Instructional strategies to educate for sustainability in technology assessment

• Autores: R.G. McLaughlan
• Localización: The International journal of engineering education, ISSN-e 0949-149X, Vol. 23, no. 2, 2007, págs. 201-208
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • There have been widespread calls for the types of action that will create a sustainable society. As a response, sustainable developmentcriteria have been incorporated into undergraduate engineering accreditation requirements. Engineering education is also responding,with sustainable development knowledge and skills being increasingly integrated into the curriculum at both a course and subject level.However, there has been less focus on the type of instructional strategies needed to achieve these learning outcomes. A focus onlearning strategies is necessary to create the integrated and interdisciplinary perspective required for sustainability education. Activelearning strategies, which use methods that can accommodate conceptually and practically diverse data and divergent epistemologies areneeded. Roleplay-simulation, online debates and scenario building are active, participatory instructional strategies. These methods wereapplied in a subject about Technology Assessment within the context of exploring issues about science, technology and society. Thesemethods were found to be effective for developing and demonstrating understandings about the multiple dimensions (e.g. social,technical, environmental, economic, political) of complex engineering activities. These active and participatory learning methods have aclear place in the engineering curriculum if the transformation in thinking, values and actions required for a move towards sustainabilityis to be achieved.