
- How can you become a more sustainable practitioner?
- What sort of learning and teaching strategies meet your philosophy of sustainability?
- Post your reflections about sustainability to your blog once you have viewed the presentations and completed the readings.
- Read the article on student workload and find out how to calculate it - Lockwood, F. (2005). Estimating student workload, readability and implications for student learning and progression. Australia: ODLAA.
- Watch Sir Ken Robinson discuss Do schools kill creativity?: "we are educated out of creativity not into it". He ends with saying: "we have to educate the whole person". This 20 minute video is well worth watching.
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Reading
- Look at Otago Polytechnic's policies on Education for Sustainability and find out how they are planning for action in this area.
- Review Chapter 9 - Roy, S., Benayas, J. & Pérezin, J. (2002). Learning in sustainable environments: the greening of higher education. In Tilbury, D., Stevenson, R.B., Fien, J., Schreuder, D., (eds.) Education and Sustainability: Responding to the Global Challenge. Commission on Education and Communication, IUCN, Gland, Switzerland and Cambridge, UK.
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