Teaching Interdisciplinary Threshold and Bottleneck Concepts: Sustainability in General Education Classroom
Katia Levintova andDaniel MuellerUW-Green Bay
Special Thanks•UWGB Office of the Provost and CATL•UW System Office of Professional and
Instructional Development•Wisconsin Teaching Fellows and Scholars
Program
Introduction•Previous summit projects•What is the Summit•
Introduction
•The problem•Research questions
This SoTL project•Compare students’ definitions of sustainability
(resolutions, reflection papers, and debriefing notes) pre and post intervention
• Intervention -- lesson plan that explains the tension in and complexity of the meaning of sustainability and emphasizes its three dimensions.
Lesson plan (30 minutes)•Examples of how unbridled economic
development changes natural landscapes, contributes to public health issues and creates only short-term economic solutions, both globally and locally▫Edward Baratynsky, Manufactured
Landscapes, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KZiKBKnesnU
Sustainability triangle
Lesson plan (30 minutes)•Global level - UN Post-2015: Framing a
New Approach to Sustainable Development•National level -- Socially Sustainable
Finland 2020: Strategy of Social and Health Policy •Local level - Sustainable Green Bay•National groups (6 students each) to fill
sustainability triangles
Data and Methods•Quantitative and qualitative content analysis of the
three Summit-related outputs•Seven semesters pre intervention and one semester
post intervention ▫Resolutions (200 and 12 total)▫Reflection papers (540 and 68 total)▫Debriefing notes
•Specific textual indicators for each 3 Es of sustainability
Hypotheses•Students in the pre-intervention semesters
will struggle with multidimensionality of sustainability
•Students in the post-intervention semester will be able to better master the content of the Summit
•Important for our campus and beyond
Resolutions analysis•Quantitative analysis (% of delegations
incorporating all three 3Es)•Group level of analysis•Students consistently favored environmental
aspects (@90%) •Struggled with identifying all 3 Es (35%-65%
of delegations)
Reflection papers analysis
•Different level of analysis •Looking for possible gender differences •Confirms previous findings•At best 77% of students even mentioned
sustainability (at worst only 50% did)•Sustainability was mostly defined in
environmental terms (60%-70%)•No difference between men and women
Debriefing notes analysis•Qualitative data•Group level•Confirmed our hypothesis
Conclusions•Bottlenecks exist•Might be a reflection of larger social trends•Active learning is not enough•Different pedagogical solutions are needed