Assignment: Change Project Part 3 – Transformative learning and transforming learning environments

Your Assignment:

In this part of the ESD Change Project and in Learning Action 3, we will review different approaches to learning, identifying those that promote active learning and ‘handprints’ (or positive movement) for change, critical thinking and transformative learning (T-learning). We will consider how learning can emerge from culture and experience, and can be transformed through engaging learners in local depth inquiries using systems thinking, and through giving them chance to encounter new knowledge to expand their enquiries – and then to narrate, design and model more just and sustainable options, possibilities and alternatives that are ethics led, and that reflect empathy and concern for self, others and community, and compassion and purposeful change (see the diagram below).

You can download the Learning Action 3 below. The final step for Learning Action 3 is to complete the Assignment discussed below with your community of practice members.

We conclude Learning Action 3 with TASK 3:

Change Project Part 3 – Transformative Learning and Learning Environments

In this assignment, we particularly focus in on the T-learning pedagogical model for expansive learning that can be used to make ESD Change Project processes work in practice. This is because ESD cannot work without a focus on T-learning, learning something new, and learning to do something about the challenges we face in the world.

In planning a learning sequence like this, it is also helpful to identify learning materials with the student teachers and TVET instructors that you work with. We share the model again, and encourage you to use it with your student teachers as they plan lessons for practice teaching. This model can be used in all settings – ECD, Primary, Secondary Education and in TVET pedagogical processes.

Figure 1  Plan a T-learning Change sequence for your subject (Adapted from O’Donoghue 2019, adapted from Edwards, 2014).

Develop a T-learning plan (with selected materials) and implement it with your student teachers / TVET instructors using the expansive T-learning pedagogical model. Develop a ‘pedagogical plan’ and collect learning resources for your ESD teacher education programme that includes:

In this process, use a diversity of methods and learning materials (including new methods you have not used before), focus on the value and ethics that are important in the context, and activities that can transform the learning environment while also offering opportunities for transformative learning.

Try to implement or at least pilot test part of your pedagogical plan, and reflect critically on it from a ‘transformative ESD’ point of view. What do you think you have been able to achieve? What do you still need to do?

Once you’ve completed the assignment please submit your Learning Action 3 assignment below.