Course overview

Connecting weeks - February 5 - 16

During this first topic the focus is to connect to the subject at hand, with peers and facilitators and to form groups. You will be encouraged to share expectations, background knowledge, experience and practice and begin to build relationships. We will also explore a few central questions and differing interpretations regarding the concept of sustainable development, and make visible the preconceived understanding that we all bring to a course such as this.

Responsible for these weeks: Lotta Fröjdfeldt & Cecilia Enberg

Activities during connecting week

For all learners

Connecting webinar

Opportunity to meet and connect with the course community as well as your PBL group and facilitators.

Zoom link for HEDS241 webinars

Meeting ID: 659 8539 8666

Link to recording of connecting webinar 5 February

Meeting chat saved

Discussion webinar

Join the discussion webinar. At the webinar, you will get the opportunity to discuss a question of your choice together with other participants in cross-groups. From what you have read, watched, reflected upon during this topic, please bring a question that is somehow important and meaningful for you to discuss, to the seminar.

Zoom link for HEDS241 webinars

Meeting ID: 659 8539 8666

Personal learning reflections

The personal course reflections are an important part of your learning process and they were introduced last week. One post related to each of the topics are required if you want to receive a certificate for the course.

Read more about personal reflections and how to get started

Course synchronous activity

Connecting webinar

Monday February 5, 13-14:30 (CET)

🌍 Please check your timezone

Go to Event

Meeting chat saved

💬Discussion webinar

Wednesday February 14, 13-14:00 (CET)

🌍 Please check your timezone

Padlet from the event

Registered participants

Get to know each other

All registered participants will get access to their PBL group, on Monday February 5th at the latest. You will find your PBL group space in Canvas main menu on the left, under "Groups".

The most important thing to do during this week is to meet with your group. To start off work, attend meetings and get to know each other, your expectations of this course and your relation to sustainability.

Collaborative work
During this week the PBL groups will begin to form and plan for the collaborative work. It is essential that you are present and active in this important first phase of forming and starting up your group work!

A facilitator and a co-facilitator in each group will guide and support you and take the lead for the start-up.
You will find your PBL group space on the course home page, and the blue button "Groups".
The facilitators will have set up times for the first online group meetings. These important first meetings are about getting to know each other and to discuss how you are going to work together (“setting ground rules”).
Please note the dates and times and respond about your availability to the facilitators by responding to their post
Checkout the FISh model
See the suggested agenda for group meetings
Check out the suggested agreement for the group
During the PBL-meetings, adress the questions posed during the webinar. Summarise your findings in your Group Creation.
Share your Group Creation to the wider the HEDS community by clicking "Answer" in the Connecting week discussion forum called "Group presentations" by the latest Sunday February 18th.

Read about, discuss and familiarize yourself with the HEDS design and HEDS learning activities, including using the FISh model for collaborative inquiryl, and select from the literature below something that your group finds relevant in respect to the discussion from the webinar.

PBL group work

Scenario:

Nat: You know what? When I hear about the current state of the world, it makes me really depressed.

Robin: Me too. And not only that but I also get both anxious and angry. Why is not more done?

Nat: Well… What can be done? And by whom? I mean, I’m only a university teacher and I’m not sure this has to do with my teaching or if it has, how I can make it relevant in my courses.

Robin: Adding to that, I already have limited resources and time for my courses which means that if I take the current predicaments of the world or sustainable development into them, other stuff needs to be removed. And I’m not an expert...

Nat: Me neither. In one way I think this concept of sustainability or sustainable development or whatever you call it, is idealized and kind of an empty signifier these days. Everyone uses it but what does it really mean?

Robin: Maybe we can talk about the issues without using that concept? What if we worked with future scenarios instead?

Nat: Yeah. That might be quite engaging. It could perhaps be a more positive thing to do. Maybe that can lead to discussions about solutions instead of these pessimistic discussions that often result when we start talking about the state of the world.

Robin: Well, let’s think about it.

Aims

By the end of this week, you will have had the opportunity to:

connect with other participants and your facilitators
learn about and discuss problem-based and collaborative learning in the context of HEDS
explore central questions and differing interpretations regarding the concept of sustainable development

Checklist

Check that you have done everything described in the “getting started week”

Find your way to your assigned PBL group community
Introduce yourself in your PBL group
Upload the initial individual reflection
Attend the Connecting webinar or watch the recording
Attend the meeting(s) in your group
Checkout the FISh model
See the suggested agenda for group meetings
Check out the suggested agreement for the group
Contribute to the presentation of your group
Have fun ;o)

Readings and other resources

Bold-faced entry used during the webinar.

On the current state of the world

Steffen et al., (2015). Planetary boundaries: Guiding human development on a changing planetLinks to an external site.. Science, 347(6223):1259855
Explains the scientific basis for what a sustainable future will need to be based on.
Steffen et al., (2018). Trajectories of the Earth Systems in the AnthropoceneLinks to an external site.. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 115(33):8252–8259.
Outlines future pathways for a destabilised climate system and the long-term implications such destabilisation could have.

On explanations for our current state of the world

The Great Simplification: https://www.thegreatsimplification.com/
Stoddard et al., (2021). Three decades of climate mitigation: Why haven’t we bent the global emissions curve?Links to an external site. Annual Review of Environment and Resources, 46(1):653–689.
Explores different explanations for why we haven't been able to carbon emissions, and finds that issues of power, and techno-economic mindsets, seem to play an important role.
Hagens, N. J. (2020). Economics for the future–beyond the superorganismLinks to an external site.. Ecological Economics, 169:106520.
Provides an outline of why our current economic system is unable to respond to the crises caused by industrial activities.
de Oliveira Andreotti, V., Stein, S., Ahenakew, C., and Hunt, D. (2015). Mapping interpretations of decolonization in the context of higher educationLinks to an external site.. Decolonization: Indigeneity, education & society, 4(1).
Explores how decolonisation offers ways to analyse our current predicaments and "harmful desires".

On different futures

Future Scenarios: Mapping the Cultural Implications of Peak Oil and Climate Change by Permaculture designer David Holmgren.
Outlines four different future outlooks and how to respond as a result of them.
Preparing internally for whatever comes next. by Joanna Macy
Explores what it means emotionally to prepare for a different kind of future than the kinds we have been used to seeing (linearly progressing, techno-utopian).

On different conceptions of sustainability

Block, T. and Paredis, E. (2019). Four misunderstandings about sustainability and transitionsLinks to an external site.. In Sustainable Development Teaching, pages 15–27. Routledge.
Dispels a few myths about sustainability that commonly hinders conversations around sustainability.
Hopwood, B., Mellor, M., and O’Brien, G. (2005). Sustainable development: mapping different approachesLinks to an external site.. Sustainable Development, 13(1):38–52.
Compares how different approaches towards sustainability are grounded in ecological or social concerns.
Hedenus,B. Persson, M. Sprei, F (2022) Sustainable Development - Nuances and perspectives
A handbook that provides a historical context and different tools to understand the many different approaches to and interpretations of sustainable development