Tag: Competency-Based Education

Toward a Sustainable Future through Competency-Based Education

by Elham (Ellie)

Having a sustainable future means exploring approaches that improve the quality of all creatures’ life in all parts of the world equally, without degrading the environment and depriving future generations. It requires an understanding that human passivity might have the majority of consequences, and we must find ways to revolutionize all levels of society. It is an old belief that education can increase this understanding, and behavior consequently; however, conventional knowledge-based educational approaches show unsatisfying records in behavior-changing. The reason is that sustainability needs specific kinds of teaching and learning methods. In the current system of education, the focus is mainly on the cognitive domain of learning, which is about our knowledge and its application, what we know and what we understand, as well as the way we analyze, synthesize and assess this knowledge and understanding. But in sustainability education, we need to concentrate on the affective domain, which is about our values, attitudes, and behaviors and engages audiences emotionally. In response to these requirements, education methods should move toward programs that shape competencies. Competency can be defined as a combination of knowledge with skill and attitude, which enables individuals to act and behave concerning the environment.

In this project, we will review literature that investigates the role of competency-based education for sustainability at different levels, especially higher education. Also, we will discuss how this topic can contribute to collective natural resource decision making and participatory management.

Competence-Based Education

by Elham (Ellie)

In order to adequately prepare learners to address today’s sustainability challenges, education needs to find innovative ways to provide learning opportunities focused on challenges and solutions while providing the framework of systems thinking, interpersonal, and change agent skills (Anderson, 2015). Recently, educational systems are going toward student-centered, or learner-centered rather than educator-centered. In other words, instead of working on content, they are oriented mostly around competence-centered curricula (Bergsmann, Schultes, Winter, Schober, & Spiel, 2015). From the first steps of considering ESD, international debates were around competencies (Struyven & De Meyst, 2010), so we can declare that competency-based methods for teaching are relatively new (Segalas et al., 2010), although the first introduction of the concept of “competence” itself goes back to 1890 (Struyven & De Meyst, 2010). Many scholars published their research on competency-based in the United States around the 1960s and 1970s, and after that, interests in competency-based education and training were increased (Struyven & De Meyst, 2010). Utilizing competency-based approached has been discussed to be a part of agenda of many faculties since the late 1990s (Segalas et al., 2010), and now, many approaches have been encouraged to train capable students with the knowledge, abilities, values, and attitudes needed to contribute to sustainable development.

Based on what Struyven and De Meyst assert, competency-based education is “creating opportunities for students and workers, close to their world of experience in a meaningful learning environment wherein the learner can develop integrated, performance-oriented capabilities to handle the problems in practice” (Struyven & De Meyst, 2010, p. 1496). Promoting competencies are not similar to regular knowledge gaining, although we can learn them, they are not teachable at least through traditional knowledge-based method (Barth, Godemann, Rieckmann, & Stoltenberg, 2007). Competency is an individual skill for performing and acting; in other words, it is an ability to do specific things that are in contrast with the ability to gain knowledge (Struyven & De Meyst, 2010). So, the question is, how can it be acquired? As sustainability becomes a part of education, approaches should focus on empowering learners to understand and handle sustainability challenges so that they can be prepared to be systemic-problem solvers, game changers and capable managers (Anderson, 2015; Wiek, Withycombe, Redman, & Mills, 2011). Competencies are a representation of the potential for behavior, not the behavior itself. So, whether competencies are genuinely put into practice or not depends on the circumstances (Struyven & De Meyst, 2010).

What makes Competence-oriented educational concepts different from traditional pedagogies is that the focus of the former is on the ‘output’ of educational processes, while the latter emphasizes the ‘input.’ It means that it seeks the answer to the question of “what should be learned,” not “what should be taught” (Hesselbarth & Schaltegger, 2014; Segalas et al., 2010). The mission of the output approach is to asks what problem-solving abilities, what kind of managing tactics, which analytical abilities learners might need to be able to participate in social action actively? (Hesselbarth & Schaltegger, 2014; Segalas et al., 2010) The advantage of having this method is that through this approach learner can decide about the content of the education by him/herself. It means the content can be relatively freely selected based on personal and previous experiences, motivations and local and individual everyday life. The root of competency-based education is in goal-orientation and individualization which make learning goals explicit for every individual. Then each person can develop skills of appropriate actions or competencies by pursuing learning activities in the experiencing process (Struyven & De Meyst, 2010). This can increase learners’ interest in the learning content and their acquisition of skills (Segalas et al., 2010).

