Barriers and success factors for collaborative active learning in a glocal course
Typ
Examensarbete för masterexamen
Program
Publicerad
2019
Författare
Sjöholm, Emil
Modellbyggare
Tidskriftstitel
ISSN
Volymtitel
Utgivare
Sammanfattning
There is a need for negotiation and collaborative skills across geographical and cultural borders to tackle the sustainability challenges of today. To enable and train future leaders, policy mak-ers, advisors and scientists in these skills, a concept for a glocal collaborative programme fo-cusing on economics of sustainable development in a changing climate is being developed. Where glocal is the combination of global and local, both particularizing and universalising. The programme is being developed by the organisation Environment for Development, which focuses on research and higher education in developing countries.
The pilot for this glocal collaborative programme is a glocal course about environmental policy with flipped classroom and active learning as core pedagogical concepts. As this will be a pilot course which eventually will be expanded there is a need to find potential success factors and barriers. This especially for the main exercise in the course about environmental policy as it focuses on glocal collaboration and the students changing of perspectives.
The study used a qualitative approach with nine semi structured interviews as the main data source. The analysis used an inductive thematic approach and found eight themes, four of which were success factors and four which were barriers. The success themes were that (1) the exercise was perceived as fun and motivating, (2) the students and teachers perceived learning, (3) tech-nical tools enhanced learning and (4) the students felt that the exercise made the world a smaller place. The barriers were (1) problems with the collaborative work and discussion, (2) technical problems, (3) that a few students made broad and generalizing remarks from a small data pool and (4) smaller practical problems.
All in all, there seems to be a solid foundation to expand upon the course and there was also a wish from the students that the interaction between countries would expand. In other words, to expand the exercise or having similar ones seems to be something that could enable learning. But the barriers should also be addressed during the next run of the exercise.
Beskrivning
Ämne/nyckelord
Active learning , glocal education , collaborative course , flipped classroom , online learning , international collaboration , changing perceptions , Environment for Development