A paper archived in my files by Steve Sterling

Education is a slow learner. The increasingly apparent conditions of uncertainty, complexity, and threat across systems, not least exemplified by the ‘triple crunch’ of peak oil, climate change and financial instability – and the urgency of the quest for sustainability – call for a matching and commensurate response in educational purposes, policies and practice. And yet, despite decades of debate and work at national and international levels on environmental education, development education, and more latterly, education for sustainability and education for sustainable development (ESD), mainstream educational thinking and practice has still to embrace fully the implications of current socio-economic-ecological trends, let alone explore, critique and inform the urgent changes in thinking, practices and lifestyles that many observers deem necessary to assure a livable future.

That said, there is a growing energy in the sustainability education movement and some signs of change in policy, at least in higher education, that augur well. Yet hard questions remain about the pace, depth, and extent of educational response, seen against almost daily headlines that raise sustainability concerns. Take just two, occurring on the same day in October: ‘UK will face peak oil crisis within five years, report warns’; ‘World is facing a natural resources crisis worse than financial crunch – humans using 30% more resources than sustainable’. (Clark, Jowit, 2008). What competencies – dispositions, values, understandings, practical abilities – do people need to both cope with this kind of world and shape the transition to a more stable and sustainable one? David Orr’s line that ‘sustainability is about the terms and conditions of human survival, and yet we still educate at all levels as if no crisis existed’ (Orr 1992, 83) comes to mind. That was written some 16 years ago. Undoubtedly, it is less valid today, but still rings largely true. And if so, society’s reliance on education, or at least formal education – reflected for example in HEFCE’s vision that ‘higher education will be recognized as major contributor to society’s efforts to achieve sustainability’ (HEFCE 2008) – seems a risky strategy. A recent report from the New Economics Foundation argues that HE’s role has narrowed too far towards servicing the market economy and that HE needs to rethink its purposes to advance collective wellbeing. It needs to equip its learners ‘with the knowledge, skills and understanding to pioneer innovative and creative responses to achieving wider economic, social and environmental well-being’, the report suggests, adding that wellbeing should be a part of quality assurance (Steuer and Marks 2008, 12) . Meanwhile, there has been an increasing debate and attention around social learning in community rather than formal contexts (Wals 2007), where there is more fecund potential for change focused on wellbeing – as evidenced, for example, by the growing Transition Towns movement (Hopkins, 2008).

For over three decades, ever since the UN Conference on the Human Environment (Stockholm 1972), education has been identified in international conferences, reports and agreements as a critical key to addressing environment and development issues. And we are now in the UN Decade of Education for Sustainable Development (DESD). The overall goal of the DESD is to ‘integrate the principles, values, and practices of sustainable development into all aspects of education and learning’ which will in turn, it is hoped, ‘encourage changes in behavior that will create a more sustainable future in terms of environmental integrity, economic viability, and a just society for present and future generations’ (UNESCO, 2008). This is a worthy goal, which has stimulated much good work internationally, but it does not question the assumptions, values and dominant epistemologies of educational traditions, policies, and practices that, by default, still contribute to decline.  For example, drawing on reports on sustainability in higher education in six European countries, Wals suggests ‘at present most of our universities are still leading the way in advancing the kind of thinking, teaching and research that…accelerates un-sustainability’ (Wals 2008: 31).  If this is valid, then layering or inserting sustainability into policy and practices that otherwise remain largely unchanged may have value but is insufficient. As I have argued elsewhere, sustainability ‘implies a change of fundamental epistemology in our culture and hence also in our educational thinking and practice. Seen in this light, sustainability is not just another issue to be added to an overcrowded curriculum, but a gateway to a different view of curriculum, of pedagogy, of organizational change, of policy and particularly of ethos (Sterling 2004: 50). What is at stake then is ‘response-ability’, the ability of the educational community to respond adequately to the conditions that face us and will face our graduates, and our children. Yet this is a big ask. The paradox of education is that it is seen as a preparation for the future, but it grows out of the past. In stable conditions, this socialization and replication function of education is sufficient: in volatile conditions where there is an increasingly shared sense (as well as numerous reports indicating) that the future will not be anything like a linear extension of the past, it sets boundaries and barriers to innovation, creativity, and experimentation.

