Global Teaching and Learning towards Sustainable Development

• BIRGITTA NORDÉN has a master in educational science and a master in education with a professional orientation. Currently, she is a PhD (earlier doctoral student at the Graduate school in Education and Sustainable Development - GRESD) coordinated by Uppsala University in collaboration with Malmö University, Sweden. Her research focuses on the global dimension created in education and teaching towards sustainability, and consequently, on how the implementation process locally interacts with a global context. In particular, attention is paid to how teaching subject matter of various disciplines with a transdisciplinary approach further develops a holistic perspective in knowledge formation for sustainable development, and thereby lays a foundation for a critical knowledge capability and readiness to act. 1999-2007 she was the Director of Distance Education for the Young Masters Programme on Preventive Environmental Management Strategies (YMP) at the International Institute for Industrial Environmental Economics at Lund University, which reached out world-wide to 110 countries and thereby over 10,000 school students. Above all, upper secondary school teacher training courses were repeatedly held by Birgitta Nordén in Beijing with participants from nearly all provinces in China. This was possible with technical support from Centre for Environmental Education and Communication (CEEC) in accordance with the awareness and education programme and plan of State Environmental Protection Administration of China (SEPA), and the initiative of Green Schools´ project taken by the Ministry of Education of China. This programme of networked learning on sustaining the environment in a developing world has later been recognized by UNESCO. Birgitta Nordén has been awarded several times e.g. from the Royal Swedish Academy for Engineering Sciences for her commitment to IT-development in schools on pedagogical grounds, and the 12th Online Educa Berlin International Conference on Technology-supported learning and training for a best practices showcase. She is well established and actively involved in ESD boards, networks for research and education, as well as formal and informal learning in Sweden, as well as in Nordic and International countries through contacts and references on ESD R&D in more than 50 nations globally. Towards sustainability the implementation of Global Learning for Sustainable Development (GLSD) is crucial. A better understanding of how to – from a global didactic angle – establish globally genuine dialogues forming nuanced conceptions of sustainable development (SD) is necessary. Global teaching as well as global learning has to identify the challenges in various contexts for transdisciplinary knowledge formation. Aiming to reach established and new target groups; higher education and secondary school as well as informal learning situations demands a holistic understanding. Highlighted from a perspective of preventive management strategies for SD, understanding collaboratively could serve as a tool to reach a deeper knowledge formation process through global learning i.e. GLSD. Notwithstanding, the global perspective has to be integrated in curriculum to achieve a competence-driven global curriculum. Thereby, capabilities through constructive interaction for various intercultural qualities of global learning and knowledge formation for sustainable development will be a central part of the outcome.

Keyword

GLSD

global learning

Global Learning for Sustainable Development

global teaching

global classroom

knowledge of learning and teaching SD

knowledge capabilities

knowledge formation process

ESD

Education for Sustainable Development

higher education for sustainable development

transdisciplinary

teaching sustainable development

Publication and Content Type

vet (subject category)

kon (subject category)