Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to present a professional development experience for higher education academic staff within the framework of an international Tempus project focused on reorienting university curricula to address sustainability. The project included revising curricula to phase sustainable development principles into university courses.
Design/methodology/approach
A qualitative approach was used to examine perceived professional development. Focus groups have been conducted with the academic staff who participated in the project.
Findings
The results provided evidence that revising their curricula offered the participants an opportunity to discuss different principles, teaching methods, didactic processes and practices in Education for Sustainable Development (ESD). Several strategies emerged during curricula revision such as a positive attitude towards meta-cognitive strategies and a goal-oriented approach to curriculum planning. Moreover, the project induced the academic staff to reconsider their teaching methods.
Research limitations/implications
The main limitation is the restricted generalisability of the findings, because of the small number of participants. Further research is needed to confirm the theoretical model that emerged. Implications of the results for professional development and the induction of change in academic staff are also discussed.
Originality/value
There is little information about training experiences for enhancing professional development in academic staff using ESD principles, and this study provides a starting point. According to the results, the project had an impact on the participants’ attitudes, teaching principles and methods, course design skills and assessment approaches.
This paper presents the design and development of a virtual learning enviroment (VLE) for a M.Sc. programme on information and communication technologies (ICTs) in education for sustainable development (ESD) driven by a learning paradigm that merges three theories of learning, namely: experiential learning, constructivist learning and transformative learning (ExCon- Tra) funded by the European Commission. Learning activities were designed to offer the chance for students to interact asynchronously and synchronously, negotiate meaning and reflect on their learning and viewpoints through collaborative problem solving. The ExConTra learning process is also based on an interdisciplinary approach addressing the four pillars (environment, society, culture and economy) of sustainable development and makes use of an online course design methodology that uses four phases: needs analysis, curriculum design, development and formative evaluation. The VLE that encompasses both the curriculum programme and the online platform with its tools and online technologies merges ICTs with ESD in three ways: a) providing opportunities to target groups for reflective practice; b) using open source ICT tools and ESD-related learning objects available in the Web and c) using ICTs to develop interactive, interdisciplinary and cross-disciplinary ESD learning activities
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