A key problem is that ‘education’ is perceived by politicians, policymakers and the public as a system through which learning is facilitated. It is not seen as a system which itself learns. But it is very clear from the current history of attempts to ‘embed’ sustainability in HE that it requires learning within educational systems, not just learning through educational systems. The challenge is such that systemic learning across educational paradigms, purposes, policies, and practices is required, if education is to be able to foster the kind of learning that is envisaged by the DESD. So what is commonly perceived as a single learning challenge, is in fact a double learning challenge. How do we work towards transformative learning in a system that itself is designed to be the prime agency of learning?

It is helpful to elaborate a distinction made between two arenas of learning, that is, between ‘structured learning’ – the designed learning associated with courses and programmes for students – and the social or organizational learning within institutions which needs to take place in order to facilitate the former (Sterling 2006): the degree of change possible in the former depending on the degree of change in the latter. It also helpful to distinguish between levels of learning, as recognized in organizational learning theory, following Bateson (1972). Most universities and schools are engaged in promulgating first order learning in either arena. This is content-led and is ‘learning within paradigm’ which is not itself examined or questioned. This is sometimes called ‘maintenance learning’ in that it supports continuity and is conformative. Arguably, however, sustainability requires ‘education for discontinuity’, supporting not more of the same but developing radical thinking and innovation in economics, engineering, design, architecture, health and so on. In other words, sustainability requires at least second order learning, or critical reflexivity, in both learning arenas, whereby assumptions are critically examined and fresh and innovative thinking is nurtured. In short, educational institutions need to become less centres of transmission and delivery, and more centres of transformation and inquiry, less teaching organizations, more learning organizations critically engaged with real world issues in their community and region.   They would be less engaged in ‘retrospective education’, following on from past practice, and more involved in ‘anticipative education’: that is, in Scharmer’s words, ‘learning from the future as it emerges’ (p5).

The issue here is the difference between where education arguably should be and where it can be, given structural, perceptual, and other barriers. To this end, it is useful to have models of staged change that give some indication of what a more sustainable institution and education would look like. For some years on the Education for Sustainability Programme at London South Bank University ( http://www.lsbu.ac.uk/efs), we have made a distinction, summarized here, between:

• Education about  sustainability: content and/or skills emphasis. Fairly easily accommodated into existing system. Learning about change. Accommodative response (first order – ‘bolt-on’)
• Education for  sustainability: additional values emphasis. Greening of institutions. Deeper questioning and reform of purpose, policy and practice. Learning for change. Reformative response (second order – ‘build in’)
• Sustainable education:  Capacity building and action emphasis. ‘Living’ inquiry-based curriculum. Sustainable institutions as permeable, experiential learning communities and organisations. Learning as change. Transformative response (third order – ‘redesign’)

This model, which roughly equates with Bateson’s learning levels, suggests that  first order change may be a necessary early response but is not sufficient, whilst the third response is the most difficult to achieve, particularly at institutional level, as it is most in conflict with existing structures, values and methodologies, and cannot be imposed.  ‘Sustainable education’ suggests a change of educational culture, shifting attention from ‘adding on’ some desired learning outcomes as in ‘education for sustainable development’ towards thinking about the kinds of  education through which sustainability qualities and wellbeing manifest as  emergent properties in the institutional and wider communities. As such it has the potential to integrate other, HE agendas be they skills, employability, internationalization, and enterprise into a broader whole which is responsive, creative and proactive.

This may sound far from the realities of everyday institutional life. But the question is how far these realities can correspond to the global and local realities of everyday life beyond academe. I am currently working at the Centre for Sustainable Futures (CSF) at the University of Plymouth, which is working – ambitiously – to ‘develop the transformative potential of higher education at the University of Plymouth and beyond for building towards a sustainable future’ through a five-year initiative funded by HEFCE. We have made real strides towards this end, employing an holistic methodology of systemic change, working at all levels across the university, seeking synergies, building partnerships and trust, researching change, and offering support (www.csf.plymouth.ac.uk).

Seen as a whole, the programme has been an experiment and a learning experience, both for CSF core staff and for members of the university, which has been fed back into the process. It is no coincidence perhaps that Plymouth has won second place for two years running in the People and Planet’s Green League. Yet Plymouth is a long way from being what might be termed ‘a sustainable university’. At the same time, by developing and maintaining what might be called a ‘critical, connective and collective intelligence’ around sustainability across the university, CSF is, we think, developing the conditions by which the institution can grow its sustainability policies and practices systemically in the areas of ‘campus, curriculum, community and culture’: a ‘4C’ model that has informed CSF’s work since its inception in 2005.

