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