CDIO FOR EDUCATION FOR SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT USING COMMON CORE CURRICULUM

This paper describes an approach to integrate sustainable development into a program’s curriculum using the CDIO Framework, with particular reference to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs). It proposes a set of guidance notes as “addendum” to the 12 CDIO Core Standards to provide further guidance towards how each Standard can be interpreted in all aspects of teaching and learning, from the learning context and learning outcomes, to integrated curriculum and various integrated learning experiences to learning assessment and program evaluation; as well as faculty professional development. This work is the direct outcome of a recent initiative in Singapore Polytechnic (SP) aimed at developing baseline emerging digital and human skills in students via a set of Common Core Curriculum (CCC). The CCC team works with all diplomas in SP to integrate these baseline emerging digital and human skills into their curriculum, using the UN SDGs as the learning context, where these skills will be deepened or applied in the domain modules. This paper firstly provides a brief overview of how CDIO had been used by the community to include the teaching of sustainable development, the state of involvement of higher educational institutes in providing education for sustainable development (ESD) in its programs. This paper also provides a short account on recent thinking about how best to deliver ESD for transformational learning; which is based on 2 key perspectives: that of behavioural change and empowerment of learners. The paper then explains what CCC is, in the context of educational landscape in Singapore, its key features and the integrated approach to the design and rollout of the CCC in Singapore Polytechnic. Next is the standard-by standard explanation on how each standard can be interpreted through the lens of sustainable development, to provide guidance on how each can be used to support ESD. This is followed by a sharing of learning points from the recent pilot run of this approach and concludes with ideas of moving ahead in this endeavour to include ESD institution wide.