Learning teaching in the sustainability classroom

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ANALYSIS

Learning teaching in the sustainability classroom

Meg Holden⁎, Duane Elverum, Susan Nesbit, John Robinson, Donald Yen, Janet MooreSimon Fraser University, Urban Studies and Geography, 3rd Floor, Vancouver, BC, Canada V6B 5K3

A R T I C L E I N F O

⁎ Corresponding author. Tel.: +1 778 782 7888E-mail address: [email protected] (M. Holde

0921-8009/$ – see front matter © 2007 Elsevidoi:10.1016/j.ecolecon.2007.09.007

A B S T R A C T

Article history:Received 15 April 2007Received in revised form12 September 2007Accepted 13 September 2007Available online 23 October 2007

This article analyzes the experience of a particular sustainability learning classroommodel,examining the classroom composition, structure, positioning, and atmosphere componentsin an experimental course on the topic of sustainable buildings. The course, called Angles onGreen Building, offered as the second in a suite by the Learning City sustainability in highereducation collaborative, experimented with content, which concerned the emergingpractice and policy of green building, and with form, exploring the most appropriatepedagogical methods for the advancement of sustainability learning and action. The coursetook as its practical focus the green building industry in Vancouver, Canada, with an initialcase study of the new Centre for Interactive Research on Sustainability (CIRS), a greenbuilding and research facility planned for completion in 2009. This article uses evidencedrawn from the instructors, students and visiting professionals in the course, together adiverse and interdisciplinary group from four different higher education institutions inVancouver. Our findings contain lessons about the careful attention needed for instructorsto design, run and implement courses in sustainability topics that enable students fromwidely different backgrounds and levels of self-directedness to engage with, takeresponsibility for, and transform their behaviours in favour of sustainability.

© 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Keywords:Learning cityGreen buildingVancouverSustainability educationTransformative learning

1. Introduction

The challenges of sustainability are complex and multi-faceted, requiring problem-solving methods that resolve theopposing forces of seemingly intractable issues. Put succinct-ly, sustainability demands learning. While preparing the 1990international environmental Talloires Declaration, Tufts Uni-versity president Jean Mayer observed that his universitylacked the capacity to graduate students with the “tools tocreate an environmentally sustainable future” (TalloiresDeclaration, 1990). ToMayer, thismeant the university neededto develop interdisciplinary approaches to curricula andresearch initiatives that would build expertise in emergingfields related to the challenges of sustainability and theenvironment. Implicit in this understanding is that the pursuit

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of sustainability within the university means revolutionwithin each of its learning scales: student learning, facultylearning, institutional/operational learning, and learning atthe university-community interface.

The experimental Angles on Green Building (AGB) grad-uate course was created in the spring and summer of 2005out of the belief among its instructors that a new way oflearning about sustainability, and about the rapidly devel-oping fields of green and sustainable building in particular,was needed. The purpose of the Angles on Green Buildingcourse was:

• to examine the potential for a new approach to bothpedagogy generally, and to sustainable building in particu-lar; and

.

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• to help reconceptualize potential roles for students, instruc-tors, and green building practitioners in closing the sustain-able building gap.1

The instructors came to the AGB course because of ourshared passion for sustainability. We conclude that betterteaching is fundamental to sustainable outcomes in anysphere of practice and that current approaches to teachingsustainability are mostly ineffective. The process of learningthese lessons through the course was an unexpectedlypositive experience in some ways, unexpectedly troubling inothers, and in all ways offered strong support for the future ofthe sustainability classroom.

2. Background

Most research recognizes that a transition to sustainabilityrequires institutional, social, and individual change. This isdue to several inherent characteristics of sustainability: it isfundamentally an applied, problem-based concept ratherthan a purely theoretical one, it integrates many domains ofknowledge and practice and it is primarily pursued viacollaborative approaches (Robinson, 2004). This understand-ing puts learning, adaptive capacity and institutional read-iness at a premium. In this context, connecting learningwith sustainability research in terms of finding an optimalrole for higher education takes on particular relevance(Willard et al., 2005). Although it seems natural to seek thesupport of institutions of higher learning in learning-oriented approaches to sustainable development, this is astep that has rarely been made (Winter et al., 2005; Bucking-ham, 1999; Nicholls, 1997). In a new book that challengesuniversities to return to their original orientation towardsocial change, M'Gonigle and Starke (2006, 9) lay the ground-work for the “‘sustainable campuses' movement … [which] isconcerned about the most pressing issues of our time.” Inaddition to the university's time-tested contribution ofcritique and protest, M'Gonigle and Starke (2006, 9) and others(Carlson, 2006) suggest “a new role for the university [as] aplace for creating precedents.” This offers a new goal to thelonger-standing one of achieving transformative learning2 ineducational settings (Mezirow, 1995), one that views socialchange as well as individual transformation as crucial.

The habits of learning in organizations and other socialcontexts are rarely connected to theories of classroomlearning, and these literatures are seldom viewed alongsidethe task of reorienting the academy toward sustainability(Braham, 1995; Benbasat and Gass, 2002; Molnar and Mulvhill,2003; Senge et al., 2006; Blewitt, 2006; Steiner and Laws, 2006;

1 The sustainable building gap exists between the inventory ofgreen buildings and the inventory of buildings designed andconstructed according to the status quo (John et al., 2005; RoyalInstitute of Chartered Surveyors, 2006; Thayer, 1989).2 Transformative learning is a theory developed by Jack Mezirow

(1995, 2000) in the field of adult education that has also beenapplied to higher education contexts. It explains changes inindividuals' meaning structures, their habits of mind and theirpoints of view, catalyzed by a “disorienting dilemma” or an“integrating circumstance.”

Rappaport and Creighton, 2007). The Learning City researchand education collaborative is based on a model of theclassroom that connects universities to the practices of city-building. Higher education classrooms need to be open instructure, format and orientation to the world of urbandevelopment practice and committed to the goal of sustain-ability. Moreover, this opening of the classroom, the learningprocess, and the connections between learning, research andpractice needs to happen in a careful way that does notabandon the critical distance that the academy aspires tomaintain, a distance that makes reflection and new practicaland theoretical directions possible. Thus, the classroom modelbeing tested by the Learning City aims to incubate and foster thegrowth of a transformative learning community, able to generate andrefine new ideas and disseminate jointly-created commitments inother circles, networks, and professional associations beyond theclassroom.

A key hypothesis of the Learning City is that the disciplin-ary, institutional, and professional diversity of themembers ofa classroom can provide the necessary components tomaintain critical distance at the same time as the classroomradically engages with the world of practitioners. Thishypothesis was supported by the AGB course experience.But, as instructors, we were struck by an additional surprisinglesson: not only do students need new ways of learningsustainability — instructors need new ways of teachingsustainability.

