Transdisciplinary Orientation to Responsible Living Curricula

1. Transdisciplinary Orientation to Responsible Living Curricula Sue L. T. McGregor PhD Professor Mount Saint Vincent University, Halifax NS Canada http://www.consultmcgregor.com Paper presented at the 2012 Partnership for Education and Research for Responsible Living (PERL) conference, Berlin, Germany

2. Track 3 - What orientations to learning and knowing can teachers hold when designing responsible living curricula? • A consumer culture cannot change unless consumer pedagogies change. • Switching to a responsible living curriculum is one such change. • Switching to a transdisciplinary orientation is another change.

3. Features of responsible living curricula (Thuente, 1993) • Helps students integrate what they learn into their daily lives • Develops their consciousness and self-control • Fosters prosocial behaviour (voluntary behaviour intended to benefit others) • Sensitizes them to interconnectedness and to interdependence • Creates spaces so attitudes and dispositions towards responsible choices can be nurtured • Teaches them to be able to see opportunities and to deal confidently with uncertainty and change • Integrates concepts from a variety of subject areas around themes focused on contemporary issues facing students (wicked problems facing humanity)

4. Four large ideas for how to bring a transdisciplinary orientation to responsible living curricula:

5. This paper focuses on how educators’ appreciation for what counts as learning and knowing might change if they embrace a transdisciplinary orientation in their pedagogy and course content Elements of a TD orientation

6. Transdisciplinary KNOWLEDGE • Transdisciplinary knowledge is created by moving beyond the integration of knowledge from many disciplines towards linking that integrated knowledge with local and traditional knowledge systems. • In a transintellectual space, a gradual cross-fertilization of different ideas, perspectives and value systems occurs while solving complex, emergent problems of humanity (far beyond the traditional curriculum content for individual subject areas, which are disciplinary-based)

7. TD knowledge con’t • The creation of TD knowledge inherently entails self-transformation leading to new knowledge of oneself and of the art of living responsibly with others. • This knowledge is co-created with others who are living the problems and becomes embodied (belongs to everyone). • It is alive (does not stand still) because the problems being solved are alive and changing. This is very different from static knowledge created by different disciplines

8. TD knowledge is integrated: • This means people creating the knowledge open up to all those involved so something new can be created via synthesis and the harmonization of ideas and perspectives. Synthesis means creating a new whole by combining separate things in ways that had not been done before. People self-(re)organize during perspective sharing and solution development. • This type of knowledge is especially needed when solving wicked problems

9. Shift curricula foci to wicked problems • E.g., climate change, poverty, over-population, unsustainability • Knowledge about the problem is uncertain • The nature of the problem is disputed by multiple actors; depends on who is asked • Great deal is at stake • All have human relationships and social interactions at their core • Different notions of what constitutes an acceptable solution (no evident solution) • Fixing one wicked problem often creates another one • Aspects of a wicked problem may be symptoms of other wicked problems

10. Transdisciplinary 7 Habits of Minds (Mishra, Koehler & Henriksen, 2011) • People need to learn seven TD habits of mind in order to solve complex, wicked problems: • Perceiving • Patterning • Abstracting • Embodied thinking • Modelling • Play • synthesizing

11. 7 TD habits of mind • Use all five senses and then call to mind what they have observed without external aids (perceiving and imaging) 2. Learn to see repeating forms in seemingly arbitrary arrangements (recognize patterns) 3. Focus on one feature of something and then explain the abstraction using analogies (abstracting) 4. Learn to know the world around them by thinking with their body and then learn empathy (embodied thinking) 5. Build replicas or use theories or models to represent and then study something (modelling, includes abstraction) 6. Open doors to new ways of thinking and seeing by intellectually playing with ideas, concepts, boundaries and processes (deep playing) 7. Synthesizing

12. Transdisciplinary Learning • All about merging different perspectives to problem solve. • TD learning cannot happen unless boundaries are broken down or transcended and people have room to cross back and forth, in and out, over and under, through each other’s perspectives and positions. • This iterative border work helps people appreciate that their ideas can contribute to solving the problem. • TD learning happens in spaces created to allow perspectives to change or to be viewed from different angles than originally presented.

13. Transdisciplinary Learning APPROACH leading to convergence of mindsets • Three stage learning cycle, with the cycle having no set beginning or end: • Each person comes to the TD learning table with their own contributions to the solution of the complex problem (normative interpretations) • They each pose actions ,which will have a series of (un)expected effects (creative) • Each person at the TD learning table grapples with all contributions, with the possibility that perspectives can shift, merge or lead to the creation of new TD knowledge (observation)

14. Muller, Tjallingi and Canters 2005

15. Intent of transdisciplinary learning approach • People can “effectively communicate across disciplines and sectors, value other’s expertise and knowledge, establish necessary relationships, ask important questions, integrate shared learning, and grow in self-confidence while successfully working [and learning] with others” (Schmitt, 2007, p.1)

16. Final note – four pillars of education • TD learning experiences that help consumers to look beyond consumptionmust reorient learners to what it means to learn, moving beyond learning facts and information to learning how to know, to do, to be with, and to be (the four pillars of education) (Delros 1999; Nicolescu 1997). • Marinova and McGrath (2004) envision these four pillars as fundamental to a transdisciplinary pedagogy for responsible living.

17. Delros, 1999

18. Four pillars of learning • Learning to KNOW – train students to permanently question assumptions and to build bridges leading to continually connected beings • Learning to DO – authentically weave together competencies to create a flexible, inner personal core (always an apprentice to creativity and one’s potential) • Learning to BE WITH OTHERS – foster a predisposition to create spaces for both open unity and complex plurality, for defending one’s own convictions while respecting others • Learning to BE – discover how previous learnings have conditioned them and then continually test the foundations of their convictions – always ask questions

19. T-Shaped learner – TD literate • Students need to taught in such a way that they gain TD habits of mind if they ever hope to move beyond consumption and learn from responsible living curricula • Teachers and educators can gain much from the synergy evident from the large ideas shared in this paper: • TD knowledge (includes wicked problems) • TD seven habits of mind • TD learning (at the borders) • TD learning cycle • TD four pillars of learning