Welcome to LITE Bites, an occasional podcast
from Leeds Institute for Teaching Excellence
at the University of Leeds. Episodes will be
hosted by members of the LITE team. And we'll
be showcasing the scholarship of teaching and
learning from across the university. Hello and
welcome to another episode of the LITE Bites
podcast. I'm Emma Peasland, Head of Research
in Leeds Institute for Teaching Excellence at
the University of Leeds. And today I'm delighted
to be joined by Will Young, Tom Cooper and Anne
Talentire, who are going to be sharing the story
of the fellowship that you have just completed,
which was called Redefining Sustainability in
the Curriculum. Hello. Hello, Emma. It's great
to see you all today. I wonder if a good place
for us to start would be for you to introduce
yourselves. So, Will, I don't know if you want
to go first. Thanks. So I'm William Young. I'm
Professor of Sustainability and Business in the
Sustainability Research Institute. And I'm also
Academic Lead for Sustainable Curriculum, which
is part of the Climate Plan. Excellent. And Tom?
Hi, I'm Tom Cooper. I'm Head of Sustainability
and lead the Sustainability Service here at the
University of Leeds. And I'm also part of that
leadership team on the Sustainable Curriculum
Programme. Brilliant. And finally, Anne. Hello,
I'm Tantei. I'm the Professor of Sustainability
and Business, also in Sustainability Research
Institute. So I'm the second academic in this
team. I'm part of the... sustainable curriculum
leadership team and I also have other roles in
the university which I'll pick up on as we go
through this podcast. Brilliant and so I mean
we don't always have fellowships undertaken by
a group like this and a group of different job
families as well so I wonder if you wanted to
start by telling us a bit about how you got together
and began collaborating. Yeah, so we're all part
of that leadership team of the sustainable curriculum
principle, which is part of the university's
climate plan. So that overall climate plan is
around committing us to how we reduce our greenhouse
gas emissions, support a net zero city, deliver
our sustainable travel ambitions, responsible
investments, a really broad climate plan, but
also shaping how we refocus our research and
teaching and the sustainable. curriculum principle
commits to giving all of our students that opportunity
to engage in sustainability through their course,
through their community, both now and in the
future. So we've been working together, the three
of us, for a long time on sustainability in the
curriculum already, but the climate plan gave
it a real momentum and emphasis so that we could
we could kind of really push forward with the
delivery and have more space and capacity. to
be able to step back from the everyday activity
and kind of do some reading and thinking and
actually get into some understanding together
through the fellowship. It's probably worth noting
in terms of what do we mean by sustainable curriculum.
So we use the QAA's definition of education for
sustainable development. which is the process
for creating curriculum structures and subject
relevant content to support and enact sustainable
development. And by sustainable development,
we mean an aspirational ongoing process of addressing
social, environmental, economic concerns to create
a better world. So, yeah, we've been working
together for a while on the sustainable curriculum
programme, but to get things really moving, the
fellowship was the ideal opportunity to be able
to do that. Brilliant. So tell us a little bit
about what you did for the fellowship. So then
what was the research? What was it that you wanted
to investigate and so on? So with all good projects,
we had some research questions. So we had two
that we really based the fellowship on. The first
was, what does it mean to embed sustainability
into the curriculum? And the second one was,
what processes support successful embedding?
Really, we're looking for three things from this
fellowship. The first was to give us some evidence
to base the curriculum at Leeds on, sustainable
curriculum on, so that from the literature, policy
and practice, to provide a better framework that's
grounded. And then the second one really was
about practice. So we wanted to embed systematization
into the curriculum, but in a way for there to
be institutional level embedding as opposed to
just in modules or at the top where you have
a commitment and there's this void in between.
So that we have an importance of having stories
of what works here. at Leeds is about sustainable
curriculum and then also I think one of the key
things for us was this working across the university
so we've got the partnership between academics
and sustainability service and there's that partnership
moving forward as opposed to as individuals doing
our little things and contributing our pet projects.
