Teaching in a volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous world
The Sustainable Development Education team collaborated with the Faculty of Education to explore educator attitudes and perceptions associated with teaching of social and emotional competencies to students of sustainable development.
About this project
The field of sustainable development is fraught with conditions of volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity (VUCA). Education for sustainable development requires students to develop the ability to navigate these conditions effectively, to think critically about the nature of knowledge, to engage in collaborative decision-making, and integrate prior knowledge with new insights to seek innovative solutions to contemporary problems.
Social and emotional competencies, such as resilience and coping, are needed for students to prepare for, understand, and adapt to VUCA conditions, both in the classroom and in the workplace. However, there is limited understanding about if and how such skills are taught or addressed in universities.
This joint research aimed to understand current practice in teaching to VUCA within units delivering sustainable development education, explore the perceived barriers and enablers of teaching these competencies, and how to better support students of sustainable development.
Recommendations
From the analysis of insights from educators on preparing students to contribute effectively to a VUCA world through teaching SEC, there is an explicitly expressed need for greater capacity for attention, space and time, and greater confidence and teaching competence for educators. Universities have a potentially instrumental role in addressing these needs, and lifting the barriers and challenges to create an enabling environment for SDE.
As such, we make several considerations and suggestions for further inquiry, to help universities prepare meaningfully for the continually changing education landscape propelled by VUCA.
Specifically, higher education institutions should:
- Seek deepened support from the broader institution and decision-makers, and work alongside educators for a smooth transition from policy to implementation.
- Create dedicated space and time in the curriculum to address VUCA challenges and associated student responses, as well as to teach socio-emotional skills.
- Articulate the expectations of roles and responsibilities of educators to establish consistent standards of practice.
- Harness existing university expertise to offer professional development opportunities and peer support to frontline SD educators.
