Hi there. I'm Diana Woolis,
Director of the Center for Learning in Practice.
I want to thank you for joining me today in
this short overview of
sustainable learning and
the sustainable learning framework.
Sustainable learning, the concept
comes from, in this case,
the Sustainable Development Goals that were
created by UNESCO in 2015,
which is a holistic framework to promote peace,
good governance, and protect the environment.
There 17 sustainable development goals and we tend to
specialize and look at
quality education which is
the sustainable development goal number 4.
UNESCO maintains that education is at
the heart of a sustainable future for all of us.
In the context that they say that
sustainability is defined as development
that meets the needs of the present without compromising
the ability of future generations
to meet their own needs.
But sustainable education requires people on
the ground who are skilled at doing their jobs.
Yet the systems and supports to help people
hone the necessary skills and apply
new knowledge remains elusive in addressing
the complex learning challenges of our time.
We think the pathway to the future of education is
a sustainable learning framework
and the implementation of sustainable learning.
The framework advances practice mastery
at the individual institution and systems level.
It is designed by myself and is grounded in
established learning and change models drawing on
elements which have been empirically
shown to improve outcomes.
Thus, the elements are not new.
What is new is the weaving and integration of
those proven strategies into a new fabric.
One that might be reliably used to
accomplish critical objectives at scale.
Sustainable learning refers to
a theory of educational practices that
contribute to a healthy learning ecosystem in
which knowledge is co-created and shared in community.
It is a set of applied disciplines
and the practices that make them actionable.
There are five disciplines and 16 practices.
When creatively combined by
you wherever you are in the education ecosystem,
it will help assure sustainable outcomes and
an adaptive education ecosystem in your context.
Think about Lego for a minute.
Just six Lego blocks can be combined in
over 915 million ways.
We can imagine that
the five disciplines of sustainable learning can also be
combined to create multiple solutions to
the complex problems each of you faces in your own work.
Within and across
the disciplines of sustainable learning,
they exist in a context that is
usually composed of the elements you see here,
subject matter experts, civil society,
private sector, government, academia,
ed tech companies play
a very important role when we're looking at
digital teaching and learning, and INGOs.
All of them surround institutions, teachers,
and students who are really
primarily the actors on the ground,
who are seeking to make education accessible,
equitable, and high-quality for
all learners around the world.
As we said, there are five disciplines
to sustainable learning.
I'm going to just give you
a high level view of each of them.
The 1st one is purposeful pedagogy,
where learning design is driven by a teaching philosophy,
a clear purpose,
evidence-informed methods, and authentic assessment.
The second one is systems thinking,
where learning providers recognize and
synthesize teaching and learning patterns,
interactions and interdependencies,
and use networks and communities
to responsively design courses, programs, and policy.
The third is looped learning.
Teachers and systems of learning use
multiple feedback protocols for improving,
reframing, and transforming practice and policy.
We think of this as one of
the critical parts of the sustainable learning
because at its heart and at the heart
of all the work we do is reflection.
Fourth is democratic engagement,
which ensures every participant has
the access, support, materials,
and safety they need to be
active learners and are provided with
peer-to-peer learning and including
their peers and teachers
in shaping the learning experience.
Finally, digital geographies,
which provide open systems for
online teaching and learning.
Let's take a look at sustainable learning in practice.
We have three cases which we have
mapped the sustainable learning framework to,
but we're going to just take a look at one
very quickly and at a high level.
This map is taken from a report that we
did across the Middle East for
faculty who are seeking to engage
pedagogy technology in the context
of the refugee experience.
In this case, we had teams of faculty in
three countries in the Middle East
thinking about technology and pedagogy.
Then we took those survey data, focus group data,
and other kinds of analysis of online engagement.
We looked at the disciplines and from that we determined
the key high-level need for each of
these areas within the meta higher ed context.
From that and again,
from the data that was
generated by conversations and surveys and so forth,
we were able to indicate a set of pathways,
each attached to a particular discipline.
That is an example of how we think about embedding
sustainable learning into all the work that we
do and to all the work we hope you do.
We like you to be thinking about
if your practice is sustainable.
That means thinking about
the ecosystem and the context in
which you work and making
sure it isn't only good for today,
but is durable for the foreseeable future.
Thank you for listening to this video.