So that's really bringing together what we wanted
to do and to use that evidence from practice,
best practice and the literature and so on to
ground what we're doing on the university -wide
project. Excellent. And I mean, that sounds marvellous,
doesn't it? To learn from stories of what's going
well already and to work in partnership across
the university. So I wonder if you would expand
a little bit and tell us about how you went about
answering the questions that you started with.
Yeah, of course, I'll take over on that bit.
And I suppose just building on what Will just
said about the gaps in the literature, about
that institutional perspective. So I think that's
where we were trying to think about it. in a
very holistic sense. So as we started looking
at the literature, trying to find some core concepts
to help us frame the research and then also route
our analysis and what's happening in Leeds. So
we found a bit of a gap, actually. There wasn't
an awful lot. So we've had to look at, this is
where other pieces of work have helped inform
what we're thinking about. So we're looking at
not just what's in the sustainable curriculum
literature, but also organisational change literature
to try and get that whole university perspective.
Anyway, so big literature search at the beginning
and ongoing. And as Will said, we wanted to route
our analysis of what's happening at Leeds and
multiple points, multiple levels. So we've used
a combination of sort of 19 interviews with people
across the university involved in different aspects
of student education policy. So some who were
looking at education more broadly because we
were thinking about education, but also those
who were engaged explicitly at trying to bring
sustainability into their own practice. So there
was a broad 19 interviews. And then we followed
that up with a series of four case studies with
these colleagues who were testing out and engaging
with sustainability education. Interestingly,
well, importantly. We didn't go to our own colleagues
in the Sustainability Research Institute. Not
because we didn't appreciate their practice,
but we were trying to see what people across
the university were doing. We wanted to build
on the experience of colleagues right across
the university who didn't necessarily see themselves
as sustainability professionals and start from
a very appreciative inquiry perspective about
what they were doing. Not there to critique,
not there to criticise what they were doing,
but learn from them and follow their learning
journey. And there was quite a focus on reflection
with our case study educators and also listening
to students' perspectives where we could. It
was a bit of a challenge in that, but trying
to have that reflective approach. We had hoped
to do some more kind of action research, but
it didn't prove. possible in the time that we
had available. But still the focus was very much
on that reflective learning in the case studies.
So that was the sort of data collection. So the
interviews and the case studies with the support
from students in light, the student... Our student
research assistants. That's the word, student
research assistants in light to help us do that.
So once we got all the data, we went to the usual
process of qualitative coding, generating themes,
pulling out insightful quotes, trying to understand
and tease out the contrast and sometimes the
contradictions within that, and trying to pull
together a narrative of what we saw as a process
of embedding. So embedding became a key word
for us about what that means in practice at different
levels for different people associated with their
different roles. within the institution. Excellent.
And I'm interested, I'm sure you'll say a little
bit more about your case studies in a minute,
but I'm curious about the fact that you chose
people who didn't see themselves as sustainability
professionals to work with in developing these
case studies. So were there particular parts
of the university that you approached for that
or where your case studies emerged from? We did
have a frame to try and get some breadth across.
We ended up having probably more STEM people
than others. So we have got one of them, Arts
and Humanities. So we tried to get a breadth,
but it was quite challenging to get more Arts
and Humanities people involved. I think we still
got some interesting stories about working across
disciplines from that. maybe should qualify a
little bit in terms of how we pick the people
or in terms of how they're they were they were
engaged with sustainability they were enthusiasts
they were interested and some of them came from
our emerging LUNSHE community so the Leeds university
network for sustainability in higher education
and it's sort of responding to a demand from
the people in that community of thinking about
where do i start How do I get involved? I'd like
to do this, but not sure how. So it was almost
like we were picking people like you in that
LUNSHE community. It was part of that approach
to try and select. Excellent. So I'd love to
hear a bit about what you found out then from
your interviews and through these case studies.
So I will continue this story. So through that
process of coding, generating themes, and I think
we started, we ended up with... 60 plus themes
at one point and it was at multiple levels and
really where we came to was identifying three
spaces so three clusters that we saw very much
so three clusters of themes that we saw very
much as spaces of activity and these were spaces
that shaped embedding sustainability into the
curriculum These are the sustainability space,
the education space and the institutional space.
So the sustainability space is about the vision
for sustainability that our colleagues were expressing.
