Education for Sustainable Development for Everyone: Massive Open Online Courses and global, climate literate, sustainable citizens

Abstract: This thesis contributes to knowledge about how Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) as educational online platforms can be utilized in achieving the purposes of Education for Sustainable Development (ESD). Starting out from a view that, in the face of global challenges every individual is an important actor with agency to drive for necessary social changes, the overall ambition of this thesis is to investigate the role of MOOCs, as a specific form of online learning, in empowering and enabling learners to acquire the competences needed to take responsible actions and informed decisions in a rapidly changing, interdependent and unequal world. More specifically, this thesis aims at providing a deeper insight into the question of whether the pedagogic approaches used in ESD (learner-centered, action-oriented and transformative learning) and the learning processes that they promote, can be incorporated in the MOOC environment. This issue holds importance due to the global and intergenerational character of ESD where providing access to training and learning for sustainable development for all is vital. In this respect, MOOCs have been envisioned as revolutionary in the provision of access to education to a wider audience. Nevertheless, the “massive” part of MOOCs could pose a challenge in connection to ESD, due to the fact that ESD is not easily generalized and aims at upholding local relevance. Therefore, this thesis also looks into the question of the implications posed by scale and the issue of scalability when investigating how MOOCs can enable the application of ESD pedagogic approaches, thus also contributing to the achievement of the purposes and learning objectives of ESD and Climate Change Education as its constituent part. Utilizing a case study methodology, the MOOC in Climate Change Leadership at Uppsala University is chosen as a case example of the MOOC learning environment and learning circumstances. By conducting a content analysis of the MOOC materials as presented on the online platform, and developing an analytical framework based on the ESD pedagogic approaches, this thesis reaches the conclusion that some aspects of the ESD approaches benefit from the networked environment and large-scale participation in the MOOC environment, while the incorporation of others is more challenging and asks for further research and improvement of the MOOC learning environment in order for them to provide for the optimal learning circumstances and outcomes in connection to ESD.