Abstract

A new way of doing education is essential to cultivate the competences needed to deal
with often vexing challenges of reaching sustainability in agri-food and forestry
systems. Overall, the new approach we introduce is characterized by 1) a shift from
theory to phenomenon as the starting point for the learning process (‘experiential
learning’) and 2) a shift from knowledge to competence as the focus of the educational
activities. One key strategy is involvement of students and other stakeholders to the
point where they have co-ownership of the learning process, and thus are more
motivated to learn than when placed in a passive receiver role.
Such a major shift in mindset and educational activities will represent a challenge for
institutions, teachers and students or other stakeholders. It will be important to enable
teachers to go through a necessary shift in mindset, and to enable them to master a
new way of designing and doing education. We have therefore included the
development of a toolbox for teaching practitioners in the Nextfood project: “We will
support the teaching practitioners in the cases with a toolbox with guides, learning
models and teaching materials, which will be continually updated during the project.
This education materials will be demonstrated for case leaders in a series of
workshops.” (from the Nextfood Grant Agreement). The toolbox will support teachers
at any level of the education system (high school, vocational training & university), as
well as extension specialists devoted to experiential learning approaches. It is intended
for courses and programs in the area of sustainable agri-food and forestry systems,
but the methods and models are not content-specific and can be applied in a variety
of educational settings.
The toolbox design supports the Nextfood educational approach, in which learners and
other supply chain actors (farmers, foresters, advisors and industry representatives)
are seen as important actors and co-creators of knowledge. Hence, the D3.2 provides
process and tools for implementation of experiential learning in a multistakeholder setting. For a thorough explanation of the Nextfood educational approach,
please refer to D3.1 (Educational approaches). 

Published in

Publisher: NextFOOD

SLU Authors

• Melin, Martin

  • Department of People and Society, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
    

UKÄ Subject classification

Pedagogy


Permanent link to this page (URI)

https://res.slu.se/id/publ/109488