The knowledges and capabilities, the pedagogies
they used and how those are integrated into a
subject or indeed university life more broadly.
So the second space was the education space,
and this is given that we are looking at sustainable
curriculum and not sustainability in its entirety.
We're obviously focusing on how sustainability
is articulated across education activities, and
that includes structures, norms, themes, relating
to how education is organised, managed and conceptualised
in the institution. Which leads to the third
space, which is the institutional space, which
captures the broad ambitions of the organisation
with respect to sustainability, but also the
structures and processes that affect the time
and recognition for staff to engage with these
kinds of ideas, particularly sustainability and
education, and how that might help genuine efforts
on the part of the university to foreground and
prioritise sustainability. So having these three...
helped us think through not just what was going
on in these three spaces, but also how they interconnected
and the overlap. So some of our codes were very
much in that, oh gosh, is this education? Is
this sustainability? So a lovely Venn diagram
came out of this to help us think through the
interconnectedness of the three spaces, but also
the tensions between them. And it helped us think
much more about... the way sustainability and
education is supported and valued in the organisation.
And it helped us think through a better model
for furthering and understanding the context
of embedding. Just to maybe just double back
to the interviews a little bit more. So I think
through our interviews, there was lots of enthusiasm
for sustainability in the curriculum, but not
always an understanding of how to do it. So again,
this is helping to point us about what we need
to do going forward. And whilst there was an
institutional commitment, well, there is an institutional
commitment, and that's getting more clearly articulated.
So this institutional commitment to embedding
sustainability, what this means for different
colleagues wasn't always very clear. There was
often this sense of constraints. And it's not
just sometimes about time, but also lack of direction
sometimes. And also how busy that space for education
can be was another challenge that we found. So
that's why the education space was pretty important
to us. Some things were about the challenges
to doing sustainability, some misunderstanding
from some colleagues that it was all about the
tech and a more scientific approach and sometimes
a confusion about terms. Sometimes there was
a bit of a defensiveness about what they could
or they couldn't do in their disciplines. So
it was interesting to think about how we could.
help colleagues unpack some of that. But it was
useful to recognise that starting point from
some people, as well as that balancing with an
enthusiasm and a willingness, but also a bit
of confusion. And just to build on the case studies
a bit as well. So these four case studies provided
some really good examples of the different starting
points for how sustainability is being embedded
in different disciplines. through projects and
collaboration, sustainability skills development
to the sustainable development goals or how it's
been linked to sort of programme level to outcome
level, programme level outcomes. So the first
case study looked at a final year capstone module
and it was a STEM example. And it adopts a sort
of a grand challenges approach, encouraging student
-led groups through projects to address global
issues. And that case study in particular highlighted
the need to scaffold skill development throughout
the programme to build student skills and confidence
in preparation for that capstone rather than
landing it on them in that sort of final year.
The second case study was more about bringing
interdisciplinary and critical thinking into,
again, a science master's programme. But it aimed
to challenge conventional thinking more and to
encourage students to rethink their disciplinary
knowledge and consider different perspectives
and engage in discussion and collaboration together
to kind of explore those different perspectives.
The third... case study was was the one that
we had that wasn't a stem module or program actually
and that was really about sort of building that
critical understanding of sustainability for
art students who want to engage in sustainability
in their careers but they need guidance as to
what that means in theory and and in practice
so one of the key findings there was that the
challenge of enabling colleagues across a whole
programme to recognise the sort of multiple dimensions
of sustainability and not just think about those
tech solutions, as Anne was referring to before,
but perhaps it's about better understanding it
within the discipline and that disciplinary context.
And then the last case study sort of brings together
sustainability into group work in an enterprise
-focused Level 3 module. And the students are
introduced to the idea of wicked problems, you
know, those challenges with no clear solutions.
And then they use the SDGs as a framework for
the students to focus in on the sort of project
outcome. particularly interesting in that case
study was how the module leader was learning
about sustainability alongside the students.