Meanwhile, all the funding councils for HE in the UK are now recognising ESD as a strategic priority. HEFCE’s revised Action Plan for sustainable development will be published soon (see HEFCE 2008), and consultation on the document showed that many respondents are urging HEFCE to prioritise actions supporting teaching and learning. DIUS produced its own action plan for sustainable development in July, which makes specific mention of sustainability in the curriculum. Add to that evidence of increasing activity (Sterling and Scott 2008) as shown, for example, by the establishment of the UUK’s sustainable development group at VC level, by the Green Gowns awards and People and Planet’s Green League, the work of the HE Academy’s ESD Project and the vitality of EAUC – and there are grounds for hope that higher education might yet rise to the challenge of transformation, so that it might be more transformative.

Stephen Sterling

Dr Stephen Sterling is Schumacher Reader in Education for Sustainability at the Centre for Sustainable Futures, University of Plymouth, and Senior Advisor to the HE Academy ESD Project.

References

Bateson, G. 1972. Steps to an Ecology of Mind, Chandler, San Franscisco.

Clark, D (2008) ‘UK will face peak oil crisis within five years, report warns’, http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/oct/29/fossil-fuels-oil (accessed 9/11/08)

Jowit, J. (2008) World is facing a natural resources crisis worse than financial crunch http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/oct/29/climatechange-endangeredhabitats (accessed 9/11/08)

HEFCE (2008) Sustainable development in higher education – Consultation on 2008 update to strategic statement and action plan, HEFCE, London.

Hopkins, R. 2008. The Transition Handbook – from oil dependency to local resilience, Green

Books, Totnes.

Sterling, S. 2004. ‘Higher Education, Sustainability and the Role of Systemic

Learning’, in Corcoran PB & Wals, AEJ (editors), Higher Education and the

Challenge of Sustainability: Contestation, Critique, Practice, and Promise, Kluwer

Academic.

Sterling, S. 2006. ‘Towards sustainability intelligence’ paper to seminar: Developing innovation

competencies: what does Waginengen University (want to) offer?, Waginengen 26 November

2006,  http://www.tad.wur.nl/uk/newsagenda/archive/news/2006/Seminars.htm

Sterling, S and Scott, W (2008) ‘Higher Education and ESD in England: a critical commentary

on recent initiatives’, Environmental Education Research, vol 14, no 4.

Scharmer, O. 2006. ‘Theory U: Leading from the Future as it Emerges – the Social

Technology of Presencing’, Fieldnotes, September–October, The Shambhala

Institute for Authentic Leadership, Halifax, NS.

You may have heard the term ‘VUCA environment’ – one that is volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous – mentioned recently. The acronym has its roots in Opens in new windowmilitary discourse but is increasingly relevant to our day-to-day lives. From global climate change and the pandemic to Brexit and war in Europe, we are exposed to a seemingly endless ticker tape of uncertainty.

This provokes a question for the higher education sector: how do we prepare our graduates for this volatile world? While Higher Education institutions have good experience of preparing students for unpredictable futures – we design curricula for students we haven’t met and Opens in new windowjobs that haven’t been invented yet – a specific focus on training for uncertainty may be needed.

Managing uncertainty is already a hot topic for medical education, where a recent surge of research interest has identified several key issues. Studies suggest that a health professional’s ability to manage uncertainty can impact on their Opens in new windowcommunication, decision-making and Opens in new windowemotion-regulation skills, as well as Opens in new windowpatient outcomes, while others highlight that a positive approach to uncertainty can protect against poor well-being or Opens in new windowburnout.

A focus on uncertainty becomes more urgent when we consider that established approaches to higher education may block or hinder skills development in this domain. Delese Wear, from Northeast Ohio Medical University, warns that strategies which aim to improve the educational experience (for example, increased digitisation, constructive alignment and competency-based assessment) may have the unintended effect of reducing students’ opportunities to engage with “Opens in new windownuance, context and ambiguity”.

