The Bridge Between Education for Sustainable Development and Transformative Learning: Towards New Collaborative Learning Spaces

Abstract

Recent research has become increasingly interested in the concepts of education for sustainable development (ESD) and transformative learning (TL). However, even as ESD can be described as holistic and transformational education with the purpose to transform our society, only few studies have examined potential bridges between these two concepts. The article at hand gives an indication on this issue by studying the literature of ESD and TL. Strengthening the transformative aspect of ESD requires taking into account critical reflection, participation and social engagement, all of which all express key features of the new collaborative learning spaces (CLS). Subsequently, the potential of such CLS for the transformative mission of ESD are emphasized. In ESD as well as in CLS, the bridge between learning and action is crucial and a core element of social transformation. In order to clarify this, the new method of WeQ is described, aiming to better understand and develop CLS.

Keywords

ESD transformative learning collaborative learning spaces WeQ

Introduction

When examining Earth from a sustainable perspective, it is evident that society today is behaving in ways that are both socially and ecologically unsustainable. Our development since the industrial revolution of the nineteenth century has had significant impacts on the global environmental change, and we are now well within an era where the changes on Earth can be largely attributed to destructive, widespread human behaviours (Göpel, 2016; Rammel, 2005; Rockström et al., 2009, p. 472; Steffen et al., 2015; UNEP, 2012; von Weizsäcker & Wijkman, 2018; Wals & Corcoran, 2012, p. 26). Earth itself is a closed system to matter, but is open to energy, primarily in the form of solar energy (Common & Stagl, 2005; Victor, 1991).

Sub-systems such as the biosphere and lithosphere exist within our earth, between which matter and energy naturally flow and are exchanged. Life on earth inhabits the biosphere, wherein living organisms exchange matter and energy with their ecosystems through natural cycles (Common & Stagl, 2005). Without the interference of human activity, these cycles oscillate through natural rhythms. However, today, the growth and fatal actions of human society have resulted in negative impacts on these sub-systems, and we are therefore facing a systematic sustainability challenge (Ny, MacDonald, Broman, Yamamoto, & Robèrt, 2006). Examples of such can be seen through systematic increases of pollutants and man-made chemicals in the natural world (Law & Stohl, 2007), increasing levels of GHG due to the burning of fossil fuels (IPCC, 2018; Kennish, 2002).

It is important to mention that Steffen et al. (2015) gave an analysis about nine planetary boundaries. They are climate change, novel entities, stratospheric ozone depletion, atmospheric aerosol loading, ocean acidification, biogeochemical flows, freshwater use, land-system change and biosphere integrity¹ (Steffen et al., 2015). We may soon be approaching the boundaries for change in land use, global freshwater use, ocean acidification and interference with the global phosphorus cycle. The analysis proposes that climate change, rate of biodiversity loss and interference with the nitrogen cycle have already passed their boundaries (IPCC, 2018; Steffen et al., 2015; von Weizsäcker & Wijkman, 2018, p. 14). Moreover, the structure of society functions within a system that no longer allows all individuals to meet their basic human needs.² This can be observed through social problems such as inequality and an erosion of trust within our social structure (Gustavsson & Jordahl, 2008; UNEP, 2012). If we behave in this way, the Earth will lose its ability to provide us with the necessary resources and conditions to meet our human needs.

From an educational point of view, we require a fundamental shift—from learning how to understand to learning how to act and transform. The challenge is to develop in people a capacity for problem-solving and critical-thinking (von Weizsäcker & Wijkman, 2018, p. 196). Taking into consideration that the current educational system is not suitable to achieve sustainability, Sterling (2011) pointed out that it is a very transmissive,³ teacher-centred approach with an emphasis on cognitive learning and memorization.

Hence, the author believes that a bridge between education for sustainable development (ESD) and transformative learning (TL) is a very valuable approach. Few attempts have been made to guide the effort towards a single approach in ESD and TL and to improve the communication between these two schools. As global reports indicate, TL approaches for ESD are rare and have yet to become a standard (Thoresen, Didham, Klein, & Doyle, 2015). Furthermore, in my opinion, the transformative aspect in ESD is weak and new collaborative learning spaces (CLS) are necessary. In sum, a bridge between learning and action is crucial and a core element of social transformation.

