Core Area 1: Curriculum
If we are to teach for justice and sustainability, then it must be strongly represented in our everyday teaching, learning and assessment.
We support curricular interventions that embed Global Citizenship Education (GCE) in teaching, learning and assessment in Initial Teacher Education (ITE). This is achieved through partnerships approaches with HEIs and through projects led by faculty members. Curricular activities give rise to multimedia Artefacts of Learning that demonstrate pre-service teachers’ engagement with GCE or teacher educators’ innovative practice in GCE.
Projects
Projects are curricular interventions that embed Global Citizenship Education principles, pedagogical practices and themes in Initial Teacher Education programmes. They provide pre-service teachers with the opportunity to consider global development issues as teachers and subject specialists. GCE may be addressed through standalone modules of learning or integrated approaches that permeate a variety of education and subject disciplines. Projects may also feature an in-house staff capacity-building event to prompt dialogue and share learning from the project. Projects are supported by annual onward funding.
Partnerships
Partnerships are established between the Ubuntu Network and member HEIs (Schools/Departments of Education) to work towards holistic integrative approaches to GCE. These may involve curricular interventions, professional development of staff, whole School/Department dialogue, research activities, outreach for GCE and cross campus initiatives pertaining to the Sustainable Development Goals. Onward multiannual funding is available to support partnerships.
Featured Project
The Change Lab, National College of Art and Design (NCAD). Project Leaders: Fiona King and Tony Murphy. The Change Lab is the Ubuntu-supported project in NCAD.
It consists of year 1 Professional Master of Education (PME) pre-service teachers working in groups in the NCAD gallery space for a 4-weeks period to create a body of art work that critically reflects social injustices and unsustainable practices that define our time. In The Change Lab, students explore how their art practice has a social, ethical and cultural dimension as they create work that investigates complex, real world problems. How the student on the PME programme respond, research and create work through the lens of their practice as an artist, researcher and teacher is integral to the methodology of learning and teaching of Visual Art in post primary education.
In preparation for the Change Lab, students work on conceptualisation and understanding Global Citizenship Education as an educational process and critical pedagogy. They develop photo essays focusing on a specific theme from the Sustainable Development Goals. The body of photography, compiled by each student, acts as a springboard to explore DE themes from a wider more global perspective during the Change Lab experience. The final art installation is presented and exhibited annually in the NCAD gallery in May. In year 2, students work on translating this process and learning into the classroom through School Placement.
