Teaching transdisciplinarity for sustainable development

In our BSc, MSc and PhD courses we tested five methods to help students develop innovative solutions to problems, while gaining a deep understanding of the historical, cultural and socio-economic context in which these solutions might be implemented:
• The «Siebensprung» of problem-based learning is used to enable students to frame unstructured and complex problems in groups;
• Design thinking methodology, from the Hasso Plattner Institute of Design at Stanford University, is used to provide a conceptual foundation and a set of tools to help students generate innovative ideas and solutions to complex problems;
• Stakeholder analysis, is used to develop students’ ability to reflect and act on different stakeholders› interests that support or hinder specific solutions to a complex problem;
• Social process mapping, a method belonging to the field of natural resources management, is used to sharpen students› ability to deeply understand the socio-economic context in which a complex problem is embedded, and an awareness of how stakeholders may interact in a given problem context;
• Reflecting-in-action is a set of activities facilitating individual and group reflection. It is used to support critical thinking. By having students repeatedly self-analyse what they have done and are doing in a course, they are encouraged to think about what impact the knowledge and experiences they are gaining may have on their thinking and living.

We focus on providing students with tools to structure unstructured problems and for developing their own solutions to these problems, rather than giving students ready-made problems with definitive answers. This more accurately mirrors the process they will encounter in their future jobs and in life, in general.

By implementing new methods in otherwise unchanged course designs, we could observe how effective these methods are for helping students reach the learning objectives of the course.

Through the process of discussing what method we should test in our BSc, MSc and PhD courses, we were also able to clarify and reflect to what degree we teach a competence on each level of education.
sustainable development.

We advance transdisciplinary teaching by introducing students to methods which help them: (1) frame real-world problems, (2) confront complexity, (3) design for complexity and (4) reflect-in-action at the adequate level of education. Rather than being passive receivers of knowledge, the students in our classes become active agents who search and qualify knowledge and how it can be applied in the real world.

Please see the attached «Report on tools tested in Innovedum “Teaching Transdisciplinarity for Sustainable Development”», where we critically review the tested methods.

«I think working with stakeholders really suits me and my ‘research personality’ and absolutely want to further in this direction in the future»

«I am even more aware that my thinking is biased, but it is easier for me to accept that there are other thought collectives I will try to understand them»

«I still think it is extremely important for me to be excellent in my own field. This is how I make my contribution. But instead of viewing my discipline as ‘the’ most important, I am able to look at it more in terms of being part of a whole.»

(Feedback from PhD students in our CCES Winterschool science meets practice)

The methods explored in this project can be adapted for most topics. Before applying them, however, it is useful to consider why such methods are being used.

Courses that have been given in a similar form over years are an interesting place to introduce new methods and to check how methods affect what students learn because there is a comparison from other years.