They were also developing their knowledge, their
understanding of sustainability and that SDG
context, UN SDG context. So broadly across the
case studies, they all highlight the importance
of that critical thinking. thinking outside or
beyond the sort of traditional disciplinary boundaries
that they may otherwise have been doing. And
there's the theme of identifying a need to support
students with complexity across them all, how
they consider those wicked problems and how they
understand that there isn't just one solution,
but a need for systems thinking, for collaboration
in problem solving, those kinds of areas. That's
really interesting. And there's kind of two themes
that I think that both you, Tom and Anne spoke
about in your discussion of your findings then,
which were the fact that sustainability might
take or considerations of sustainability might
take different form or frame in different disciplines.
And also that there are multiple dimensions of
sustainability and these might be related to
how they're viewed in different disciplines.
But I was wondering if you might be able to maybe...
say a little bit more about that or give us some
examples of how those things might occur differently
in different contexts? I think I'd start by saying
that it's a really important element of what
we're trying to achieve through the Sustainable
Curriculum Programme here at Leeds and this is
helping to build the evidence around that and
reinforce the idea that it's hugely important
that it is done in a discipline -specific way.
There isn't a one size fits all approach to teaching
sustainability, but actually if it is taught
in a discipline specific way and we can empower
educators to be able to interpret sustainability
in that context, then they're going to engage
students in a way that's meaningful to them.
Yeah, and it doesn't feel like something that's
kind of added on, like here's your sustainability
content or... assessment or something like that
absolutely that's right and there can be a use
and a need for some basic level understanding
of what is sustainability or what are the UN
SDGs for example and we can provide that through
online training that we provide but there are
yeah to meaningfully engage with sustainability
and to understand it in the context of the discipline
it has to be thought about in that kind of context
Nice. Absolutely. I think it's all about that
skills focus and the pedagogy is underpinning
because then you can help develop that critical
thinking. And then what does it mean for me?
What does it mean for my discipline? What does
this mean for my practice? Pulling that through
both for the student and for the educator is
a key thing. And I think I suppose we've already
all always sort of felt that. And the literature
says that. But seeing that played out through
the case studies and. hearing people trying to
tease out what does this mean for the institution,
I think was quite helpful, being able to do that
in situ here. Brilliant. Outside of our sort
of silos of Sustainability Research Institute
and the Sustainability Service, we know what
we're doing, but when we're trying to mainstream
it across the institution to go out of these
case studies, it's really opened eyes in how
to look. how other people see sustainability
and how they want to implement it in their subjects.
Brilliant. It's always really interesting, isn't
it, when you speak to people with a slightly
different understanding or a slightly different
viewpoint of the same concept that is key to
the work that you do every day. So, I mean, it's
really interesting to hear about what you did
and how you did it and everything like that.
But having been through the process, I wonder
if you were going to start again. Is there anything
that you might do a little bit differently? Yeah.
I think the key one would have been starting
the case studies earlier so that we've had more
time to get these iterations of reflection that
we would have liked, that sort of more action
researchy pace to try and see, you know. follow
practice in one term see what's changed and see
how it how it impacted but we didn't manage to
get those iterations sometimes the academic year
becomes a bit of a challenge there within the
time scale of a project and I suppose the other
thing about starting earlier would have been
more opportunities to find different ways of
engaging students and hearing what they What
they thought, I think case study two was probably
the best one for getting the students voice thinking
back. Possibly that's because they were more
mature students and masters. Anyway, just thinking
of different ways to have their voice engaged
would be good. Yeah, it's always easy with hindsight,
isn't it? To see where we could kind of tweak
our research designs and our approaches if we
were going to have the opportunity to start over
again. And then I guess thinking about the findings
that you've got from your research, one thing
that I'm always really interested in is how these
are going to influence practice here at the university
and perhaps even beyond. And you are all members
of the Sustainable Curriculum Leadership Team.
So I'm wondering how the findings might be influencing
the work of the programme. So I think we saw
it in the contribution in four ways. The first
one was really into the operational implementation
of how we worked in terms of sustainable curriculum
principle in terms of our share point for staff,
workshops on skills and inclusive sustainability,
embedding the processes at multiple levels as
opposed to just where we thought it was important.
But also there was not one approach. And to see
that as a good thing, that people could own how
they implemented sustainability and for us to
support that as opposed to us coming in with
our structure and saying this is the only way.