 

References:

Anderson, E. L. (2015). Developing Key Sustainability Competencies through Real-World Learning Experiences. Evaluating Community Environmental Services.

Barth, M., Godemann, J., Rieckmann, M., & Stoltenberg, U. (2007). Developing key competencies for sustainable development in higher education. International Journal of Sustainability in Higher Education, 8(4), 416–430.

Bergsmann, E., Schultes, M. T., Winter, P., Schober, B., & Spiel, C. (2015). Evaluation of competence-based teaching in higher education: From theory to practice. Evaluation and Program Planning, 52, 1–9.

Hesselbarth, C., & Schaltegger, S. (2014). Educating change agents for sustainability – Learnings from the first sustainability management master of business administration. Journal of Cleaner Production, 62, 24–36.

Struyven, K., & De Meyst, M. (2010). Competence-based teacher education: Illusion or reality? An assessment of the implementation status in Flanders from teachers’ and students’ points of view. Teaching and Teacher Education, 26(8), 1495–1510.

Wiek, A., Withycombe, L., Redman, C., & Mills, S. B. (2011). Moving forward on competence in sustainability research and problem solving. Environment, 53(2), 3–12.

Education for Sustainable Development

by Elham (Ellie)

Having a sustainable future means exploring developing approaches that improve the quality of all creatures’ life in all parts of the world equally, without deteriorating environment and depriving future generations. It requires an understanding that human passivity might have the majority of consequences and we must find ways to revolutionize all levels of society. After first major conferences on the human environment in Brundtland (1987), Stockholm (1972), and the Rio Earth Summit (1992) critical worldwide decisions and guidelines were made regarding the role of education in achieving sustainability (Lozano et al., 2015; UNESCO Education Sector, 2010). United nation Agenda 21 declares explicitly that the role of Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) is to bring all sustainability concepts and skills into education, training and public awareness systems for the whole societies across the globe (Rieckmann, 2012; UNESCO Education Sector, 2010). That was a start point for re-orientation of education, training and public awareness towards sustainability. Following this agenda, in 2002, the UN Decade of Education for Sustainable Development was introduced for emphasizing the need for strengthening the role of education in sustainable development (Frisk & Larson, 2011; Rieckmann, 2012; UNESCO Education Sector, 2010). The implementation of ESD has been continued after 2014, the end of the ESD decade, after ESD World Conference in Japan which was an essential milestone for going forward (Anderson, 2015; Cebrián & Junyent, 2015).

ESD mission and aim are to lead the world to the point that every individual has the opportunity to benefit from quality education which allows him/her to learn and gain values, behaviors, and lifestyles so that they can make environmentally-responsible decisions, behave sustainably and be a part of decision-making processes for shaping a sustainable future (Labodová, Lapčík, Kodymová, Turjak, & Pivko, 2014; Milutinović & Nikolić, 2014; Vega-Marcote et al., 2015). By embracing these elements in a holistic and integrated manner, ESD enables all individuals to fully develop the knowledge, perspectives, values, and skills necessary to take part in decisions to improve the quality of life both locally and globally in terms which are most relevant to their daily lives (Milutinović & Nikolić, 2014). In this way, it increases earth citizens’ awareness about upcoming challenges and enables individuals to control their everyday actions. Moreover, they gain the ability to analyze current days and the consequences of their actions for society and environment in future as well as seeking for possible solutions in complex situations (Rieckmann, 2012b; Vega-Marcote et al., 2015). In all, it is asserted by experts that the most critical objectives of ESD can be categorized as “creating and changing values, attitudes and awareness” and “developing competencies” (Rieckmann, 2012b, p. 132). It worth mentioning that, ESD is responsible for considering all three main facets of sustainable development, society, environment, and economy, in its pedagogy in different cultural contexts (Milutinović & Nikolić, 2014).