3. Case and methods

Angles on Green Building was the second course developed bythe Learning City as a contribution to inter-institutional urbansustainability programming at the Great Northern WayCampus in Vancouver, BC.3 The Great Northern Way Campuswill soon be the site of a new building, the Centre forInteractive Research on Sustainability (CIRS). CIRS projectleader John Robinson, Professor, Sustainable DevelopmentResearch Initiative, University of British Columbia, was one ofthe course instructors, and the other instructors are alsoinvolved in CIRS. The other instructors were Duane Elverum,Assistant Professor in Sustainability and Design, the EmilyCarr Institute; Meg Holden, Assistant Professor of UrbanStudies and Geography, Simon Fraser University; SusanNesbit, Senior Instructor of Civil Engineering, University ofBritish Columbia; and Donald Yen, Program Director, Centrefor Sustainable and Environmental Initiatives, British Colum-bia Institute of Technology.

The case of CIRS formed the practical and inspirationalbackground for the course. Scheduled for completion in 2009,

3 The Great Northern Way Campus (http://www.gnwc.ca) is aninner-city, former industrial site gifted to four major highereducation institutions in Vancouver (the British Columbia In-stitute of Technology, the Emily Carr Institute of Art+Design,Simon Fraser University and the University of British Columbia)to create a new campus. The campus plan includes two majorthemes for educational programming: transforming arts andculture and urban sustainability. More information about theLearning City can be found in Holden and Connelly (2004) andMoore et al. (in press).

http://www.gnwc.ca

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CIRS intends to be the most innovative and high performancebuilding in North America. CIRS has set targets to obtain allheating and cooling from the ground underneath the building,to obtain virtually all electricity from the sun, to use 100%daylighting during the day, to use no external water supply, todepend primarily on natural ventilation and sustainablebuilding materials, to treat all waste produced, to minimizethe use of private automobiles, to have hospital operatingroom levels of air quality, and to improve the productivity andhealth of building occupants. CIRS also intends to demon-strate leading edge research and sustainable design, products,systems and decision making, in three ways:

• It will be a state-of-the-art “living laboratory” in whichresearchers and building industry partners can performresearch on, and assessment of, every aspect of sustainablebuilding design, systems, technologies, and use;

• Advanced visualization, simulation and community en-gagement technologies and processes will support researchon new approaches to interacting with citizens in exploringsustainable lifestyles; and

• Partners from the private, public and NGO sectors will sharethe facility, working with researchers to identify areas ofcompetitive advantage in sustainable technologies andservices and helping to implement these on the ground, asa springboard to the export market in urban sustainability(Robinson, 2006; Cole et al., in press).

CIRS offered the course a touchstone of best practice,though unproven as the building is still in design stage. TheCIRS case additionally offered a framework that included anextensive set of principles of sustainable building and aprocess of engagement with legal, institutional, architecturaland design, and research specialists toward its construction.The model for CIRS, at the highest level, is that it will be notjust a green but a sustainable building, embodying theattainment of optimal, integrated ‘green’ features as well as‘smart’ and ‘humane’ features (Fig. 1). To be ‘green’, thebuilding will realize siting, water, energy, and material

Fig. 1 –Conceptual model of sustainable building in the caseof CIRS, featuring green, smart and humane components.

efficiencies to reduce the building footprint. In the humanedimension, the building should provide an environment inwhich occupants are happy, healthy and productive. Finally,in order to accomplish these two goals and be transferable toother contexts, the building must have the potential to learnthrough monitoring systems that make it fully adaptive tonew conditions, and also cost competitive with buildings thatdon't have these features (the smart dimension). In sum, theconcept of sustainable building embedded in CIRS holdsextreme ambitions for the contribution to sustainable devel-opment of buildings as the places in and around which mosthuman activity takes place, of the construction and buildingindustry as an economic sector, and of the built environmentmore broadly for the motivational, behavioural, and aestheticimpacts that it may have on society.

Angles on Green Building was designed for diversity of allthose involved, students, instructors, and professional visitorsalike, with a commitment to collaborative knowledgecreation.4 Organizationally, the course had two primarycomponents. In the first half of the course, the classroomserved as a forum for panels of instructors and professionalsacross the spectrum of green building activity, who engagedwith students in dialogue about current practice, questions,and needs in green building and urban sustainability. Stu-dents were immersed in the process of bringing CIRS intoreality. At the course's mid-way point, students selected amajor project assignment from six project descriptionsdesigned for them by instructors and green building profes-sionals, reflecting specific, real research and design needs. Thefour projects chosen by students were:

1) CIRS mobility project2) Eco-urban infrastructures for the Great Northern Way

campus3) Emily Carr Institute: an environmental retrofit4) British Columbia Institute of Technology Master Plan

While one of these projects related specifically to CIRS,others asked the students to push the lessons of CIRS furtherto other cases. In the second half of the course, studentsworked in groups toward the completion of these majorprojects, with guidance from instructors and classroomvisitors. At the end of the course, student groups presentedtheir final projects to a public forum. Students' major groupproject outcomes were impressive works of interdisciplinarycreativity and constructive dedication to advancing sustain-ability in green building. These projects may be viewed athttp://www.learningcity.gnwc.ca/AGB_Course_Details.aspx.

The AGB course had a unique, five-instructor team, assem-bled from amongst interested and committed faculty with arange of expertise from the four partner institutions. Theinstructor team met on multiple occasions prior to the courseto plan its structure, content, and levels of individual involve-ment. Instructor involvement during the course ranged from aminimum of participating in introductory and final classmeetings, leading one panel discussion class, and assisting

4 As a four-credit graduate course, Angles on Green Building metfor 4 h, one evening per week, over the thirteen-week fallsemester.

http://www.learningcity.gnwc.ca/AGB_Course_Details.aspx


one student project team, upward to full involvement in eachstep of the course. A teaching and research assistant, MichaelCaulkins, provided additional coordination, organizational, andother support to students and the instructor team.

Fourteen students registered in and completedAGB. Thesestudents were in the midst of pursuing degrees in planning(2), engineering (2), urban studies (5), industrial design(2), environmental science (1), architecture (1), and publicpolicy (1) from UBC, SFU and Emily Carr. The disciplinarybackgrounds of the urban studies students in particularreached beyond these fields to include anthropology, theatre,geography, and design. Five students were also alreadyworking in the building sector concurrent with their studies.As an experimental course, Angles on Green Building did notappear in any course calendar, so students were drawn intothe course by word-of-mouth and email list advertising.