Education for Sustainable Development

The United Nations launched a global project called the Decade of Education for Sustainable Development (2005–2014) with the goal of implementing ‘the principles, values, and practices of sustainable development into all aspects of education and learning’ (UNESCO, 2005, p. 6). Furthermore, ‘ESD is holistic and transformational education which addresses learning content and outcomes, pedagogy and the learning environment. It achieves its purpose by transforming society’ (UNESCO, 2015, p. 12). However, several authors have joined in a critique of the current ways of learning and education. Orr (2004) observed that more education is useful when we reflect on what kind of education and for what purpose. Without critical reflection on the ends of education, we will become more effective vandals of the Earth (Orr, 1994, p. 5). Wals (2007) stated that our ability to learn is directly related to survival. Consequently, ‘the mainstream emphasis on cognitive learning, with a little values education thrown in, is simply insufficient to meet a sustainability challenge’ (Sterling, 2011, p. 27). In addition, Wals (2010) recalled a criticism of current ESD methodologies and mentioned that ‘most professors are still there to profess’, while most students are still there to ‘absorb it all’. In sum, it is important to mention that the strong instrumental character of the ESD agenda and its deterministic tendencies to achieve certain behaviour in the learner favours transmissive settings of education over more transformative ones. In short, it is the transmission of facts, skills and values. Learning is hereby a closed process (see Figure 1) and a unidirectional transmission of information. Education is about social efficiency and social reproduction (Jickling & Wals, 2008, p. 7). Almost all of these critical comments give a common understanding that ESD requires a stronger transformative setting to fulfil the requirements as a new educational paradigm. Taking into consideration that ESD has not succeeded in tackling the imperative of a balanced approach of ESD and TL, a bridge can help us to improve our understanding about multi-scale relationships between learning and education. Moreover, it seems obvious that a stronger integration of transformative learning into the conceptual setting of ESD would address the above-mentioned critique.

Figure 1

Source: Jickling and Wals (2008, p. 7).

This also leads to a discussion about weak and strong ESD. The aims of weak ESD are efficiency gains and incremental system improvements towards concrete visions of sustainable development. Strong ESD aims at system transformations towards broader sustainability. We should enable open and participatory learning processes that are engaging and critically reflecting the beliefs and values which are underpinning weak ESD (Vare & Scott, 2007). So, it is necessary to shift from this transmissive, weak ESD to a transformative learning approach, in order to achieve sustainability (Sterling, 2011). Missimer and Connell (2012) found new learning settings and methods for teaching sustainability. These methodologies include (1) social and (2) collaborative learning, (3) problem-based learning, (4) participative learning, (5) empowerment and (6) dialogue education. These interpretative settings could serve to (re-)frame perspectives on ESD and build the bridge between ESD and TL (Jickling & Wals, 2008, p. 8).

The degree of change and research required to achieve a single approach of ESD and TL is significant. It is this necessary change which will enhance education to prepare minds to create new ideas and new CLS which will be discussed in detail in the upcoming sections.

Transformative Learning

Transformative learning offers not only change in what we know or are able to do, but also a shift in how we come to know and how we understand ourselves in relation to other humans and the natural world (Boyd, 1991; Cranton, 2006; Mezirow, 1991; Taylor, 2008).

The transformative learning theory ‘explains this learning process of constructing and appropriating new and revised interpretations of the meaning of an experience in the world’ (Taylor, 2008). It is a shift of consciousness (Elias, 1997) and a learner’s openness to new experiences and new perspectives (Robinson, Doberneck, Kenney, Fear, & Sterner, 2005).

Learning of the third order (see Table 1), which goes by the name of epistemic learning, is concerned with the transformative learning itself and aspires to help the learner to ‘see things differently’ (Sterling, 2011).