Researchers believe that a lack of certainty is an important catalyst for learning and can lead to improved long-term retention and a Opens in new windowdeeper understanding of material. We are now gaining more insight into Opens in new windowhow emotions can trigger and maintain the Opens in new windowcognitive-processing mechanisms underlying learning and performance. Although the literature here is nuanced, it is thought that Opens in new windowexperiences of confusion (the right amount at the right time) can keep students engaged with a topic or challenge, enhancing long-term retention and increasing transferable understanding of the material. This implies that our students appear to benefit from being exposed to uncertainty, even if they prefer not to be.

Luckily, higher education institutions – complex and often imperfect ecosystems – provide a natural sandbox for learning about uncertainty. Thoughtful instructional design can help us to harness this environment and help our students to build the skills – problem-solving, critical thinking, coping with failure – needed to meet the demands of a VUCA world. Such approaches may also offer protection against career disillusionment and burnout.

Here are nine instructional design strategies to try in your own teaching context:

1. Make the invisible visible

Uncertainty is ever present but, like the Opens in new windowMagic Eye pictures of the 1990s, we won’t notice if we don’t stop to look. Use your teaching to open the conversation with your students, and help them to tune in, too. Ask questions such as: ‘What do we not know here?’ or ‘What’s missing from this picture?’ This helps send a message that uncertainty is all around, but that’s OK.

2. Actively elicit student uncertainties

Clinical educators use a debriefing tool called Opens in new windowSNAPPS to help students disclose aspects of a patient’s case that they are not sure about. You can also use a ‘Opens in new windowmuddiest point‘ exercise. Here, you ask the class: ‘What was the most confusing or least clear concept in today’s class?’ before gathering responses verbally, or via pieces of paper or online forms. Eliciting our students’ uncertainties helps them find their voice and offers us clear feedback on what concepts we need to revisit.

3. Make it safe for your learners to disclose uncertainty

When we probe our students’ uncertainties, we are also responsible for making this a safe thing to do. Most people have a fear of ‘looking stupid’. When our students express doubt or confusion, we need to respond with empathy and sensitive communication. If students feel afraid to disclose uncertainty, it’s harder for educators to detect and correct misconceptions.

4. Add learning activities that provoke uncertainty

Puzzles, games, role plays, Opens in new windowmaker spaces and group activities such as problem-based learning all offer opportunities for learning around uncertainty. It helps to explain to students why you are using these strategies and how ‘Opens in new windowproductive struggle‘ may result in long-term learning gains. Preferably these activities should be low stakes for students, that is, they are not linked to substantial grading decisions.

5. Use shared reflection to help students unpack uncertainty

We talk about uncertainty as if it’s simple, but real-world examples tend to be multifaceted with multiple antecedents and consequences. Shared reflection and peer-to-peer learning offer valuable ways to help students see this granularity.

6. Encourage students to persist despite uncertainty

Educators can positively influence student engagement through validating (‘I know you are finding this one a bit of a struggle’) or normalising (‘Most people find this concept hard to crack’) their experiences. Empathising, and keeping students hopeful that they will succeed, can boost motivation through challenging topics.

7. Highlight the value of working with uncertainty

While uncertainty can feel aversive or anxiety-laden, it is in itself a neutral phenomenon; unpredictable situations can lead to positive change as well as negative. Students can be helped to apply different cognitive frames to uncertain situations. By seeking to convert students’ anxiety into curiosity or excitement, we can help them to recognise and harness the opportunities that often emerge through upheaval and disruption.

8. In designing course elements, use a lens of uncertainty

It can be helpful to reflect on which aspects of a module or course might trigger experiences of uncertainty for students. Opens in new windowRonald Beghetto, of Opens in new windowArizona State University, says that ‘good uncertainty… provides students opportunities to engage with the unknowns of a challenge in an otherwise supportive, well-structured environment’. Try to maximise such ‘good’ uncertainty (mixing up students’ friendship groups for a project, engaging them in workplace-based learning or meeting people from different cultures and backgrounds) that can lead to meaningful learning experiences and minimise ‘bad’ uncertainty (inaccurate class schedules, unclear assignment guidelines) that may lead to frustration.

9. Take time to reflect on your own response to uncertainty

Think about how you view and act upon complexity and unpredictability in your own life. What aspects of your responses are constructive, and what might need further work? Students often role-model from what we do rather than what we say, so it’s good to know the message we send out. It’s also helpful to share that uncertainty is a work-in-progress for us, too: ‘This is a concept I struggle with myself…” or ‘I’m having trouble getting this clear in my head’.