Assessment of learning about sustainability presents anovel challenge that is integral to the challenge of assessingprogress toward sustainability as a whole. As part of theevaluation of AGB, post-course interviews were conducted bya research assistant with six students. These students wereasked to provide feedback on their learning, their assessmentand critiques of the course, and broader comments on the roleof higher education in sustainability and green building, in asemi-structured format. A post-course focus group was alsoheld with both the instructor team and a sample of thepractitioners who had visited the course. The results of theseinterviews and focus groups have been analyzed for theinsight they provide into the most significant learningexperienced by students, instructors and visiting practi-tioners, and the areas of greatest disappointment or frustra-tion. Often, instructors expect to influence students'knowledge and understanding based solely on the content oftheir courses. In contrast, the analysis in this article examinesthe impact of the course's unique process on students'sustainability learning.

The analysis, presented below, contributes to a richerunderstanding of the difference that this course may make tothe creation and maintenance of a learning community forsustainable building in Vancouver. The themes are furtheranalyzed with contributions from course instructors andpractitioners who acted as resource people, to provide a richerunderstanding of what was achieved and what could be donedifferently to improve future iterations of the course. Topreserve anonymity, quotations from the interviewed stu-dents and practitioners are presented using pseudonyms.

4. The difference that process makes: learningin Angles on Green Building

Outcomes from the course are presented below in terms offour major themes that arose as important in students'reflections on their learning. Students' reflections on theunique experience of the course's composition, structure,position, and atmosphere suggest that these aspects of thecourse made a memorable impression.

First, for classroom learning, the learners' prior knowledgeof the topic at-hand is important. Hence, the first theme thatwill be presented below is learning about classroom composition,

that is, the different starting points of knowledge and self-directedness that students came with to the classroom. Wefound that our students' diverse personal quests for sustain-ability, which drove them to take the course, did not alwayscorrespond with high levels of learning self-directedness.Because the class demanded self-directedness, this posedchallenges and frustrations for some students while it openeddoors for others.

Second, the learning activities within the classroom comeinto play. For example, how are classroomactivities conduciveto students who are individual or social learners? The secondtheme considers classroom structure, in particular, the valueand limitations of a classroom structure and environmentopen to student leadership and empowerment. Challengeswere presented by instructors' assumptions about students'preparedness such that tipping the balance somewhat moretoward lectures and storytelling from instructors early oncould result in greater student empowerment overall.

Third, the formal and informal learning context outside theclassroom is important; for example, are the learners'curriculae “outcome oriented”? Are lessons and curriculaevertically and/or horizontally integrated? (Hubball and Burt,2004) This raises the third theme of classroom positioning,where the integrated links among green building theory andpractice that the course provided are considered for theirvalue to students. Positioning the classroom with strongconnections to the green building industry held value for thevisiting practitioners, making the course a unique kind ofnetworking hub. Practitioners' role in the course as designersof student projects provided an interesting bridge from theoryto practice but one that remained problematic, perhaps inways that no classroom design could solve.

The fourth important factor in classroom learning is theposition of the learners on the continuum between “domainspecific” vs. “process-oriented” knowledge (Shavelson andHuang, 2003). In treating this dimension, we will consider thetheme of classroom atmosphere, or the course's outcome ofcreating an impassioned environment, encouraging the pur-suit of sustainable building as an on-going process. Theenabling environment the course created for voicing passion,amongst students, instructors and practitioners alike, wasuniquely inspirational, but posed new problems in terms ofstudent evaluation and domain specific learning.

4.1. Course composition: backgrounds and expectations

The interdisciplinary composition of the coursemade a strongimpression on students. No more than two students had acommon disciplinary background, they came from threedifferent home institutions, had five instructors from distinctfields, and a range of guests visited from private practice, localgovernment, and nonprofit work. Student groups wereassembled by the instructors to ensure a rich mix ofperspectives and capabilities in each group. This dynamicgave students a clear sense of the uniqueness of their ideasand contributions and resulted in final projects that were, forthe most part, more satisfying to students than what theycould have created alone.

Interdisciplinary group work sharpened students' individ-ual contributions to projects, held lessons for students in


group facilitation, leadership, and communication skills, andcreated new connections to once-foreign disciplines.

For students with considerable experience working collab-oratively in other courses, the extreme interdisciplinarity ofthis course still constituted a marked difference. Jenniferexpressed her commitment to interdisciplinary work like this:

WhenIwasdoingmyBachelor's in industrial design,wewerea bunch of industrial designers together working on a project… we had the same expertise and it doesn't complementeach other … Teamwork is good, but it is so much richerwhenyou come fromdifferent perspectives. Because you canreally make something that's whole-some, as opposed tosomething really specialized, from a certain discipline.

The major project's teamwork model was meant todemonstrate not just good classroom practice but goodpractice in the workplace, as well. Students were not naïve tothe fact that a team-based approach to projects happensmorefrequently inmanywork environments than in the university.Students like Tanya, an urban studies student, recognized inthis a skill that she would be able to apply in her career:

What was interesting was opening the dialogue to think …outside the disciplines. And invite stakeholders in andhave professors from different institutions. I liked thatcollaboration attempt … because I feel it is more realistic… outside of school, you … find that you are constantlytrying to work with different kinds of people and differentorganizations … people shy away from collaborating, Ifind, even in the regular work force. And if you are taughtto collaborate from the beginning, then there will be ahigher propensity towards it, I think.

The uniqueness of the five-instructor model was felt by allstudents, and valued or critiqued for a range of reasons.Students felt simultaneously honoured to be part of a classwith an instructor–student ratio of 5:14, confused that all theinstructors were not consistently engaged in the course as ateam, and occasionally frustrated by the lack of consensusamong instructors. The depth and diversity of “full-spectrum”instructor attention received by students were clearly valued,although some found this “intimidating” and even “dilutingeach of their presence.” Some students were confused tryingto put their finger on the balance of power among theinstructors, wanting a better grasp of the hierarchy that theyperceived but that went unacknowledged. For others, the keyconfusion was not so much an implicit or explicit hierarchyamong instructors, but the “mixed messages” provided by ourvariable attendance, as no instructor was present in class forall thirteen weeks. This confusion led to students questioning“how much connection the professors had between them-selves” and to what extent instructors “took it seriously.”

Although excited about the “spectrum” of perspectivesamong instructors, students reported surprise and lack ofcomfort with instructors' failure to present a “united front” ondifficult questions posed during class dialogue:

There were times in our AGB class that difficult questionscame up. And the instructors couldn't deal with them,

there wasn't consensus among them even as to what theanswer was. So there was defensiveness, there wasdisagreement … it was hard for me to watch this … thatwas very confusing… I think for the other students as well… (Andrea)

With instructors unable to agree amongst themselves —ahead of time — about all the challenging issues whichevolved during each class and were in no way predetermined,students were struck by a sense of ‘to each person his/herown.’ A sense of a clearly charted course through the morassof ideas, beginning from a common point of origin to forkedalternative perspectives and chains of consequences withclear implications for sustainable building, was sorely missingfor some students. Two students expressed their heart-feltpreference for “the talking head model” of instruction,followed by independent work on a paper that is submittedto the instructor for review and feedback.