Table 1

Levels of Learning

Orders of change/learning	Seeks/leads to	Can be labeled as
First order change: Cognition	Effectiveness/Efficiency	‘Doing things better’ Conformative
Second order change: Meta – cognition	Examining and changing assumptions	‘Doing better things’ Reformative
Third order change: Epistemic learning	Paradigm change	‘Seeing things differently’ Transformative

Source: Sterling (2011).

Jickling and Wals (2008, p. 7) pointed out that a socio-constructivist, transformative approach of education is more open. On the part of the learner, it gives space for autonomy and self-determination. Furthermore, Wals (2010, p. 388) suggested that ‘education for sustainability above all means the creation of space for transformative social learning’. Sterling (2001) supported sustainability education, as this approach embraces participation and ambiguity. Thus, transformative learning for ESD is participatory, integrative and reflective (Singer-Brodowski, 2016). TL can enhance ESD, and with this bridge, it is capable to support critical self-reflection, leading to different worldviews and to behaviour change. In sum, TL is often presented as an agent of change on the part of an individual (Taylor, 2008), and the transformation to sustainable development certainly requires societal change. So, we should look for the interaction between individual and societal change. There can be no societal transformation without individual transformation.

This research article underlines the importance of the creation of space for action and collaborative learning. Consequently, the relevant issue is not only what builds TL in general, but also what stimulates individuals and communities to participate actively in collaborative learning processes guiding to an as-yet hardly discernible sustainable future.

Collaborative Learning Spaces

In CLS, the bridge between learning and action is crucial and a core element. As Wals (2010) pointed out, ‘education for sustainability above all means the creation of space for transformative social learning’.

Von Weizsäcker and Wijkman (2018) mentioned that comprehension is lowest for passive pedagogical methods and that learning is at maximum when it is collaborative.⁴ It is important to build up an atmosphere of collaboration. Hereby, learners are allowed to make mistakes (Richardson & Mishra, 2018).

Although there is much variation across the different perspectives and experiences of ESD and TL, there is much that they have in common, and that will form a bridge and lead to CLS. In detail, we can begin to set some common characteristics of CLS: (1) learning happens in relationships, in which (2) there is a shared ownership, (3) room for the whole person, for example, feelings as well as thoughts, body, soul and mind and (4) sufficient time for collaboration, action, reflection and integration and (5) to pursue a process of inquiry driven by needs, questions and goals of the learners (Schapiro, 2009).

Depending on the bridge of ESD and TL, the CLS is trying to work towards a new and innovative WeQ-test that can be used as a methodical tool to assess this collaborative and transformative learning.

How to Measure?

From Collaborative Learning Spaces to a New, Innovative WeQ-test

Each member of a group, but also each group as a whole, has a wide range of possibilities for his/her own development. This potential has been created in the members and in learning spaces, but it has rarely come to fruition. The quality of a group is determined by the extent to which it succeeds in bringing the potentials created in its members and in the whole group to fruition. In the course of such a potential development process, it comes to the development of skills and attitudes that have not yet been developed. The first hidden potentials are transformed into very tangible, visible and effective resources (Schmid, 2014).

The ability to learn quickly and to improve oneself, as also a group or an organization, for example, is an important potential. This ability can be extended by, for example, deliberate CLS and trying out again and again a self-reflection cycle through the approaches and success strategies one is going through. Gradually, experience and new skills are formed to deal with (yet) unsolvable problems. The knowledge and skills acquired through the development of this potential are resources available to the person concerned as well as to the group. However, if this CLS is not available for development, important potentials are given away. There is a basic rule: as long as the members of a community are mutually dependent on objects of their evaluations, expectations, intentions, transmissions, goals, measures as well as arrangements, it is not possible to develop the potential created in these members and in the group concerned (Hüther, Müller, & Bauer, 2018, p. 241).

