Digital Learning for Sustainable Development?!

In the course of the seminar, the students will deepen their knowledge by reading selected literature and prepare themselves as experts for the first group session, in which a moderated and methodically guided discussion of the deepened content will take place. The aim is not only to deepen the knowledge but also to develop a critical and interrogative approach. This is additionally promoted by the design of an individual learning and research diary - more on this later.

For the 2nd Group Session the students will deal with the concept of development and alternative approaches from the so-called 'Global South' from a post- or decolonial perspective. A cooperation with the program "Chat der Welten" (EPiZ Reutlingen) enables us to open a digital space in which the students can exchange with people from the Global South on the topic of critical perspectives on SD and learn from each other at eye level by means of online-based communication. For example, the encounter with the artist and activist Sylvia Falcón from Peru was a highlight for many students. Exciting and profound conversations ensued. The students' learning and research diaries also showed what a great impression the guests left on the students.

Students will bring their research findings to Group Session 3 and come together in small groups (2-3 people). In these groups, students create posters on selected good practice examples. The posters are submitted via the learning platform "ILIAS" and we integrate them using the digital tool "Workadventure" in a virtual island landscape specially created for this purpose.

Alongside this and as part of the course work, students document and reflect on their learning process in a learning and research diary. The students are free in the implementation and design. So far, there has been very positive feedback from the students on this reflective format and a variety of implementations: From handwritten submissions to homepage-like preparations, "Prezis" (a kind of PowerPoint) to a podcast.

At the beginning of the project, we asked ourselves how ESD can also be designed digitally in such a way that global challenges in the context of SD become tangible and can be experienced by the students. Basically, it turns out that it is possible to meet the demands of holistic ESD even in a purely digital teaching-learning format, especially because participants from very different (global) contexts can be brought together in diverse forms of interaction. What remains is the challenge of how the necessary physical-personal relationship to the social and natural environment can be promoted through digital teaching.