We can consider the diverse experience of students withthe unique classroom composition in AGB as a reflection ontheir different levels of self-directed learning (Grow, 1991). Theclassroom model demanded a high degree of student self-direction. During the course, students and instructors mettogether one evening a week, in the midst of their hecticschedules, and there never seemed enough time to prepare forand digest after class. Additional preparation and reflectiontime was demanded by the course because both students andinstructors were expected to assume different roles duringAGB class time than those they played during the remainder ofthe week. For students, their role was more empowered, moreactive, involving more collaborative leadership and vision. Forinstructors, our role was more facilitative, less based onleadership or expertise, and contingent on the other instruc-tors and stakeholders present. For both groups, the environ-ment was radically interdisciplinary. All of these differencesrequired considerable personal direction and attention tomake the shift successfully.

The course attracted students with a pre-existing interestin pursuing sustainability and/or green building. A number ofstudents commented that what drew them to the course wasthe feeling that their energies, in their academic or profes-sional lives, were being misplaced and poorly spent. Theyarrived in class as a stop on their personal quest to betterdefine and direct their contribution to sustainability and/orgreen building. This common feeling, amplified by the courseitself, was expressed by one student this way: “I really don'twant to work anymore for things that don't push sustainabil-ity. My energy is too important.” It should be noted that for atleast three students who were offered professional jobs as aresult of connectionsmade during the course, the ability to acton this sense was achieved.

The personal quest for sustainability did not correspond inall students to a high level of self-directed learning. For somestudents, the difference this made was problematic. Alex, astudent in engineering, where, even at the graduate level,many courses are structured for dependent learners,expressed that:

…this [AGB] is a pretty different course … I'm used tolectures and projects. One or the other. Lectures are sort of


… confined to them telling you information and youasking questions, if you have any. Whereas this is … youmay or may not be asking questions, because you aregenerating the topics, you are making the conversation.

Andrea, a planning student, remained skeptical of theunfamiliar classroom model, commenting that:

My background is … about …the professor taking astronger role, and providing knowledge, providing tools,providing a frame … the idea of a process-oriented thingwhere, um, there isn't a hierarchy in the room and thestudents bring just as much as the teacher, I haven't seenenough of that actually working to have faith in it orunderstand …what the intended outcomes are.

Only a few students were open to the different kind of workand learning expected of them by the self-directed nature ofthe course. Tanya understood the value this way:

As students we tend to look to the instructors for guidance,… perhaps we needed to empower ourselves more…ortake more responsibility for ourselves … it is also aboutyou taking responsibility for your own education.

At the far end of the spectrum, public policy studentMatthew's remarks on the self-directed nature of Angles onGreen Building represent pure appreciation for this aspect ofthe class and the opportunities seized to further continuedlearning:

I really enjoyed the fact that we had instructors whoenjoyed learning from students. So they didn't just standup there and lecture, lecture, lecture, lecture, lecture, …The contacts that Imade [in AGB] will be very useful…someof the panelists and CIRS folks are going to be panelists inmy research, now. For my thesis. This is very useful…

Students' reactions to this unfamiliar aspect of the coursewere thus multilayered, ranging from an unabashed prefer-ence for traditional dependent learning activities such asexpert-led lectures and discussions, to disappointment inthemselves or their classmates for not rising to the opportu-nity of empowerment the course had offered them, to thrill atthe collegiality and maturity with which they were treated.Sometimes all three types of reactions were expressed by thesame student.

4.2. Course structure, power and control

The number of instructors and the variability in involvementof each reinforced the intent for a course design in whichtraditional student–teacher hierarchies would be flattened.The open learning environment, abstract structure, andstudent-led format of the course constituted a striking anddifferent experience for all students interviewed.

Students commented on the “abstract” and even “pie-in-the-sky” but “interesting” nature of class dialogue, thatallowed contributions from “many different fields and fromdifferent institutions, which was great” (Tanya). As the course

eschewed lectures on pre-defined topics and opted instead forround-table, panel and small group discussion formats,students were pushed to realize a new level of empowermentand authority over their own learning process. There werestudents who realized from this format that they are “realtime” learners, able to engage fully in an open-ended andorganically-developing dialogue:

I did learn about how I learn. I find it much easier to absorbinfo when you are involved in the conversation and notjust busy writing notes … this is much different from yourother courses … there is still either the student giving thelecture or the professor giving the lecture and then somediscussion afterwards and you still spend time writing itall down and spend time integrating things after you write.When I write notes, that info sits in a bubble, by itself, andthat article or lecture or whatever feels somewhat separate… I don't have the meaning or the time to connect to otherthings. I don't figure out how all those ideas that I amwriting relate to other parts of my life. I find that when youare involved in critical discussion, you can understand therelations between things better … not just sit and write.(Tanya)

This learning environment thus works against the con-ventional “bank deposit” model noted by Freire (1970, 58) inwhich “Instead of communicating, the instructor issuescommuniqués and makes ‘deposits’ which the studentspatiently receive, memorize, and repeat.” While for studentslike Tanya, the value of the dialogic structure was the op-portunity this method provided for her to tie classroomdiscussion to real life, for other students, the value of thisstructure was the sense of engagement as an equal withinstructors in a dialogue in which there is learning value forboth parties:

[The instructors] would introduce discussion and thediscussion would just keep going … I like to learn byhaving discussions with people, that's the way I learn best,and by doing things hands on. The course emphasized thatfor me. (Matthew)

There were those who saw this readiness to engage in theirclassmates and admired it, though they did not feel up to thechallenge of dialogue themselves:

Some people were just [snaps fingers] on it, and could just… reply and synthesize the information right then andthere. (Alex)

It seemed like they could all talk the talk, and I … didn'tknow what to say all the time. So I sat back and listened …It was kind of intimidating. But I learned a lot … I startedtalking more, like in my [other courses'] tutorials … raisingmy hand and stuff. I wasn't doing those kinds of thingsbefore.” (Beth)

Finally, students like Alex, an engineering student, recog-nized the synergistic outcomes of this kind of dialogiclearning: “[I would] synthesize, take notes, not really know


what to do with all the information, then once [we] got intothe smaller groups, with my project … we'd be talking, andthen boom, something that had been said in the panel wouldcome up and be completely relevant. And I would use itthere.” Through these and other similar activities, studentstook the opportunity of the disorienting classroom experienceto try out new roles, build self-confidence and reintegratenew ideas into their perspectives (Mezirow, 1995). Thedialogic format was seen also as a guard against intellectuallaziness.