Furthermore, as soon as the members of a group begin to see each other as subjects, to invite, encourage and inspire each other, the development of the potentials created in these members and in the group concerned is unavoidable. Only if people meet at the same level, they can develop a stable and viable basis for shared values in joint exchange. Therefore, the extent to which members of a group are able to confront each other as self-determined, creative and self-responsible subjects is crucial to the quality of the group concerned. The author calls this way of dealing with each other as ‘subject culture’ and contrasts it with the opposite, the ‘object culture’.

The WeQ-test was developed to make it measurable as to how strong a group is still rooted in an object culture or how well a group has already succeeded in developing the subject culture required for all potential development processes (Hüther, 2012, 2017).

The creative potential that comes up when different people share their unique experiences, their respective knowledge and their specific skills within a group and merge into one common force can only be guessed at present. The aim of my research is to explore this potential in a targeted manner (WeQ-test) and to show it through practical implementation projects in CLS.

Two or more people develop in the long run an internal framework that is very close to that of the human brain in many respects (Hüther, 2012). In fact, all non-constrained, interconnected, viable groups work in the same way as time-capable brains: They learn through trial and error, they develop flat, highly networked structures, gain experience and maintain an inner organization that is constantly adapting (Schmid, 2014). For human groups, this means that in order to develop their potentials and evolve, they are dependent on collaboration and exchanges with other groups. In the collaboration with others, the person can release potentials that they are not conscious of themselves and which they cannot open up on their own. Buber’s (2009) ‘The dialogical principle’ shows very vividly how we are, that is, our unique, unmistakable personality is first contoured in the dialogue between myself and you. His investigation confirms that the creativity is also a result of a process between human collaborations.

In every human group, there is something that holds them together like an inner bond. Due to the significant expansion of the range of attitudes in a collaborative-oriented education, it is not only the cognitive abilities that are further developed significantly better, because, in a team-oriented learning, the learning experiences and qualities of the team members are much better for an individual’s own learning curves than with a unilaterally individualized competition learning. We-qualities such as sense of responsibility, commitment or cooperative design desire an incomparably stronger life-practical reference. A life-related and experiential learning strengthens the experience of self-efficacy, the enthusiasm for lifelong learning and also the personal and social usability of everything learned (Hüther, 2012, 2017).

The aim of WeQ-test is to present a useful foundation and bridge of ESD, TL and CLS. A large group intervention occurs after the results have been obtained. The background for this study is the theoretical bridge between ESD and TL as well as CLS. The core element in this is the link between learning and action. The IQ gives information about the cognitive abilities of individuals. This was developed and disseminated in the twentieth century worldwide, when economic, social and cultural developments were primarily determined by the analytical and creative achievements of individuals. Today, we face the increasing challenges, complexity and the manifold interdependence of the twenty-first century, and innovative developments are increasingly determined by the quality of collaboration in groups. The ‘Intelligence quotient of a group’ (WeQ) gives information about the ability and willingness of members of a group to collaborate. The purpose of this test is to help them to grow together as a team and to make the potentials of each individual member and group more prosperous and sustainable in the future (Hüther, 2017; Hüther et al., 2018, p. 239).

The WeQ-test was developed in order to make the quality of the collaboration of all team members visible. It provides insights into the extent to which the individual cognitive, social and emotional competences of the members are linked. The WeQ-test consists of 42 questions on six topics. The form of the questions requires the respondent to switch between his/her perspective and the perspective of other members of the group. The change between an inner and an outer perspective is particularly stressful for a human brain and requires a great amount of mental energy (Hüther, 2012; Hüther et al., 2018, p. 244; Robinson, 2010; Schmid, 2014).

The members of the group will complete the WeQ-test individually and anonymously. In each case, according to the subjective assessments of the present and the desired state of collaboration in the group, there will be a series of questions that one will be asked to evaluate on the following four dimensions:

Your own personal assessment (i.e., your personal view).

How you think other members of your team would answer the question: There is no right or wrong answer, but respond on how you think others would answer the question (i.e., other members’ view).

What you would wish for your team (i.e., your personal desire).

What you think others would wish for in your team (i.e., desire of the other members).

