EAPRIL is a conference that brings together educational researchers and practitioners to explore innovations in learning and teaching. Among a variety of themes on educational innovation in practise, the event highlighted how different educators approach the challenge of embedding sustainability in learning, offering new ways of thinking and doing.
During the EduSTA interactive workshop, we invited participants to navigate the dilemmas we encountered while developing digital open badges. One surprising insight was how quickly the processes of sensemaking in our own – EduSTA – badge design was mimicked by the workshop participants. This reinforced the relevance of the design dilemmas we presented, particularly the tension between capturing ‘assessment’ in a static moment and the desire to capture learning processes related to complex sustainability competencies. The discussions were thought-provoking, reinforcing the need for a critical approach to designing meaningful assessment forms.
A key challenge in preparing the workshop was creating space for participants to share their diverse perspectives on sustainability education, while also providing the collective understanding of Education for Sustainable Development developed by the EduSTA consortium throughout the design of the EduSTA badge constellation. The workshop was designed to be highly participatory, allowing for rich dialogue while maintaining focus on the critical questions related to the design of open badges for educator sustainability competences.
For those interested in a deeper dive, the proceedings from our workshop have now been published in the official EAPRIL 2024 Conference Proceedings. You can find our contribution, “Navigating dilemmas in designing digital open badges for sustainability teachers,” starting on page 22 of the EAPRIL Conference Proceedings document.
Reflecting on EAPRIL 2024, the conference reinforced the importance of a dialogue, exchanging ideas, building connections, and sharing experiments in developing sustainability education practice. These conversations and feedback will continue to shape our ongoing work in designing digital open badges that truly support transformative learning and sustainability competences. We look forward to continuing these discussions and exploring how Education for Sustainable Development can take form in practice. We can build educator capacity to provide a meaningful learning experience!
Text: Lauren Verheijen
Project team member
Hanze University of Applied Sciences / Breda University of Applied Sciences
Photo: Eveliina Asikainen
Workshop hosts EAPRIL 2024:
Lauren Verheijen (Hanze), Eveliina Asikainen (TAMK), Elles Kazemier (Hanze) & Corine Seelen (Hanze)