USING CDIO FOR DEVELOPMENT OF STUDENTS’ SUSTAINABILITY MINDSET

This paper uses the CDIO Framework to reconcile 2 separate areas of development work related to sustainable development: what constitute a set of key competencies for sustainability, and a set of sustainability mindset principles. To achieve the desired outcomes from education for sustainable development, that is, transformative learning, sustainability mindset is needed to drive actions, which requires a set of key competencies for sustainability. Our work argued that both are underpinned by the same set of skills and attitudes espoused in the CDIO Syllabus. Using the CDIO Standards, we also reconciled the apparent contradiction between “key competencies” which are meant to be context-independent (as in the work from the CDIO Community), and other authors who suggested “key competencies” which are clearly context-dependent. We suggested the use of a revised terminology that better reflect the current discourse and also the issues of order of hierarchy for the key competencies for sustainability. Notably, we improved on the work from the CDIO community and proposed a “bounded” model with values thinking competency as a “lower limit” and integrated problem-solving competency as the “upper limit”. Values thinking competencies should be developed first based on underpinning skills and attitudes from the CDIO Syllabus. Our model allows other context-specific competencies to be incorporated as needed; and provides the flexibility of a program to formulate its own progressive pathway on how the rest of the key competencies for sustainability can be developed consistent with the program’s own unique requirements. We also provide an application on how the model can be used for a hypothetical program. Lastly, we outlined some limitations in our work and how we can move forward in continuing to address this ever-evolving challenge.