Curriculum Innovation

Principles of Curriculum Innovation and Transformative Learning

Curriculum Innovation for a Climate Resilience in the Limpopo Basin involves:

  1. Putting people and their activities first within a systemic approach to resilience building and sustainable development
  2. Thinking ‘intensely local and global’ at the same time
  3. Interdisciplinary engagement to strengthen relevance and responsiveness (esp. social and natural sciences)
  4. Systems thinking (social-ecological systems) and adaptive responses
  5. Taking account of feedback / building feedback loops into thinking and practice (from multi-stakeholders including communities)
  6. Place-based, situated learning that takes account of local and indigenous knowledge systems as well as scientific knowledges
  7. Integrating theory and practice (praxis) that is linked to occupational streams and applied learning outcomes
  8. Developing competences for futures oriented thinking, resilience building and adaptive capacity (underpinned by a focus on significant / transformative learning and learning to learn)

The above will also give rise to deliberations on research collaboration and partnerships, with emphasis on mobilising opportunities for collaborative research across the LBCIN.  Themes associated with research will focus on co-defined research questions broadly oriented within the thematic areas below:

  1. Approaches to IWRM and Ecosystem and Environmental Management for Climate Change Adaptation & Resilience building,
  2. Resilience Assessment, Monitoring and Building,
  3. Multi-stakeholder governance within a SES framework, and
  4. Social learning and action for change within a SES framework.

The climate risks identified so far suggest that the following sets of disciplines are important to work with: climatology, geography and physics; rural and urban planning, agriculture and economics; water sciences, environmental science, chemistry and engineering; policy studies, law and public management; and psychology, sociology, education and extension. The inter-disciplinary approach requires intra-institutional collaboration between departments involved in curriculum innovation at each participating IHL in the LBCIN. This has implications on the participating IHLs’ selection of people to participate in the programme (3-4). The main outcomes of the learning programmes will include:

curriculum innovation LBCIN
  • Learning programme review, monitoring, and improvement tools,
  • Revised or new learning programmes,
  • Conceptual and practical tools that guide curriculum innovation and transformative learning programme development including practical case studies, and
  • Processes for curriculum innovation and transformative learning programme based on the agreed principles and within complex SES.
  • Co-defined research questions and initiatives to mobilise funding support for collaborative research.