A clear characteristic of a disciplinary-oriented curriculum is the focus on a strict interpretation of the concerned discipline and that no attempts are made for integrating other perspectives from different disciplines. On the contrary an interdisciplinary-oriented curriculum deliberately brings together perspectives from a range of disciplines. Educational experiences are more authentic and of greater value to students when the curricula reflects real life, which is multi-faceted rather than being compartmentalized into neat subject-matter packages.” In their view, real-world problems are complex, so no single discipline can adequately describe and resolve these issues. Inter-disciplinary analysis – examines an issue from multiple perspectives, leading to a systematic effort to integrate the alternative perspectives into a unified or coherent framework of analysis.
A suggested strategy for curriculum integration in the case of the CLIMASP minor is to adopt a theme-based approach units as a vehicle for teaching a range of skills and content by integrating curriculum areas around a theme/topic. This method of teaching links curriculum strands and capitalizes on student’s interests and life experiences, young people’s attitudes, skills and knowledge are developed in meaningful ways. . Inter/cross disciplinary approaches are adopted in planning the integrated curriculum giving more emphasis to the processes involved rather than the outcomes. Interdisciplinary instruction helps students understand that there are ethical dimensions to most climate change issues of concern. Ethical considerations entail moral concerns which means accounting for perceptions of right vs. wrong, good vs. bad, and the provision of justice. This strategy necessitates the transition from teacher directed to more student directed learning.
Making a place for CLIMASP in your course
Bringing climate change and sustainability into your course and teaching offers a wide range of benefits to student learning, such as establishing relevance, bridging course content to current climate change themes, and connecting the course to other disciplines. The theme or topic of a course is of the most critical importance in the process to incorporate climate change and sustainability as well as the suitable pedagogies to deliver instruction.
There are certain courses that naturally deal with climate change and sustainability concepts, so tying the threads together into a coherent theme is more easily done. There are also courses that provide more of a challenge to incorporating climate change and sustainability concepts and topics. Integrating climate change and sustainability into courses from academic fields such as education, economics, engineering, social sciences, applied sciences may take additional planning and can involve reshaping the approach to the course. Regardless, giving students the opportunity to encounter climate change and sustainability concepts across the whole study programme or curriculum of a discipline is a powerful way of giving them the knowledge and skills they will need to tackle the challenges of climate change.
Strategies for incorporating CLIMASP in your course
Climate change and Sustainability as a field is vast in terms of the content that could come under its umbrella. Look into the Table of Climate Change Knowledge, Skills, Attributes and Competences to realise it. These offer good prospects for connecting your course content with CLIMASP.
1st Step
First, identify a number of core CLIMASP themes/concepts, skills and attributes that could be related to the content of your course that run through. Think about the key themes in your courses and how they might be linked with CLIMASP objectives and learning outcomes. Use the Table presented in the section on CLIMASP Competences.
After identifying the key CLIMASP themes related to the course under revision, start reflecting over of the objectives and learning outcomes generated previously. You have to look what your course and subject can offer to CLIMASP, what is special about your subject and how it can be used to further the goals and principles of a sustainable society.
2nd Step
Second, identify the course themes/concepts, skills and attributes that lend themselves to CLIMASP integration. See the extend to which they are related with the content of the course and align with the CLIMASP objectives.
3rd Step
Compare the lists of the indentified themes/concepts, skills and attributes in the 1st and 2nd step in light of the CLIMASP objectives and the objectives of your course. Then go to the CLIMASP competences presented in the respective table and try to identify those connected.
Build interdisciplinary perspectives into the course
Climate change and sustainability is an inherently interdisciplinary concept covering the interplay of various kinds of systems. Getting students to understand the extent of that interdisciplinarity requires that they be exposed to the various perspectives involved and building interdisciplinary teaching into the course is of paramount importance. Try incorporating interdisciplinary and suitable to sustainability teaching strategies, such as Problem-based learning and Service learning. Use the Griffith Graduate Attributes Interdisciplinary Perspective Toolkit accessed at http://www.griffith.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0010/290773/Interdisciplinary-perspective.pdf which focuses on how you can help students to think about “the same” issue/s from multiple disciplinary perspectives, in a way that tries to integrate or make holistic sense of the various explanations.
For example, in the course “Curriculum and Hypermedia” offered at the Dept. of Education at the University of Crete, students are engaged in collaborative projects, dealing with a wide range of local issues, such as: waste, energy saving, recycling bulling, fair trade, deforestation, over-fishing, racism, social exclusion, active citizenship, etc.
If, you see the title of this courses without giving any indication of its content description, you will probably assume that this course will focus on hypermedia technologies and how they can be integrated into the curriculum. This is a disciplinary interpretation of the title and its perceived interpretation. However, if you read the course description, you will find out that the course bridges a range of perspectives from different disciplines.
Curriculum and Hypermedia: Course Description |
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| Education can be the catalyst for empowering students to become critical, reflective and active citizens. Teachers have the potential to be what Giroux and McLaren described as transformative intellectuals who combine scholarly reflection and practice in the service of educating students to be thoughtful, active citizens. What the course offers is a good introduction to the area of curriculum and hypermedia technology. It does so in a logical order divided into six sections. The first section addresses the perception of curriculum as product, process and praxis. The second section discusses the three curriculum types in the context of hypermedia as Tran missive, transactual and transformative learning technologies. The third section focuses on equipping students with the knowledge and skills to use participatory video and web-based social networking media as empowerment and transformative tools. Here, the course provides case studies, particularly related to climate change issues, showing how children and other marginalised community members can be “empowered” to make their voices heard in the process for building a more sustainable society. The fourth section concentrates on developing participatory video-clips dealing with climate change and local/global issues related to sustainable human development. Using participatory techniques, such as focus group discussions, individual interviews and writing scenarios students are involved in gathering evidence from the children and other community members involved in making the participatory videos. The fifth section examines the uploading of the participatory video clips produced into social networking media and then integrating them across the school curriculum. Finally, the sixth section engages participants in a self-reflective and reflexive process assessing the strengths and limitations of participatory video as a catalyst for transforming themselves and society. |
On the one hand, hypermedia technology is used both as a context for explaining and perceiving curriculum theories and practices as well as a subject from which students must learn certain knowledge, skills and competences related to climate change and other sustainable development issues. On the other hand, curriculum is also used as context for explaining and perceiving hypermedia technologies’ roles in different curriculum perspectives and how can enable learning of sustainable development issues. It also integrates social and ethics by integrating and contextualising concepts such as social justice, active citizenship and community-based learning. It thus brings perspectives from subjects such as , curriculum, technology, humanities, research methodology, education for sustainability. The course also takes a multi-stakeholder perspective for a particular thematic unit, climate change, integrating, for example, local community, civic society, disadvantaged or marginalised social groups.
In this way, students are exploring connections among various disciplines and to talk critically but reasonably across these perspectives as well as they learn to comprehend and translate ways of knowing and methods, and integrate them.