Kadji-Beltrán, C. Enhancing Sustainability Teaching Competence in Preschool Teacher Education Using Living Labs. Sustainability2024, 16, 2781.
Kadji-Beltrán, C. Enhancing Sustainability Teaching Competence in Preschool Teacher Education Using Living Labs. Sustainability 2024, 16, 2781.
Kadji-Beltrán, C. Enhancing Sustainability Teaching Competence in Preschool Teacher Education Using Living Labs. Sustainability2024, 16, 2781.
Kadji-Beltrán, C. Enhancing Sustainability Teaching Competence in Preschool Teacher Education Using Living Labs. Sustainability 2024, 16, 2781.
Abstract
Developing sustainability competences is an important endeavor for education, as competence development can be complex and requires appropriate approaches. In the case of preparing future educators, this becomes even more important, because of their multiplier role. The current study presents how a project, based on living-lab methodology, helped preservice preschool teachers, attending a course on sustainability issues, develop sustainability-specific professional action competence. Students collaborated with an organization and a school and were trained to deliver to 6-year-old pupils, activities concerning the protection of sea turtles. The process included reflection, based on a given template. After the intervention, the preservice preschool teachers reflected upon their role and professional performance and discussed how they, benefited from this project. They further analyzed through a group interview, how the Living Lab methodology raised their professional confidence and self-efficacy, and helped them develop content knowledge, pedagogical content knowledge, and a sense of purpose and motivation for teaching about sustainability. Outcomes indicate that participants felt confident and efficacious to teach about sustainability, and developed their content knowledge, pedagogy content knowledge, motivation, and volition due to a strong sense of purpose and responsibility. The overall process facilitated the development of critical thinking, systemic thinking, reflection, and collaboration..
Keywords
Preservice preschool teacher education; Education for sustainable Development; Living labs methodology, ESD-specific professional action competence, ESD competences.
Subject
Social Sciences, Education
Copyright:
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