On the negative side, some students were disappointed toleave the course confused about the best and most promisingactions to take and research to conduct toward sustainability.Below, Andrea describes the particularly difficult experienceshe had with the flat hierarchy of knowledge within theclassroom. This contributed to a feeling of leaderlessness anda lack of boundaries for sustainability dialogue, what shecalled the lack of accepted “goal posts within which we coulddiscuss sustainability”:

For me it was very frustrating … you take my most seriousinterest and bring it into an environment where prettymuch anything goes … Personally and intellectually andacademically, it was very challenging for me. [Interviewer:Do you think that in itself was a positive experience?]Yeah. [Interviewer: Why?] I've reflected on that and I'vethought that … everyone in that room, because they wereinterested … lack of consensus in that room actually wasless extreme than what is going on out there [in the world]… in this classroom … we all kind of agree that there is aproblem, but we will not agree on what any of thesolutions are or what the conditions to move ahead are… On the one hand, if it's just me and a stack of books, andI know how serious the problem is I can feel like I can startmoving towards it, but I have to realize that not everyoneis there, and I might be wrong, and that it is also going tobe about mutual learning and trying to get along with theother people that are interested in the subject as well.(Andrea)

Although, for this student, the classroom experiencecrystallized a preference for a more structured and hierarchi-cal learning model, it also opened her eyes to the dauntingchallenge of devising ways to work toward, through, and withother people to advance sustainability:

What I gained was a realization of how important theprocess was going to be and how social learning happens… it made me feel worried that the content that is outthere is under threat because of the lack of consensus, so itkind of set me back in some ways but it certainly made meunderstand … the learning that happens, hopefully, whenpeople get together. (Andrea)

Grow (1991, 142) makes the point that high levels of self-directed learning require an intricate set of skills that, formany, are not easily acquired. He further cautions thatteachers can find it difficult to foster self-direction: “Don'tunderestimate how difficult it is for a teacher to move frombeing a requirement to being just one among many choices in

how to learn.” Perhaps the needs of the learner are best statedby Tanya:

The students need some structure. There is definitely abalance between guidance and empowerment…

With students from a wide range of core disciplines,familiarity with concepts of sustainable development camefrom different contexts and sources. In part to respect thevalidity of coming around to sustainability from any startingpoint, be it engineering, design or anthropology, and in part tolose no time in arriving at the rich, transdisciplinary discus-sion of the way forward, the course provided little in the wayof orientation to the core models, origins, and approaches ofsustainable development.

Lecturing was avoided in favour of panel discussions, opendialogues, small group discussions, and skills workshops as ameans to enliven the course and cast aside associations oflecture format courses with passive learning on the part ofstudents, in which instructors are ‘talking books’ and stu-dents, ‘empty vessels.’ In retrospect, lecturing should perhapsnot be rejected completely, but should be conceived as tellingstories from instructors' individual and professional perspec-tives, even if the main purpose of this “stick in the sand” is togive students something clear to disagree with:

Storytelling is ancient, as ancient as we are as humanbeings. Everyone wants to hear a story. So if I think ofmyself as telling a story when I'm up there … And who amI if I can't tell my stories? But maybe the storytelling … is away to refine the understanding of the story. (Duane)

A number of students described the course as feeling‘abstract,’ which was initially troubling to instructors consid-ering the active attempt to avoid abstract theorizing andengage students directly and deeply with practice-basedprojects. Upon reflection, the instructors recognized thisstudent perception as an artifact of precisely this absence oftheoretical specification, giving the coursewhatwas describedlater as its ‘elliptical’ nature:

I would describe the course as somewhat elliptical in thesense that we're asking them to have opinions about stuffthey got partly from some readings but largely based ontheir own initiative … And I saw this wheel spinningbecause — ‘I don't have initiative on this yet because Idon't know what this course is really trying to provide me.’(Duane)

One way to think about it is: we didn't provide theabstract, we made them provide it. So they had to providea context of evaluation, say for the design criteria, a wayof thinking about sustainability. So in a sense, by us notproviding the abstract, we forced them to come up with it.(John)

The value of initial lectures related to the motivation andtheory of sustainable development in a course like AGB wouldalso be to encourage novel questioning of accepted tenets ofthe literature. To begin a course like AGB confident in


students' ability to understand and gain from a series ofsustainability lectures, regardless of their starting point ordepth of expertise, and confident in the level of commonunderstanding that could be initiated this way, would be ofconsiderable value.

4.3. Course positioning: connecting classroom to practice

At the same time as it perplexed and excited with its abstract,open and dialogical structure, and tossed expected student–instructor hierarchies into the air, the course providedstudents with a unique bridge to the world of practitionersand industry. Panelists from a range of private, public, andnonprofit sector organizations visited the class not to impartinformation so much as to share questions and discusschallenges in the present and future of their practice.Practitioners spelled out the help they needed specifically bydesigning the major projects for the course; students selectedfrom among these projects and worked with the project'sdesigner as their group's ‘client.’ This structure was consid-ered valuable and unique for providing “a realistic situation forstudents,” for being “hands-on” and for creating “a nicenetworking opportunity.” Students took this expression ofdemand for cutting-edge research in the green building sectorto heart and some saw a place for their major projects as wellas their future work within it:

It was actually the first class where I felt that it had anability for future impacts, come to think of it. My otherclasses … there is just the information that I received forme, which will further whatever I want to do with it. ButI think it was effective for industry to be able to come intohigher education, because they had an opportunity wherethey may not have otherwise been able to come out likethat and have … really idea-generating conversations.(Alex)

I found that especially with respect to our project … it wasa big project that brought four people together who had allthese diverse experiences, and it was overwhelming …how much work we had actually done, in a school class, …in most classes you have a term paper, or you have anexam at the end, you write a couple short papers throughthe middle, and they are your own papers … your profreads them … it doesn't really go anywhere, it doesn'treally do anything, it's only good for you. Whereas this Ithink builds something for the community … this CIRSproject is actually going to help the CIRS project team getto where there will be no parking on site … they're usingour work. (Matthew)

The open format of the “idea-generating conversations,”in which professionals visiting the classroom came to engagein conversation about practice rather than provide an expertpresentation, made clear to students that the value ofbringing real-world cases into the classroom was two-sided.This is to say that students were convinced of the value thatthey were providing to the professionals and real-worldprojects under consideration as well as the value beingprovided to them. Students like Matthew saw this direct work

with industry as exactly the bridge needed between industryand educational institutions and saw also the pragmatic un-likelihood that this connection could happen in the absenceof a course like AGB:

Our course was good because our panelists … were peoplefrom engineering firms, architectural firms, the city …who were actually implementing projects … Having somekind of a relationship with an educational institution, ormaybe a class or a program, is another relationship tomanage, it's another time slot, it's just another thing. Andthe same thing with the professors, they are busy, theyhave 100 emails to read everyday, so no, I would say thatmost classes don't do that, but that is a bit of a drag,because you get all these people who come through everyyear and learn all these things and come across all theseproblems and think about them, but they don't necessa-rily get them into practice unless an individual goes andtakes them, works directly for an organization that theystudy.