And giving people space and resources to collaborate
and to think about how they're going to do things
as opposed to... sort of a tick box approach.
And I think that's really helped us to work with
colleagues across the university. The second
one was reinforcing us working with other theme
leads across the university, such as ethics and
enterprise and the careers and so on, to work
together. to bring the different skills and the
complementarities that we had in terms of some
of our pedagogies and our approaches with other
themes where they have other reaches that we
don't have and so on. Yeah, and working with
the education enhancement teams. And I think
that's really helped to broaden, how we see sustainability
being implemented across the university. The
third one of course was our community of practice
LUNSHE that was growing and being able to share
findings to discuss and create conversations
within that across different roles and disciplines
across services and different academic units
and so on I think that's been really useful.
And finally, to feed into another LITE fellowship
that's looking at sustainability and curriculum
led by Vasiliki and Claire. And I think that's
really important to have that connection to keep
what we've learned and the literature we've got
and to pass it on to another LITE fellowship.
Yeah, I mean, that's great, isn't it? That there's
an ongoing piece of work that can come out of
this and take your findings and then extend them
in a new way. I think that's marvellous. I think
just going back to what we would have done differently,
it's great that our colleagues, Claire and Vasiliki,
are working with students from day one. So they're
really doing much more of a co -production piece,
working with students. So that voice of students
gets much more articulated in their work, which
is great to see. Yeah, we'll look forward to
seeing how that fellowship develops. And we never
know, we might be here recording another episode
of LITE Bites, like a sustainability part two
with Claire and Vasiliki when they reach the
end of their fellowship. So, yeah, so you've
talked about how the findings are influencing
the Sustainable Curriculum Programme. And then
I'm wondering if you've seen any changes or impacts
that have come out of that since you completed
your fellowship. For the researchers, really
informed and validated our sort of network approach.
So certainly, and what we mean by that is that
many universities are implementing sustainability
into curriculum by having compulsory modules.
And we've learned through this, this is not a
good approach to reach all students and staff.
So we're using this network approach to embed
sustainability, so threading through the whole
institution and not just focusing on pockets
of good practice or single compulsory courses.
So it recognises the need to engage at an institutional
level and understand the practice of sustainability
in the university. And I think something that
I've really seen has evolved while we've been
working on the fellowship is that it's strengthened
that collaborative relationship between the Sustainability
Service and the Sustainability Research Institute
at a time when we're working at the moment on
refreshing our University of Leeds framework
for environmental and social responsibility,
our strategic approach to sustainability most
broadly. And curriculum is increasingly an area
of strength for Leeds in terms of our holistic
approach and particularly around sustainability.
So it's informing that wider approach to environmental
and social responsibility. And that links back,
you know, in terms of our three spaces to the
institutional space. That's been really important
for us. Brilliant. And I guess we're talking
about the way that you've represented those three
spaces when you were talking about your findings
in a Venn diagram. And if people are interested
in seeing that and all the components that are
within those spaces and to see a bit of a description
of the case studies and that kind of thing, then
you've produced a snapshot report from the fellowship
and that's available on the LITE website. So
that's teachingexcellence.leeds.ac.uk. I was
just going to add a little bit more about how
we're building on the lessons or the impacts
that the fellowship has had. And some of this
is, yes, within the work of the programme, but
also how we're working to influence professional
development more broadly, particularly for educators,
but also some of the findings will go in for
other categories of staff. So we're in discussion
now with ODPL about how we bring sustainability
into existing professional development programmes.
So not creating just new things. Again, that
thread of embedding into what exists, enhancing
what exists, rather than just saying new stuff.
So doing this particularly, we've mentioned lunching
as a sort of informal space, but also more formally
through... like Foundations in Teaching and our
postgraduate certificate in education as well.
They haven't got there yet, but these are impacts
that we're hoping to generate and we've got the
commitment to do so over the next year or so.
Excellent. And just to clarify that ODPL is Organisational
Development and Professional Learning here, who
is the department that offers that kind of professional
development provision. Indeed. Yeah. And do you
have any plans for sharing this research then?
