For a sustainable future, there is a need for science teacher education in which both science and sustainability are taken into consideration. In addition, the needs and hopes of the students should be in core as they are making the decisions in the future.
M.Sc. Jaana Herranen presented her PhD dissertation on learner driven science teacher education for sustainability in the SECO research group. The thesis was written in the Unit of Teacher Education with the guidance of professor Maija Aksela and associate professor Erik Fooladi. The opponent was associate professor Jesper Sjöström from the Malmö University, Sweden.
The thesis argues that learner-centred and learner-driven sustainability education are different constructs, and examined the possibilities and challenges of those approaches. It was noticed that higher education students can plan courses and parts of courses in which they can take the relevant aspects of e.g. sustainability and inquiry in account, although they also faced challenges in their student-led collaborative planning. As a result, a model was also created to support the use of students` own questions in inquiry-based learning.
Thesis is also in electronic form and you can find it here.
More about research by Jaana Herranen.