The following principles are at the heart of a green pedagogical approach, namely: It is an interdisciplinary approach regarding pedagogical content. It is a multi-perspective concept related to social, environmental, ecological and economic paradigms. It connects sustainable and economically meaningful development knowledge. It is a process-oriented approach for the future and problematic solutions. It is culturally sensitive, value-oriented, and it helps in the development of emotional intelligence. It promotes joint responsibility, autonomy, and participation in methodological variety. It is a holistic orientation to practice life, nature and culture. It links disciplinary and pedagogic knowledge with practice. It is a metacognitive management of openness and contradictions. (See: Hochschule für Agrar & Umweltpädagogik, 2018) A green pedagogical approach empowers students to acquire competencies in preparing themselves for an unknown future through learning activities within complex situations. To this end, there are six major thrusts that guide a green pedagogical approach. These include formation of a community through cooperation, reflection, contingency, Operation or Activity, irritation and emotion (Hochschule für Agrar & Umweltpädagogik, 2018). In addition, the selection of methods in a green pedagogical approach involves a change of perspective since it is based on the five pedagogical foundations, like trans-disciplinarity, contingency, restructuring of linear paradigms, systemic and meta-thinking (see Figure 1). Through sharing thoughts on the principles, thrusts and pedagogical foundations of a green pedagogical approach online, the four lecturers participating in this project redesigned their existing modules towards contributing to EfS from their perspectives. The integration of design thinking and digital storytelling fostered creative problemsolving and affective engagement, while enabling students to connect cognitively and emotionally with sustainability issues (Burnard, et al., 2016; Brown, 2009). This pedagogical orientation recognises that learning is not a value-neutral process but one imbued with ethical, social, and cultural dimensions. It thus emphasised the cultivation of critical consciousness, responsible citizenship, and leadership in students. These are skills that are vital for navigating the uncertainties and disruptions of the 21st century, including those associated with the Fourth Industrial Revolution (Schwab, 2016). In developing the collaboration, each lecturer selected one module and repurposed it with sustainability as the underlying orientation. A central feature of the implementation process was a module design and digital storytelling workshop, where lecturers engaged in exploring pedagogical redesign and assessment strategies to align with the COIL collaboration. Ethical clearance was obtained for the Participatory Action Learning Action Research (PALAR – see Zuber-Skerritt, 2018) process adopted. This enabled the documentation of both student and lecturer experiences as data for a collaborative research study. The green pedagogical experiments were supported by multiple interactive components, namely: • Planning and co-designing through online retreats in which all lecturers participated. • A digital storytelling course offered online by Rhodes University was taken by all lecturers. • Curriculum, study material and assessment revisioning were peer reviewed and discussed. • Online student exchanges through Kumospace, and • An online film festival at the end showcasing student-produced digital stories (the 3D digital artefact that houses some of the digital stories by three1 lecturers can be accessed here.) 1 The colleague from Orebro University could not complete the implementation of the green pedagogical experiments for personal reasons. 69 A Journey of Innovation
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MjU1NDYx