Can MOOCs empower people to critically think about climate change? A learning outcome based comparison of two MOOCs

Otto, Daniel; Caeiro, Sandra; Nicolau, Paula Bacelar; Disterheft, Antje; Teixeira, António; Becker, Sara; Bollmann, Alexander; Sander, Kirsten

doi:10.1016/j.jclepro.2019.02.190

Cited by 34 publications

(37 citation statements)

References 21 publications

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“…The development, defined as a widely participatory process of social change in a society is intended to bring about both social and material advancement, including greater equality, freedom, and other valued qualities, for the majority of people through their gaining greater control over the environment [14]. Under this perspective, the foundational concept of "sustainable development" has been described as the process that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs [15]. It is a process of progress in the current system that seeks to improve the wellbeing of the people and society [16].…”

Section: Sustainable Development and Digital Technologiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Massive Open Online Courses as a Digital Learning Strategy of Education for Sustainable Development

Zermeño¹

2020

J. sustain. dev. energy water environ. syst.

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This article aims to present the results of a case study of the use of Massive Open Online Courses as a digital learning strategy to promote education for sustainable development. The research focuses on the results of four Massive Open Online Courses offered to more than 17,000 participants, a case study research method was carried out to identify the didactic activities recommended to integrate on the Massive Open Online Courses of education for sustainable development. Among the results, it was found that challenge-based learning didactic activities develop participants' skills that can be transferred to real-world scenarios and allow learning to become more profound and durable. The results also show that a better understanding of the network dynamics to explore how to develop a robust peer-learning environment is necessary. Future works are recommended to explore the potentials of big data to anticipate the needs of the participants' digital skills.

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Section: Sustainable Development and Digital Technologiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Massive Open Online Courses as a Digital Learning Strategy of Education for Sustainable Development

Zermeño¹

2020

J. sustain. dev. energy water environ. syst.

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“…This finding is not unique to our research and has been outlined by other scholars who point out that SDGs' awareness continues to be low in different sectors [60][61][62]. A lack of awareness among citizens and citizen groups is problematic as awareness acts as a prerequisite for policy acceptance creates pressure on policymakers to implement specific policies over others [63]. However, awareness campaigns and training programs can solve this problem to a large extent.…”

Section: Fragmented Understanding Of the Sdgs And Cherry-picking Of Tmentioning

confidence: 59%

Perceptions of Multistakeholder Partnerships for the Sustainable Development Goals: A Case Study of Irish Non-State Actors

2020

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The United Nations 2030 Agenda emphasizes the importance of multistakeholder partnerships for achieving the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Indeed, Goal 17 includes a target for national governments to promote multistakeholder partnerships between state and non-state actors. In this paper, we explore how members of civil society organizations and the private sector perceive both the possibilities and challenges of multistakeholder partnerships evolving in Ireland for achieving the SDGs. The research uses data gathered during 2018 and includes documentary research, participant observations of stakeholder forums in Ireland and the United Nations, and semi-structured interviews to address related questions. The results demonstrate that numerous challenges exist for forming multistakeholder partnerships for the SDGs, including a fragmented understanding of the Goals. They also note previous examples of successful multistakeholder partnership models, the need for more leadership from government, and an overly goal-based focus on SDG implementation by organizations as major impediments to following a multistakeholder partnership approach in the country. These findings suggest that although Goal 17 identifies multistakeholder partnerships as essential for the SDGs, they are challenging to form and require concerted actions from all state and non-state actors for SDG implementation.

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“…Against this background, there is broad consensus that “good” political science teaching is characterized by two core elements: an orientation towards students’ individual learning modes (Lightfoot and Maurer, 2014) and a focus on fostering not only subject-related but interdisciplinary approaches, as well as promoting application-oriented competencies within political science (Goldsmith and Berndtson, 2002; Plank et al , 2019; Wildt, 2017). On this backdrop, there is a trade-off between teaching sustainability issues aiming at adequately precise insights that are theoretically-grounded on the one hand and on the other tackling the challenge of encompassing a diverse set of relevant debates and interdisciplinary approaches, for instance, when covering the topic of climate change (Bell et al , 2017; Plank et al , 2019; Otto et al , 2019).…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

Towards effective e-learning on sustainability: a case study-course on participatory processes in environmental politics

Perbandt

Heinelt

Nicolau

et al. 2021

IJSHE

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Purpose Distance universities are of great importance for establishing sustainability literacy, as they operate as multipliers for thousands of students. However, despite several advantages of e-learning environments compared to traditional class-teaching, there are still challenges regarding suitable e-learning tools and didactical models. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the effectiveness of several e-learning tools on students’ knowledge and skills growth and to compare two learning paths, synchronous vs asynchronous, exploring how each affects the level of students’ knowledge achievement and skills acquisition. Design/methodology/approach The empirical analysis is based on an online course “Participatory processes in environmental politics”. International MSc and PhD students who enrolled in the course were from FernUniversität in Hagen (Germany) and Aberta University (Portugal). The course was designed as the flipped classroom, applying different e-learning tools and activities, some synchronous and others asynchronous. A pre- and post-evaluation questionnaire was applied to evaluate students’ knowledge and skills. Descriptive statistical analyses were carried out on this data. Findings Results showed that in the synchronous group, knowledge about theoretical approaches to citizen participation and sustainable environmental governance improved to a greater extent, whereas the asynchronous group showed greater improvement in nearly all skills related to intercultural communication and e-learning. Also, in the synchronous path, students enhanced their knowledge on “research application” to a greater extent. Originality/value Evaluating the effectiveness of different e-learning tools on students’ sustainability knowledge and information and communication technologies skills is a fundamental issue. The study discusses these issues, contributing to enhancing the use of adequate and grounded e-learning models on sustainable development in higher education.

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Can MOOCs empower people to critically think about climate change? A learning outcome based comparison of two MOOCs

Cited by 34 publications

References 21 publications

Massive Open Online Courses as a Digital Learning Strategy of Education for Sustainable Development

Massive Open Online Courses as a Digital Learning Strategy of Education for Sustainable Development

Perceptions of Multistakeholder Partnerships for the Sustainable Development Goals: A Case Study of Irish Non-State Actors

Towards effective e-learning on sustainability: a case study-course on participatory processes in environmental politics

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