The link from real-world projects to research was clearerthan the link to real-world sustainable outcomes for somestudents. Students saw the structure of the course as ideallysuited for learning to solve problems in the real world, andproviding needed inputs to orienting practice toward sustain-ability: “I'm not sure where the linkages have to be in order tointegrate with the actual building sector but we have to do it,just because the industry has had 400 years to become greenand they haven't done it on their own. So it is a logical role for… educational institutions” (Matthew). However, not allstudents saw the structure as leading to problem-solvingtoward sustainability. As Tanya expressed, “I didn't think itwas anything particular to sustainability in terms of theformat, but if you are going to find solutions, you need to usethis format. It is open and allows for flexibility andintegration.”

Just as the instructors disciplined themselves away fromgiving lectures, so the visiting experts were invited to class topush students to question their own understanding of bestpractices and highest priority demands in green building andsustainability practice. Thus, visitors were encouraged toshare with students insights directly from their practice,guided by students' questions.

This format enhanced the value of the course as a hub forthe emerging network of professionals in the green buildingsector. This was seen as a key factor that made participationworthwhile to Janice, a green building planner: “one of thethings that was helpful to me about the AGB course, thatreally didn't have a lot to do with academia, was the fact thatit was almost a network hub for the green building industry,at a time when there aren't very many network hubs.” Thenature of the networking offered by the course differed fromwhat was available at other more strictly social forums, givenits orientation toward learning. This was seen as a mean-ingful way for professionals to wrest benefit from theuniversity environment. Again, as expressed by practitionerJanice: “Because it was educational for the students, it wasupdates for me, what was going on … the university has thecapability to bring a lot of people together.” As Brian, a


visiting design practitioner, expressed: “this is project-based,so it's learning through design. So we're doing the exact samething that the students are doing. We're getting together totry and create something and through that process of havingan actual goal you're learning and connecting in a muchdifferent way than just coming together randomly to kind ofhang out and talk about whatever.” This mutual value helpedto close the gap the practitioners perceived between theinterest of students and the academic world and their owninterests.

While this format contributed strongly to the students'feeling that the course was integrally connected to thedemands of practice, instructors recognized a perceptionamong some students that “they were surrounded by expertsbut they weren't getting any of the expertise.” (Duane) One ofthe instructors' reflections was that more time should havebeen provided and guidance given to the guests to allowthem to present their model of sustainable building in prac-tice, as a necessary prelude to the kind of mentoring rela-tionship we were hoping to foster amongst stakeholders andstudents.

An additional intention of the visits to class from outsidestakeholders was to allow the input of practitioners to connectin students' minds the first graded exercise, an evaluation ofthe CIRS design goals, and their workplan for their practice-based final projects. The stakeholders' input into the design ofthe final projects was central to the ultimate success of theseprojects and was a key part of their unique value. It is also truethat this difficult transition from abstract goals to concreteprojects is a key early part of any real-world design orarchitectural project. However, from the instructors' point ofview, handing over this difficult work to outside experts or tothe students themselves was probably asking too much in thecontext of a single course. One instructor reflected:

I think there was that lack of connection — they could seethe design goals for CIRS but they couldn't see how thosedesign goals actually went in to the project — so theyspent all their time looking for that in their own projectsand they came up with it and they did a pretty good job.But had they had a better idea of how to make thatconnection, then the projects really would have contrib-uted [to practice]. (Susan)

The visiting practitioners offered a valuable insight intothis aspect of course outcomes, suggesting that the expecta-tions of a student group project were vastly different fromthose of a professional project. These project types differed inways that could never be completely addressed throughattention to classroom design, as Rachel, an engineeringprofessional, expressed:

I feel there's such a huge gulf between classroom projectsand consulting work, they just seem like completelydifferent animals to me. Why is that? I think partly inengineering there's a sense that people who are principals,senior, experienced people set the direction and everybodyelse carries it out … students are … missing something inorder to actually do that project well … [in professionalpractice] they wouldn't be on their own the way the

students are on their own, because they'd have all … sortsof support because in a consulting firm, someone with adegree, a university degree, is expensive time.

4.4. Course atmosphere: passion and responsibility

The experience of passion and deep commitment for thesubject of sustainability, from classmates, instructors, andvisitors to the classroom, marked a fourth major difference ofthis course from others at students' home institutions.Course atmosphere can be considered an emergent propertyof the three previous components: classroom composition,structure, and positioning. Some students enrolled in thecourse to find a place to share their existing passion forsustainability and green buildings, such as Andrea, who has“been desperate to get into classes where sustainability is inthe title” and Beth, an environmental science major, whoclaimed “all I wanted to do was be in a room of people thatknew about green buildings.” For others, the passion of theclassroom came as a surprise but was infectious: “[Thecourse] had a lot of passion. And that passion transferredover into my group work … I've never been in a class whereeveryone felt so strongly about the subject… The panelists …furthered that intense passion because obviously they wereall in it.” The shared passion permeated a sense ofawareness, enthusiasm and sociability through the class-room's diverse mix of participants. For those new to thisenvironment of impassioned sustainability, like Alex, thefeelings aroused were driven by the awkwardness ofincreasing awareness:

I felt guilty driving my car to the class … it is easier to becomplacent … when there aren't people around youeveryday who are really … passionate about it. … But Irecycle now … and I compost more. I'll turn off the lights,all that kind of stuff, so I can drive… [The course] wouldbring up conversations between my roommates and I. Andmy roommates don't go to school … they wouldn't knowthe issues behind [public affairs related to sustainability]…the conversation would go to places that it otherwise couldnot have gone before. And I would think that they aremore aware now as well.

Mezirow (1995, 50), in his seminal study of transformativelearning, found “self-examination with feelings of guilt orshame” to be a key part of the learning process, following adisorienting dilemma such as Alex experienced in the course.Sustainability awareness seems to have led Alex to certainactions that he is satisfied offset the damage he now feels thathis driving does to sustainability. With reference to the green,humane, and smart dimensions of sustainable building usedas organizing themes for the course, different points of thistriumvirate had particular relevance for different students. ForMatthew, the course made clear the need for the “smart”dimension of sustainable building more generally, meaningthe dimension of technological advancement as well aslearning and continuous improvement. This distinguishedthe romantic view of sustainable living in small settlements,cob houses, and locally self-reliant economies from the globalimperative for sustainable development that uses the best of


our technological advances to accommodate and createdecent living conditions for at least three billion additionalpeople. For Jennifer, the humane dimension of sustainabilitywas emphasized, as for her the scale of the building facilitatesconsideration of more sociable human interactions andrelationships, by contrast with the alienating urban experi-ence more broadly. For Andrea, these nuances of sustainabil-ity within the context of sustainable building served toobfuscate what to her is the single non-negotiable concernof sustainability practice: “establishing ecological goal postswhich society must operate within.”