What kind of comes next in the process? Well,
next month, I'm going to go to the Netherlands
to EuroSoTL with a bunch of other colleagues
from Light and across the university. So supported
by LITE to go there. So that will be presenting
on our three spaces model and fleshing that out
a little bit more. We also presented this last
year at the Advanced HE Conference on Learning
and Teaching. And I got a sense that some people
were very keen on us developing that model further,
the three spaces and that interface between the
sustainability space and what the practitioners
are doing, how it fits in with education policy
of the university, and importantly, that whole
institution space. So I've got a sense that we
might be... We'd like to develop that further
through these presentations in the Netherlands,
building what we did last year, but hopefully
a paper too. So watch this space. Excellent.
We'll look forward to that. And the final thing
that I'm interested to know, and I'm always interested
to find this out from all of the fellows that
we work with in LITE, is whether you experienced
any personal or professional benefits for yourselves
from undertaking the research. I'll start then.
I think... Absolutely, basically. Absolutely,
yes. I think, as we said at the start, the fellowship's
given us the space to get into the literature.
And for me, it was a literature that I always
knew existed. It was there and dabbled in it
before, but it was now to get into it. Obviously,
there's a foundation for doing the research.
And I think it's opened my eyes to better understanding
of the scholarship of teaching and learning,
SoTL, or PEDR as we're talking about it in the
university. And so doing it as a practitioner
rather than just reading about it. And so that's
helped me, I think, in my own development as
an academic leader. So that insight from learning
by doing and doing a research project in pedagogical
research. And that's helped me in my role working
with, in my new role, working with organisational
development and professional learning. So I'm
helping... in that team think about how we might
create a more supportive culture for education
and educators. So I think doing this fellowship
has really helped inform my strategy for that
activity and I think given me a new language
and legitimacy in that space. And I think the
other thing, flag up, that I don't think I would
have gone forward with getting a principal fellowship
of the... Higher Education Academy, PFHEA, without
this. It helped, again, give me that language,
legitimacy, insights, literature, but also that
practice thing. So it's helped me enormously.
I think it's been a really great thing to do.
Marvellous. I think for me it's been a really
valuable and interesting experience as a... member
of the professional services team at the university.
You know, it's an opportunity to take on a more
formal academic role as a sort of a percentage
of my time, you know, and importantly, to increase
that collaboration with academic colleagues with
Anne and Will and with others. And I think that
that sort of probably gives us some of that sort
of licence to operate as a researcher in education.
And It's the first time I've done proper, in
inverted commas, research since my master's degree
20 years ago or so. And it's been great to have
that opportunity to just develop those skills
and gain some insight into academic research.
I can't pretend that it's been a really easy
process trying to figure out how to balance time
and resource, and not least as I had a change
of my core role partway through the fellowship.
But by working with Anne and Will and with the
support of like colleagues, you know, it was
very achievable and possible. Yeah, and I absolutely
agree with Anne and Thom. That grounding, yeah,
I mean, the scholarship authentication standard
of development really helps me better understand
my role leading the sustainable curriculum principle
on the institutional level. So it's really...
pushed me away from just the sort of subjects
specific where I teach out into the broader network
and services and other subjects and really how
to collaborate better within that space and to
work in partnership and I think that's really
the strength of what uh we've found um and that
I think that's the a great way for we what we
do at Leeds is one of the great things we do
is we're very good at working in partnership
uh when we're given the space and time to do
it yeah I mean it's great to hear those kinds
of stories and particularly talking You were
talking about the collaboration that you've done
together and how working as a team has really
helped you to be successful and bring different
perspectives to the fellowship. And I think that,
yeah, that's a great example of how fellowships
with multiple team members can succeed in that
way. OK, so I mean, that kind of brings us to
the end of our conversation today. And it's been
marvellous to hear about a bit more about the
fellowship. I worked with you. in part on and
off and we got to check in kind of three times
a year and see how things were going on. But
it's wonderful to kind of hear about the whole
thing and the findings and particularly how they're
beneficial for the university and the process
has been beneficial for yourself. So thanks for
coming along today and sharing your fellowship
story. Thank you.