Connection, Compassion and Creativity: An innovative pedagogical framework for addressing sustainability challenges in higher education**

Research team: A/Prof Lisa Powell, Mr David Robertson, Dr Susan Mayson, Dr Debbie Ling and Prof Robyn Bartel, 2026

Purpose

Higher education has been increasingly called upon to deliver educational responses to complex global challenges. In response, educators and researchers have explored approaches to cultivate not only disciplinary and professional proficiencies, but also individual dispositions required to mobilise these capacities as meaningful societal contributions. It is within this context our multi-disciplinary team came together with a shared purpose: to develop educational approaches to better prepare higher education students and educators to address urgent and complex current and future global social, ecological, economic and political problems.

Practice

We took two approaches to this. First, we developed a conceptual framework: the 3 Cs of Connection, Compassion and Creativity. Our research started with a theoretical examination of each of the 3 Cs as they related to transformative change in higher education. From this work we argued that the 3 Cs framework offers a philosophical foundation to engage with, and address, multi-dimensional complex challenges within higher education teaching and learning. In presenting this framework, we bring together concepts that often appear in higher education discourse separately to provide purpose and language for higher education to cultivate learners as ethical, relational and imaginative subjects.

Second, recognising that many educators are already using one or more of the 3 Cs in their educational approaches, we identified and interviewed thirteen leading educators from across Monash University. Our purpose was to explore how and why educators develop and implement teaching approaches centred on connection, compassion and creativity in their teaching. Our interviews revealed that in focusing on one or more of the 3 Cs, educators sought to shift student learning beyond gaining skills and competencies, to a deeper understanding of the relational complexities of professional practice and ethical action.

Output

The immediate consequence of this work is the articulation of the 3 Cs conceptual framework. This provides educators with a philosophical foundation for refocusing teaching approaches that extend beyond knowledge acquisition so that students are encouraged to engage with the ontological (connection - being), axiological (compassion - valuing) and epistemic (creativity - sense-making) bases of learning. Students will benefit by participating in learning designed to deepen understanding of and response to complex global problems. Additionally, the work highlights leading educators’ current innovative practices within Monash University and across a range of disciplines and builds understanding of what may enable and constrain practice in the higher education space.

Outcome

In the longer term, the work offers an innovative conceptual framework and empirical examples that educators at Monash University and beyond can use to develop teaching approaches to better prepare students to address complex global challenges through their professional practice. The framework has the capacity to change students’ personal dispositions to develop relational, compassionate and creative responses to complex futures.

Impact

Consistent with the purpose of the research, the work potentially contributes to innovative responses to complex social, environment, political and economic challenges across the globe. We are sharing our findings with higher education stakeholders globally. As such we currently have an article on the theoretical foundations of the 3 Cs under review at a highly ranked international educational journal. The empirical study is currently being written up for submission to an international educational journal. This will allow us to share the 3 Cs framework and empirical findings with our higher education colleagues locally and internationally. The process has also already informed the team’s ability to articulate, connect, and enact the 3 Cs in their networks and work, including early experimentation with classroom integration of the 3 Cs as a holistic set by members of the team.

*Our colleague Dr Debbie Ling died in May, 2026. We acknowledge her groundbreaking work on compassion and the development of Monash University’s Compassion Training for Healthcare Workers.

** This research was funded by Monash Education Academy ‘The Pitch’ (2024)