In order to build habits in tracking their own learningprogress, students maintained a journal of their learningprocess and submitted these reflections weekly. Criticalreflection is considered the distinguishing characteristic ofadult learning as “the apperceptive process by which wechange our minds, literally and figuratively … the process ofturning our attention to the justification of what we know,feel, believe and act upon” (Mezirow 1995, 46). Graded simplyfor participation and completeness, these reflectionsaccounted for 20% of the final grade. Alex and Andreaillustrated the range of opinion on the utility of the reflections,with Alex considering them unhelpful and Andrea wishingthere had been more emphasis placed on them.

The reflections were a lot of marks… it was not necessarilya waste of time, but … if anything, the reflections shouldhave been a bonus…mark. And they seemed like a burdenat the time, and I'm not sure who's going to getmuch out ofthem…mainly they were me venting… I don't necessarilyknow how that really helped my learning. (Alex)

We did keep journals, they did mark them, and that wasgood to keep on top of our learning process … it would beinteresting to [have] done that in a more formal way [withspecific questions such as]: Did you learn anything? … Didyou get less confused? … Like there's a progression … likewe all started as a group and we all came out the other endas a group. So did the group change at all? (Andrea)

A common outcome of the course was students' sense thattheywere better positioned and better equipped to bring aboutchange. Students came away from the course with a sense ofhow change fails to happen in the building industry, perhapsmore than a sense of the theory and technical aspects of greenbuilding. This sense of being able to diagnose institutional andstructural problems in the sustainable building sector and tobe a part of treating and improving the situation was felt byseveral students:

People have been building things for years and years thesame way … and these fresh minded students might beable to help make change happen. They have the capacityto make changes. (Beth)

The industry must constantly solve problems around costand change but it is also very— once you learn how to do itone way, you just keep on doing everything the same way,every single time. You never question anything … you

[need to] actually take someone on the policy side or onthe thinking side … to try to think of better ways to dothings and continually improve. (Matthew)

By learning from change-willing practitioners as well asacademics about sustainable building, students gained asense of the professions. This helped them to appreciatetheir own value in the change process as new minds, trainedin newways, entering new careers, and the value of the kind ofwork they were able to do in their classroom projects as well,separate from the stringent demands of real-world deadlines:

With sustainability, you have to have people pushing theagenda, because people are really reluctant to change …you can go beyond that because it's a project and it's notnecessarily as rigid as something that would be imple-mented tomorrow … we can push the boundaries andexpose people to creative projects that might happen inten years as opposed to … tomorrow. (Jennifer)

With passion lifting students' sense of purpose, and withthe emphasis on practical applications and broader relevanceof learning, instructors' evaluations of the academic progressof students were an area of considerable disappointment.Students were asked, as their first graded assignment, toprovide a written evaluation of the CIRS design principles atthe course's half-way point. The assignment was presentedto students with detailed instructions: write a critique of theCIRS design principles, and the green, smart, humaneframework for CIRS as a sustainable building, based onclass discussions and readings to date. The instructors'intentions for this assignment were to enable part of thecourse grade to be based on individual work, to providestudents with an opportunity to summarize their learningfrom the first half of the course before moving ahead to majorproject work, and to give instructors an interim sense ofstudents' learning progress. The assignment, however, wasnot very successful.

The submissions received were speculative, creative, andin large part considered unacceptable by instructors for theirlack of analytical structure. One student, for example,provided an impassioned argument for the need to assess abuilding's impacts on improving housing availability in thedeveloping world as part of assessing its performance in the‘humane’ dimension, drawing strong criticism from instruc-tors who interpreted the humane dimension much morenarrowly. Seizing the opportunity that the course's openstructure and passionate environment provided to voicepersonal values and vision, students pushed themselves inthis assignment to express these feelings. As is all toocommon in a classroom setting, this airing of emotion wasdealt with awkwardly by the instructors, as we foundourselves instinctively clinging to a separation of emotionand cognition. The challenge left for future iterations of thecourse is to recognize the functions of emotions as filling the“gaps left by ‘pure reason’ in the determination of action andbelief” (de Sousa, 1991, 195).

Instructors met outside class time to consider the submit-ted assignments. The framework that was provided definedsustainable building as smart, green and humane. This


framework was presented in terms of the operational designgoals for CIRS, and was the organizing principle for the forumheld in week four of the course with industry stakeholders aswell as the stakeholder panels held during the first half of thecourse. Even within this strongest of conceptual themes forthe course, the instructors realized through discussion thatthey did not have agreement on the meaning and implica-tions of each of its components. As one of the instructorsreflected:

If we sat down right now each to write down what wemean by those three terms, we'd have different things —so we didn't give them any help on the smart, green andhumane, I think. And it really came clear. Especially thesmart discussions just went all over the map. And whynot, we didn't tell them otherwise … So that opened awhole other window to what can be done. (John)

The lack of agreed to standard understandings among theinstructors presented difficulties when it came to fair gradingof students' work. Once instructors had agreed as a group,after the fact, on grading criteria, very few of the evaluationsmet these criteria of our expectations for graduate level work.Many papers lacked a sufficiently defined conceptual frame-work for green building within an understanding of sustain-ability, werewritten emotionally rather than critically, and didnot demonstrate a complete understanding of the CIRSmodel.The instructors assumed some responsibility for failing toimpress upon students the desired standards for submissionsand agreed to offer students a chance to revise and resubmit,rather than grade the assignments as they were (three of thefourteen submissions were considered A level work and weregraded and returned). The instructor team also committed toprovide students with better explanation of what was meantby an A level evaluation.

