Webinar: Introducing Transdisciplinarity in Higher Education

Transdisciplinary (TD) methodologies, schemes and tools have mainly been explored in research and intervention projects. But how to train future change agents in TD? How to introduce TD in education? 

In the framework of the master in Sustainability Science and Technology at UPC Barcelona Tech, approaches for the introduction of transdisciplinarity in engineering education have been experienced. 

We will explore and discuss the application of constructive, student centred and community oriented pedagogical strategies: Service Learning, Campus Labs and Challenge Based Education, and how they may catalyse Td learning in HEI. We experienced the strategies in the course (5 ECTS) Action Research Workshop in Sustainability Science and Technology, where students applied the action research cycles of research-reflection-action on real problems/challenges that have been proposed by stakeholders (NGOs, Public bodies, etc) that involve interaction with the community. 

The webinar will elaborate on the opportunities and challenges of training HE students on TD and provide TD trainers with examples to reflect their practice.

The webinar is part of a collaborative process between the tdAcademy team at ZTG (Martina Schäfer, Josefa Kny) and the ISST-UPC team (Jordi Segalàs, Gemma Tejedor), which has been nurtured by Gemma Tejedor fellowship at ZTG for one week in June 2021 and June 2022.

Please register for the online event by sending an email to Annabell Lamberth: annabell.lamberth@tu-berlin.de You will receive the login information shortly before the event.

Lecturers:

 Jordi Segalàs  
is the Director of the Research Institute of Sustainability Science and Technology at the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya UPC-Barcelona Tech (ISST-UPC). He is the head of the Research Group on Sustainability Education and Technology in Higher Education, and the chair of the Sustainability working group of the European Society for Engineering Education. He has been working in curriculum greening policies and action plans since 2000.  (More about Jordi)

 Gemma Tejedor 
is a researcher at the ISST-UPC in projects on education for sustainability in higher engineering education (EE). She holds a PhD in Sustainability from the UPC focused on transdisciplinary learning for sustainability within higher EE. She teaches sustainability at the Barcelona East School of Engineering. EEBE-UPC and transdisciplinarity at the Master in Science and Technology of Sustainability (MSTS) coordinated from ISST, at UPC. Gemma studied Agricultural and Forestry Engineering and worked as a forestry engineer for about 17 years, both in the public and private sector and in cooperation projects in Latin America. (More about Gemma)