Pedagogical Innovations for Sustainable Development
A special issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050). This special issue belongs to the section "Sustainable Education and Approaches".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 October 2018) | Viewed by 20311
Special Issue Editors
Interests: education for sustainable development; sustainability science; sustainable development; sustainable development engineering, especially in a West Indian context; freshwater quality; engineering education
Interests: water and wastewater treatment and design; renewable energy; global engineering education; sustainable development for the developing world; engineering education; entrepreneurship; innovation
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
Education is an important component for progress in the developed and developing world. The access to education, the quality of education, and education that strives to incorporate aspects of sustainability are key factors in addressing current global challenges.
To achieve a paradigm shift in education for sustainability and sustainable development, there is a need for (i) a formal education reform, (ii) integration of sustainability in non-formal education setting and outreach, and (iii) strengthened education for sustainability (President’s Council on Sustainable Development, 1996). The dissemination of successful education practices that incorporate sustainability across the globe would allow individuals, educational institutions (formal and non-formal), organizations, industry, and practitioners to assess, modify, and/or integrate these practices into their particular settings. The diffusion and adoption of best educational practices for sustainability is critical to addressing global challenges that current and future society will face.
For continued adoption and diffusion of sustainability concepts to be put into practice there is a critical need for an understanding of contemporary approaches that vary from region to region around the world. With advances in modern end-user technology come more menu options for the propagation of sustainability education diffusion. The impact of the adoption based on renewed educational methods and models need to be captured. This Special Issue attempts to capture a comprehensive collection of contemporary approaches to sustainability education.
The materials covered in this Special Issue will expand on the fields of the social sciences, engineering, sciences, education, and business. Some aspects that the topics in this special issue attempt to expand on include:
Recommended topics include, but are not limited to the following:
- The use of modern technology as the pedagogical innovation for sustainability education – inclusive of the use of blogs, webinars, podcasts, apps (smartphones and tablets), and all social media.
- Targeted sustainability education approaches based on differentiated learner typer/learning stypes.
- Infusion of sustainable development into both formal and informal education
- Sustainable development in kindergarten, primary, secondary, postsecondary/vocational/adult, community college/college/university, graduate school, informal education.
- Challenges of integrating sustainable development—details of what they were and how were they were chosen. Details of the assessment of challenges and how they were overcome or why challenges were not addressed. For challenges not addressed, authors will be asked to explain how best they could have been resolved.
- Successes of integrating sustainable development—measures of success: What was carried out to have a declaration of success, backed by numbers, statistics, etc., would be needed.
- Peda- or Andragogy—analysis of both the teaching and learning techniques utilized to bring about sustainable development education. Details on why certain teaching and learning techniques were chosen would be expected.
- Sample Module of Sustainable Development with proven impact—for any successful case, at least one sample module should be provided that clearly links to the pedagogical or andragogical principles of the case, as well as the resources needed to teach the lesson. This will be crucial for other practitioners to be able to adopt the module to their individual needs in consideration of the attached success and challenges.
- Outreach/extension education (to include NGOs)/lifelong learning.
- Teacher and faculty training programs inclusive of train-the-trainer approaches.
- Assessment of national, regional, and/or global efforts of infusing sustainable development into education.
- Interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary approaches to teaching sustainable development
- Institutional frameworks/organizational (re)structuring and new approaches to promote sustainability/sustainable development education among specialized populations (e.g., students, staff/workforce, skilled/unskilled labor).
- Education for preservation of indigenous methods and techniques for sustainable development in ecologically sensitive and economically repressed regions of the world.
- Governmental and non-governmental partnerships for education for sustainable development and sustainability—local, community, state, regional, and international.
Reference
President's Council on Sustainable Development. 1996. Sustainable America: A New Consensus for Prosperity, Opportunity, and A Healthy Environment for the Future. Washington, DC: U. S. Government Printing Office.
Dr. Ken D. Thomas
Dr. Helen Muga
Guest Editors
Manuscript Submission Information
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Keywords
- Education for Sustainable Development
- Diffusion and adoption of sustainability
- Sustainability pedagogy/andragogy
- Traditional educational approaches
- Corporate/workforce educational approaches
- Teaching methodologies by learner
- Educational technologies
- Transdisciplinary education
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