The answers to each of these questions are to be provided on a scale from 1 to 6, where 1 = ‘not at all’ and 6 = ‘fully’.

not at all fully 1 2 3 4 5 6 Q. 1 o o o o o o Q. 2 o o o o o o Q. 3 o o o o o o Q. 4 o o o o o o

The result is most meaningful when all members of the group or team have completed the test.

There are nine important factors in the WeQ-test. An in-depth analysis of those individual factors provides information about where the particular strengths and problems in a group can be found. The (1) team support factor captures how well it is possible to integrate new members into an existing social system without unduly irritating the existing order. The newcomers should be accepted in a stable and benevolent manner (Taylor, 2008; von Weizsäcker & Wijkman, 2018). The (2) social–emotional communication factor records in detail, whether the positive calming of the social–emotional evaluation levels in the brain or whether irritation, fear and disorientation determine the co-existence and the communication (Hüther, 2012; Taylor, 2008). The (3) objective-related communication factor describes to what extent all members receive all the relevant information they need for good participation in the group’s tasks. Furthermore, this factor captures the degree of tolerance given to dissenting beliefs and opinions (Hüther et al., 2018, p. 246; Taylor, 2008). In dealing with the (4) diversity factor, each group learns from the different personalities, competences, experiences, knowledge and cultural values of its members (Sterling, 2011). The (5) participation factor provides information on the extent to which individual members of the group feel invited and encouraged to express their subjective beliefs, opinions and interests, and to seek workable agreements and solutions in an open and constructive dialogue with other members (Missimer & Connell, 2012; Sterling, 2011). Moreover, the (6) shared-value-factor makes it possible to estimate how well one’s group has succeeded in defining a common concern, goal or shared vision (Hüther et al., 2018, p. 250; Schapiro, 2009). The (7) cooperativity factor reflects the degree of collaboration of the members in one’s group. Every group thrives on the openness and the testing of new ideas (Missimer & Connell, 2012; Schapiro, 2009). In addition, the (8) openness for change factor also includes the willingness to question old convictions, values and attitudes (Robinson et al., 2005). The (9) culture of mistakes factor makes it clear whether mistakes are really understood as a challenge for the group, or whether mistakes that occur are more likely to be attributed to individuals or few members (Hüther, 2017; Hüther et al., 2018, p. 251; Richardson & Mishra, 2018).

Generally speaking, the WeQ-test supports the creation of CLS.

Outlook

The findings of this article will redound to the benefit of groups considering a bridge between ESD and TL as well as the creation of new CLS. The greater demand for collaboration within groups justifies the need for more open-minded and collaborative learning spaces. Thus, start-ups, NGOs as well as universities that apply the recommended WeQ-method derived from the results of this study will be able to train groups better. For the researcher (or researchers if it is a group study), the study will help them uncover success criteria for CLS in groups that earlier researchers were not able to explore. Thus, a new approach of ESD and TL may be arrived at. A CLS as mentioned in the WeQ-test is enabled not just because of the brilliance of single team members, but because of the openness and intensity with which ideas are exchanged and constructively composed in the search for a joint solution. The key to it is the unique way the team members approach each other: from subject to subject (Hüther, 2017).

Since there is still only a limited number of scientific case studies regarding the use of CLS in enterprises and NGOs (as a control group), an empirical study will be designed to examine the possible potentials of collaboration within a group. A comparison with enterprises and NGOs that do not employ such a test will be made. Later, an upcoming paper with the title “The Power of Collaboration – An Evaluation by means of a new, innovative WeQ-test” will address the application of the test and review the results as to how they describe the potential for ESD and TL. Furthermore, the current research is one of the first to examine bridges between ESD and TL towards CLS in groups.

In sum, new CLSs and the application of a WeQ-test support a shift from learning how to understand to learning how to act and transform.

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

The author thanks Dr Christian Rammel and Katharina Egger for their very helpful suggestions.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author received no financial support for the research, authorship and/or publication of this article.

Notes

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