5. Summary and synthesis: assessingsustainability learning from AGB

A major conclusion from this assessment of the learning inAngles on Green Building is that we would all be moreeffective in our work toward sustainability if we had theopportunity to think more about how we learn — as students,as instructors, as practitioners, as a little of all three. Theclassroom models most familiar to all of us, whether lecturetheatre or design studio, involve next to no reflection on thepart of instructors. Yet the clearest way to ensure transfor-mative learning among students is for instructors to betransformative learners themselves (Cranton, 1994). Engagingin greater reflection involves taking on not just additionalwork but also additional responsibility. In fact, we find that anunanticipated analogy emerges between the kind of addition-al responsibility central to this course and the additionalresponsibility that is central to moving toward sustainability.The classroom model raises deep issues of responsibility aswe engage with a movement toward sustainability, withfellow members of an inter-institutional and interdisciplinaryteam, as facilitators of a strong link between the academy andthe professional world, and as citizens of a city at risk, a nation

off-course, a world in trouble. Our involvement in the coursegave us a new sense of responsibility to:

• Communicate so that a diverse array of others can learn;• Guide and facilitate student access to different academicand professional communities;

• Encourage group work, group learning, a group-basedunderstanding of success;

• Bring expertise into the classroom in a relevant andmeaningful way; and

• Impart expertise in a way that does not impose particularrequirements aboutwhat to think, in the balance of affectiveand cognitive learning.

We can admit only partial success in assuming theseresponsibilities in the AGB classroom. Transdisciplinaritynecessarily means that learners vary from one another intheir needs and preferences. Thismakes it very difficult to givesimple answers as to what students learned, and how wellthey learned it. The partial success we experienced in creatinga diverse community of learners is tempered by the need stillfelt at the course's end to better resolve the mis-matchbetween course structure and pedagogy and the diverselearning stages of students.

Both students and instructors celebrated the collaborativeand transdisciplinary nature of the course. The course had anelement of the “wisdom of the ages” in that it exhibited a widerange of experience, in understanding pedagogy as well as thecourse's content areas. The course created a community thattranscends disciplines. Parallel to the effect the course had inamplifying students' passion for sustainability, it served as aninspiring learning and professional development opportunityfor the instructors involved. The unusual experience ofworking with a strongly interdisciplinary and inter-institu-tional instructor team attracted the interest of our colleagues,even those not attracted by the model. Instructors reflectedthat the most personally valuable aspect of the course was“the way we work together” and “the sharing of ourexperiences” (Duane). The course allowed for a number ofmemorable “off-line” conversations and ideas to be voiced,one-on-one, both due to classroom structure and atmosphere.One instructor described the combination as being both“visionary and concrete” (John). Another described it this way:

The other thing about this course that I think makes itcompelling is that it's dealing with this — urgency beyondlanguage, there's an emotional recognition that this isurgent and I think the students all felt they were doingimportant work. … I felt, while I was in there, this kind ofopenness and feeling that you don't get with most courses.(Duane)

The course demanded that students be highly self-directed— how else can a learning community generate, incubate andrefine new ideas? The assumption embedded in the coursedesign was that both students and instructors were familiarwith, or could easily transition to, classroom environments ofhigh levels of self-directedness. While not extreme, a mis-match between learner and course expectations of self-directedness in AGB is evidenced by statements of student


dissatisfaction. Evidence in subsequent student interviewssuggests that many students, even at the graduate level, arenot ready to take on the challenge of the Learning Cityclassroom model without help in developing their skills ofself-directed learning. To varying degrees, students called formore structure, more authority, and more direction.

From the educator's perspective, our desire to create anopen, non-hierarchical environment sometimes competedwith students' demands for more specific, concrete knowl-edge from their instructors as a united front of expertise. Ourdesign of a course that avoided lecturing as a means toencourage student leadership and active engagement in allcourse components also prevented us from demonstratingand differentiating our expertise in a way that was clear for allstudents.

What is open for discussion in the sustainability class-room? Who gets to decide what components are evaluatedand in what proportions? As instructors, we admit that wedealt somewhat awkwardly with the loss of power and controlover learning that accompanies the empowerment of learners.Disappointed by their mid-term assignment evaluations, forinstance, students suggested that grading standards shouldhave been subject to radical revision in the same way thatmost other aspects of the course were. In thinking moreclearly about the play of power in the classroom, we couldhave takenmore explicit ownership of the course's evaluationstructure, relating the different components of learning to thenature of the transdisciplinary classroom. In allowing stu-dents more power over their own learning, we need to besensitive to the risk that we may be offering students falsechoices within the context of their curriculae and, moregenerally, within the context of accepted academic andprofessional skills, knowledge and capacities. Otherwise, weare creating a type of moral hazard, in a sense predisposingstudents toward radically independent thinking, and thenfailing to formally reward them for this. Looking ahead, theseskills of expression and evaluation based on explicit personalvalues and visions of the future should be included as learningobjectives for the course. The success of the sustainabilityclassroom to a certain extent depends upon the transparentdevelopment of a coherent model which includes a wellrationalized evaluation model.

Despite the lack of incentive or reward for this kind ofactivity, theAGB instructor teamhas been inspired to run futureiterations of the course. In future offerings, the coursewill be re-designedmoreboldly toevolve in real timeas thecourseunfoldssuch that “the delivery of content is in part what happenswhenwe're together.”This pushes the course further into the realmofexpecting self-directedness amongst learners.At the sametime,we could prepare studentsmore overtly for this challenge, withdisclosure and entreaty at the outset to “trust the process …because we know the projects are great.” (Duane) To repeat thiscourse with increased success, we will additionally need todedicate more time and effort to class activities. Experience inthe course led one co-instructor to consider facilitating othermembers of her faculty to participate in a similar course,“because everybody, now, is looking for a way of educatingthemselves with respect to sustainability and this is anincredible environment in which to do that.” (Susan) What isnext for the sustainability curriculum, given that this course is

disconnectedanddifferent fromeveryothercourseofferedatallof our institutions, and has significant faculty workloadimplications?

The AGB classroom model offers reflections toward therevision of our best practice and best thinking on sustainabil-ity teaching and learning. To what extent this is a new model,or rather a complementary component to add to existingtraditional and disciplinary models, remains to be discoveredthrough practice. We offer an encouraging thought from onestudent, Matthew, on the value of continuing the experiment:

One thing about the class, is that I would not think about itas a self-contained unit. I think that it would be mostbeneficial to the group of folks at the different institutionswho hosted this class, to continue hosting more of theseclasses in the future … So the students who take the nextone…they will still have a class that is interdisciplinary,inter-institutional, sustainability. You as part of theresearch that is ongoing with the class, it would be niceto bring whatever critiques there were from this class, intothe next class. To keep on going, to keep on pushing thiskind of learning forward.

In addition to prompting us to consider new iterations ofAngles on Green Building in the context of broader curricu-lum-wide changes, this experience has prompted us to returnto theories of pedagogy, including learning self-directness andtransformative learning, and to attempt to reconcile thesewith social and organizational learning theories for thepursuit of sustainability. We have arrived at consensusabout the components of the sustainability classroom fromvery different base pedagogical models coming from ourdifferent home disciplines and home institutions. We feelkeenly the need for additional research to connect research onhow people learn with research on pedagogy, or how to teachpeople how to learn.

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Documents

Learning teaching in the sustainability classroom