Our Learning Community

Presenter: Jayne Bryant
Department of Strategic Sustainable Development, TISU

Students of the Masters in Strategic Leadership towards Sustainability come from diverse and varied backgrounds, cultures, professions and countries from all around the world. The MSLS Core Team creates the learning container for the students, and works collaboratively to weave the courses of the program into an integrated and synergistic whole. To learn more about this please see Bryant et al. (2021).

The MSLS Team this year is: Merlina Missimer, Pierre Johnson, James Ayers, Patricia Lagun Mesquita, Dana Bergman and Jayne Bryant.

We are supported by the wider team at the Department of Strategic Sustainable Development who offer their expertise at various points throughout the year, and we invite powerful guest lecturers from fields of practice around the world. We include a rich professional and personal network of alumni that spans the globe, who join us to teach as well as coach the MSLS students at times throughout the year. Together, we form a professional learning community made up of students, learning facilitators, researchers, global experts and practitioners from the field.

We study complex systems and we live and work in one together. We come from a great diversity of backgrounds, experiences and perspectives and this adds to the richness in our classroom.

In MSLS, we believe that learning…

• Is a life-long process
• In the 21st century is about skills and capacities, not content
• Should be self-directed and that learners are ultimately responsible for their own learning
• Is a co-creative process, not consumption 5. Is about Respect and Safety + Challenge + Prototyping + Feedback
• Is more about making sense than about memorizing
• Is a social endeavor and often best done in dialogue with a diversity of perspectives

Through our research we have found that over 91% of students describe their MSLS experience as transformational, and we have published papers which describe our pedagogies and learning environment that help create this transformational learning experience.

These can be found here:
Bryant, J., Ayers, J., Missimer, M., Broman, G., 2021. Transformational learning for sustainability leadership – essential components in synergy. International Journal of Sustainability in Higher Education 22, 190–207.
https://doi.org/10.1108/IJSHE-01-2021-0014 Ayers, J. Bryant, J. Missimer, M. 2020. The Use of Reflective Pedagogies in Sustainability Leadership Education – A Case Study. Sustainability, 12, 6726. https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/17/6726

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