Abstract
Global dialogue is very important to help and mediate the development of global mindsets towards Education for Sustainability (EfS) (Jamison, 2018; Wegerif et al., 2019). The proposed project is conducted in a core course called “Global Dialogues on Education for Sustainability (EfS) in the Curriculum” in a newly proposed bachelor degree programme in global education as run by the Faculty of Education, where students directly take part in meaningful dialogues with “global peers” (i.e. students from The University of Bristol and The University of Bergen) concerning EfS issues, covering four key themes: (1) Motivation to teach Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), (2) Learning and teaching strategies for sustainability, (3) Inclusive education in the local and global context, and (4) Creativity and innovation for developing global competency. The key objective of the project is to enable students to engage in global dialogues on EfS. The specific learning objectives of the course are as follows:
- To understand the concepts of global dialogue (knowledge)
- To evaluate and make suggestions on learning and teaching strategies in ESD (knowledge)
- To explain and analyze the key concepts of education for sustainability (e.g. UNESCO Global Citizenship Education, Global Goals for Sustainable Development) (knowledge)
- To act and speak in a dialogic way (skill)
- To engage in an open dialogue with “global peers” and facilitate dialogue for deepening learning in a collective way (skill)
- To listen to self and others, speak openly, and respect others (skill)
- To be self-aware of personal and be open-minded towards the views of “global peers” (attitude)
Specifically, to provide global experiences for students to be aware of the self as a global citizen and promote global mindedness (Tichnor-Wagner, 2019), as facilitated by a pre-dialogue theme-based mini-lecture and a post-dialogue reflection session, online global dialogue activities will be carried out in synchronous (virtually at the same time) and asynchronous (at different times) forms (Kienle, 2009) for the purpose of catering for diverse needs of different learners (Hrastinski, 2008) and regional time zone differences (Appana, 2008). Synchronous online dialogues will be done on an innovative platform called ZOOM for video conferencing with “global peers” from the UK and Norway whist asynchronous online dialogues will take place with the use of KEEP (https://course.keep.edu.hk/submitCourse), which is a current cross-institutional project led by CUHK that which serves as a Learning Management System (LMS) for facilitating offline asynchronous dialogues and enriching learning contents across regions in a secure, responsive learning environment (Hamutoglu, Gemikonakli, & Gezgin, 2019).
Brief write-up
Project objectives
The key objective of the project is to enable students to engage in global dialogues on Education for Sustainability (EfS).
Activities, process and outcomes
• The activities in the Project included: two pre-dialogue theme-based mini-lectures, online global dialogue activities which were carried out in synchronous (virtually at the same time) using ZOOM and asynchronous (at different times) with the use of Padlet, which serves as a Learning Management System (LMS) for facilitating offline asynchronous dialogues and enriching learning contents across regions in a secure, responsive learning environment, as well as two post-dialogue reflection sessions.
• During the processes of the project, there was an integration of online and offline modes of global dialogues which helped extend students’ horizons in understanding EfS issues (in particular climate change education) from other socio-cultural perspectives and enrich their experiences through communicating with the UK students and tutors.
Deliverables and evaluation
Summary of project deliverables
• A total of two theme-based Global Dialogue activities were organized, which contained Pre-dialogue Mini-Lecture Synchronous Dialogue and Asynchronous Dialogue, as well as Post-dialogue Reflection Session.
• A project website, together with one Instagram, was developed for dissemination of practice.
• A webinar cum workshop was conducted for the dissemination of the project in the field of education and educational research.
• Accomplishment of project objectives, University themes, institutional strategic plan and priorities/goals:
- The project directly responded to the two university-wide themes on “Global Citizenship and Enterprisingness” and “Innovation and Design”. This programme serves as a cornerstone for future development of global mindedness of students (including preservice teachers). In constructing and conducting the project, teachers (including the applicants and colleagues, as well as global colleagues engaged in the course) had ample professional development opportunities through interacting and exchanging ideas about teaching contents and pedagogical designs.
- Additionally, based on the project experience, a new elective course entitled “Global Dialogues on Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) in the Curriculum” was developed and endorsed by the faculty. This course will be available for students (taking education as a major or minor) as an elective starting from 2022-23.
Dissemination, diffusion, impact and sharing of good practices
• One website, together with Padlet and Instagram, was developed to deliver and disseminate the contents of the project.
• One webinar cum professional development workshop will be conducted on 16 Jun 2022.
• Two conference presentation abstracts were submitted to two international conferences and one of them got a notification of acceptance to the conference.
• The current project was used as a basis for developing an undergraduate elective course which will be available to all students who take education as a major or minor discipline.
• The current collaboration with the University of Bristol further extended the network in international collaboration for creating student learning experiences and consolidating research in relation to global dialogues.
Impact on teaching and learning
• The project deliverables including the website for flipped classes with the use of Padlets are effective in motivating students to take part in global dialogues and helping them get updated knowledge about the EfS issues and understanding about global dialogues. The use of virtual global dialogues in synchronous and asynchronous ways is useful to ignite students’ excitement and joy of learning. The students’ written responses and drawings in post-dialogue sessions are helpful to let teachers re-think and reflect upon the current pedagogical design in a more systematic way. Based on the interview data of students, they all expressed that the project experience did give them surprises and special learning experiences that they did not ever expect, where they learnt much more about EfS and started to think about how they could put what they had learnt in their own daily lives and future teaching profession.
