TY - JOUR

T1 - Embedding higher education into a Real-World Lab

T2 - A process-oriented analysis of Six Transdisciplinary Project Courses

AU - Beecroft, Richard

N1 - Acknowledgments: I thank Marius Albiez, Kaidi Tamm and Miriam Friedrichs and all representatives of CSO initiatives involved in the courses—it was a great experience working together with you. I thank André Reichel for introducing me the to the social practice perspective, and the reviewers for insightful suggestions to improve this text substantially. I thank the Centre for Applied Cultural Research and General Studies for handling the administrative side of the courses, including subsequent tests and certificates for students. I acknowledge support by the Ministry of Science, Research and the Arts for funding of the underlying teaching activities and the support by Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft and Open Access Publishing Fund of Karlsruhe Institute of Technology for the funding of publication fees.

PY - 2018/10/20

Y1 - 2018/10/20

N2 - Since the early days of the emerging research format of Real-world Labs (RwLs), higher education plays a vital role in them. Examples have been presented on teaching activities in RwLs, but the reasons for and evidence of their inclusion stays limited. To start a systematic discussion on the embedding of higher education in RwLs, this paper presents the case of six Transdisciplinary Project Courses carried out in the RwL "District Future-Urban Lab" in Karlsruhe/Germany. The paper presents the discourses on the role of learning in RwLs and compares it to those on Transition Labs and Urban Living Labs. To offer a new approach to address this aspect, the paper introduces a social practice perspective to map out the interrelations between an RwL and higher education therein. The detailed analysis of the processes is used to identify the potential of the RwL to support learning. It shows that all dimensions of social practice can be identified in the interplay between Real-world Lab and Transdisciplinary Project Courses, even though to a very different degree and in different phases. The text closes with lessons learned for teaching project courses in RwLs and similar labs.

AB - Since the early days of the emerging research format of Real-world Labs (RwLs), higher education plays a vital role in them. Examples have been presented on teaching activities in RwLs, but the reasons for and evidence of their inclusion stays limited. To start a systematic discussion on the embedding of higher education in RwLs, this paper presents the case of six Transdisciplinary Project Courses carried out in the RwL "District Future-Urban Lab" in Karlsruhe/Germany. The paper presents the discourses on the role of learning in RwLs and compares it to those on Transition Labs and Urban Living Labs. To offer a new approach to address this aspect, the paper introduces a social practice perspective to map out the interrelations between an RwL and higher education therein. The detailed analysis of the processes is used to identify the potential of the RwL to support learning. It shows that all dimensions of social practice can be identified in the interplay between Real-world Lab and Transdisciplinary Project Courses, even though to a very different degree and in different phases. The text closes with lessons learned for teaching project courses in RwLs and similar labs.

KW - Higher education for sustainable development

KW - Learning environment

KW - Living labs

KW - Real-world labs

KW - Social learning

KW - Social practice

KW - Transdisciplinarity

KW - Transformative learning

KW - Transition labs

KW - Transdisciplinary studies

KW - Sustainability education

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85055102341&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.3390/su10103798

DO - 10.3390/su10103798

M3 - Journal articles

AN - SCOPUS:85055102341

VL - 10

JO - Sustainability

JF - Sustainability

SN - 2071-1050

IS - 10

M1 - 3798

ER -