However, literature shows that no direct relationship between the level of education within a society and its level of sustainability has been found (Segalas et al., 2010). But why? The reason is that sustainability needs specific kinds of teaching and learning methods. Conventional knowledge-based educational approaches show unsatisfying records in behavior-changing (Frisk & Larson, 2011). It is argued that environmental education or traditional ways of education failure to change individual behaviors and collective action in the first hand is because of debatable theories about the relationship between knowledge and behavior (Frisk & Larson, 2011). While the early assumptions, which are based on Knowledge > attitude> behavior, believed that problem-relevant knowledge could cause people to take action, it is now verified that knowledge itself is not enough for making individuals motivated for changing or having pro-environmental behaviors (Cincera, Czech, & Vasconcelos, n.d.; Frisk & Larson, 2011).

In the current system of education, the focus is mainly on the cognitive domain of learning; which is about our knowledge and its application, what we know and what we understand, as well as the way we analyze, synthesize and assess this knowledge and understanding (Frisk & Larson, 2011; Shephard, 2008). But what we need for ESD is something else, we need to concentrate on affective domain, which is about our values, attitudes, and behaviors and engages audiences emotionally (Frisk & Larson, 2011; Shephard, 2008). “It includes, in a hierarchy, the ability to listen, to respond in interactions with others, to demonstrate attitudes or values appropriate to particular situations, to demonstrate balance and consideration, and at the highest level, to display a commitment to principled practice on a day-to-day basis, alongside a willingness to revise judgment and change behavior in the light of new evidence” (Shephard, 2008, p. 88). It is essential to make a distinction between sustainability education and traditional disciplines or even environmental education field, but still necessary to make an interconnection in methods, theories, and knowledge from various disciplines (Anderson, 2015). In response to these needs, educations should move toward programs that shape competencies. “Shaping competence’’ or ‘‘Gestaltungskompetenz’’ in German should be set as the main aim of sustainable education (Barth, Godemann, Rieckmann, & Stoltenberg, 2007; Rieckmann, 2012a), what we can call competency-based education.

 

References:

Anderson, E. L. (2015). Developing Key Sustainability Competencies through Real-World Learning Experiences. Evaluating Community Environmental Services.

Barth, M., Godemann, J., Rieckmann, M., & Stoltenberg, U. (2007). Developing key competencies for sustainable development in higher education. International Journal of Sustainability in Higher Education, 8(4), 416–430.

Cebrián, G., & Junyent, M. (2015). Competencies in education for sustainable development: Exploring the student teachers’ views. Sustainability (Switzerland), 7(3), 2768–2786.

Cincera, J., Czech, B., & Vasconcelos, C. (n.d.). Education . Overview discipline approach – report 3. 1–28.

Frisk, E., & Larson, K. L. (2011). Journal of Sustainability Education Vol. 2, March 2011 ISSN: 2151-7452. Journal of Sustainability Education, 2(March).

Labodová, A., Lapčík, V., Kodymová, J., Turjak, J., & Pivko, M. (2014). Sustainability teaching at VSB – Technical University of Ostrava. Journal of Cleaner Production, 62, 128–133.

Lozano, R., Ceulemans, K., Alonso-Almeida, M., Huisingh, D., Lozano, F. J., Waas, T., … Hugé, J. (2015). A review of commitment and implementation of sustainable development in higher education: Results from a worldwide survey. Journal of Cleaner Production, 108, 1–18.

Milutinović, S., & Nikolić, V. (2014). Rethinking higher education for sustainable development in Serbia: An assessment of Copernicus charter principles in current higher education practices. Journal of Cleaner Production, 62, 107–113.

Rieckmann, M. (2012a). Future-oriented higher education: Which key competencies should be fostered through university teaching and learning? Futures, 44(2), 127–135. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.futures.2011.09.005

Rieckmann, M. (2012b). Future-oriented higher education: Which key competencies should be fostered through university teaching and learning? Futures, 44(2), 127–135.

Shephard, K. (2008). Higher education for sustainability: Seeking effective learning outcomes. International Journal of Sustainability in Higher Education, 9(1), 87–98.

Vega-Marcote, P., Varela-Losada, M., & Álvarez-Suárez, P. (2015). Evaluation of an educational model based on the development of sustainable competencies in basic teacher training in Spain. Sustainability (Switzerland), 7(3), 2603–2622.