A multicultural approach to teach sustainability

Abstract

Globalization is a trend that covers all society perspectives in general, and higher education in particular. The main traditional objective of higher education institutions has been to prepare domestic students with a given set of skills. Research competition and University's rankings, as well as the need to reach other publics, pushed them towards internationalization. The exchange of students across the EU is a well-known reality which success is largely due to cultural similarities. However, a set of issues raises in importance when students from different cultures are involved. ISEP proposed a Summer Course aiming both to increase its level of internationalization and to verify how the institution is able to host foreign students. Therefore was organized, in July 2014, ISEP's first Engineering for Sustainable Development Summer Course, with a layout specifically designed to address those questions. In our study, and in order to gain from an intensive and multicultural experience, the class included equal number of Korean and Portuguese students to develop work under the framework of sustainability, a theme chosen in order to foster consensus. This work reports some results from this experience, which included a Problem Based Learning (PBL) approach, and points out new directions: PBL revealed to be a promoting integration way; the inclusion of multiple cultures allowed the analysis of different perspectives which otherwise would not have been succeed; institutional academic/social services need to be adapted in order to receive non-Portuguese speaking students; there is a need for further adequate accommodation able to receive a larger number of international students.

Effects of Online Problem-Based Learning to Increase Global Competencies for First-Year Undergraduate Students Majoring in Science and Engineering in Japan

“…In promoting sustainable development by tackling global issues, the involvement of various stakeholders is necessary. Many studies such as that by Chin et al insist on the role of engineering education in promoting sustainable development [2][3][4][5]. Engineers can take active roles in making innovations in terms of technology development and understanding of mechanisms on natural phenomena.…”

As Iniciativas De Sustentabilidade Nas Instituições De Ensino Superior: Uma Revisão Integrativa

“…No que diz respeito à inclusão da sustentabilidade nos currículos, frisamos que as questões socioambientais também devem ser consideradas (CAETANO et al, 2015;RADINGER-PEER;PFLITSCH, 2017). Em muitos casos, a integração desses assuntos nos currículos limita-se ao "o que" ensinar, mas não ao "como" ensinar (BIBERHOFER; RAMMEL, 2017).…”

“…Embora muitas IES tenham desenvolvido variadas estratégias para incorporar a sustentabilidade no dia-a-dia dos campi, a literatura existente explora principalmente a abordagem do tema a partir de estudos de caso (REBELATTO et al, 2019;STRACHAN et al, 2019;TRECHSEL et al, 2018;SINGHAL;SURYAWANSHI;MITTAL, 2017;WARWICK, 2016), políticas de sustentabilidade (KATAYAMA; ÖRNEKTEKIN;DEMIR, 2018;LEAL FILHO et al, 2018a;HAMÓN et al, 2017;MARTÍNEZ-FERNÁNDEZ;GAUDIANO, 2015), motivações e/ou barreiras na implementação da sustentabilidade (AKINS II et al, 2019;OYAMA;PASQUIER;MOJICA, 2018;VIEIRA et al, 2018;LEAL FILHO et al, 2018b;KIEU;SINGER;GANNON, 2016;LO, 2015), ferramentas Educere -Revista da Educação, v. 21, n. 2, p. 335-361, jul./dez. 2021 ISSN 1982ISSN -1123 de avaliação da sustentabilidade (DRAHEIN; DE LIMA; DA COSTA, 2019;MOREIRA et al, 2018;SEPASI;RAHDARI;REXHEPI, 2018), abordagens participativas (WARR PEDERSEN, 2017;CAETANO et al, 2015), parcerias entre IES e comunidade externa (BIBERHOFER; RAMMEL, 2017; RADINGER-PEER; PFLITSCH, 2017), e abordagem holística da sustentabilidade (RAMÍSIO et al, 2019;FOURATI-JAMOUSSI et al, 2015). Todavia, estudos que buscaram mapear as principais iniciativas de sustentabilidade das IES nas dimensões do ensino, da pesquisa, da gestão e da extensão nos últimos anos são escassos.…”