ISCN 2016: Session 2: Higher Education's Contribution to Actionable Sustainable Development Goals

© Maria Alessandra Woolson 2014

New Challenges for 21st Century Education

Actionable pathways for the SDGs and the role of higher education

ISCN 2016Siena, 13-15 June 2016

Maria Alessandra WoolsonUniversity of Vermont, USA

1972 1987 1991 1992 2000 2002 2012 2015

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11/11/15 2Maria Alessandra Woolson Ph.D.

Economic Sustainability

Social Social Sustainability

Ecological Ecological Sustainability

Sustainable Development

311/11/15 Maria Alessandra Woolson Ph.D.

MillenniumDevelopmentGoals


Economic Sustainability

Ecological Ecological Sustainability Social Social

Sustainability

Culture

511/11/15 Maria Alessandra Woolson Ph.D.

Valparaiso, ChileValparaiso, ChileJune 2010June 201011/11/15 6Maria Alessandra Woolson Ph.D.

What is Sustainability? 11/11/15 7Maria Alessandra Woolson Ph.D.

Villa 31 – RetiroVilla 31 – RetiroBuenos Aires, 2012Buenos Aires, 2012


Directly Observable

Behavior

Not Directly Observable

Beliefs

Mindsets

Values

Perspectives Cultural Iceberg

Structures

Adapted from Kolan, 2014


What is the role of higher education in finding actionable pathways for the SDGs?

What does it mean to teach for sustainability?

What are some of the challenges of integrating sustainability in Higher education?

Introduction and Context


•Structural Institutional Challenges

•Educational Challenges

•Cultural Pluralism Challenges


Structural Institutional Challenges

Institutional factors that enable or hinder innovation and

creative thinking about complex systems, and

understanding the potential of the SDGs for inspiring and

empowering the next generation of leadership.


Educational Challenges

Pedagogical factors and teaching practices that enable

or hinder the preparation of students for a world that

already differs significantly form the world we grew up

in, including models that illuminate the limits of human

knowledge.

What does it mean to teach for Sustainability and for the SDGs ?

TODAY’S GENERATION OF STUDENTS

Some data to consider:

• 80,000 new blogs a day in 2012

• 2.7 billion Google searches per month

• # of text messages being sent and received per day exceeds the population of the planet

How do we empower students to envision questions for responding to the problems of today and tomorrow?

How do we address complexity and integrate innovation?

How do we guide our students to become agents of change, agents of their own learning?

• 1. CONTENT AREA: curricular objective in the context of the mutual interdependence of social and natural systems;

• 2. METHODOLOGY: to enables students to become conversant across multiple disciplinary perspectives;

• 3. PEDAGOGY: that supports collaboration and

fosters a path where the students become agents of their own learning.



Cultural Pluralism Challenge: Cultural factors within

institutions of Higher Education that hinder or enable the

integration of other ways of knowing the world, stemming

from the understanding that diversity as the raw material for systems to adapt and flourish

Process information quickly and make meaning by responding rapidly to new ideas

Process information slowly and make meaning by taking time and space before responding to new ideas



Thank you