Elements of Pedagogical Didactical Strategy for Impact-Driven Education

The role of educators in supporting student development is of paramount importance, particularly when it comes to cultivating individuals who aspire to make a positive impact on the world. It is not just about students discovering who they are, but also about empowering them to become agents of change and equipping them with the necessary skills. 

To understand what students need from educators in this context, focus on three main questions when designing ore redesigning an impact-driven course or program:

• How to support student learning?
• How to shape an impact driven learning environment
• How to help students to thrive in the learning environment

Supporting  learning

To support learning help students to reflect  on theoretical concepts, students’ perspectives and perhaps biases,  their values, actions, and feelings. Think about how students should reflect, on what they must reflect within your course, when they should undertake this and if and so yes how you are going to assess their reflection. 

Feedback is important because it provides students with specific insights into their strengths and areas for improvement, guiding their learning process and helping them understand their progress. It shows students that their abilities can develop through effort and learning from mistakes. 

Managing cognitive load is meant to free as much as possible room in students working memory for learning. 

Supporting students' sense-making involves helping them integrate new information—e.g., from lectures, workshops, but also stakeholder interactions, and peer learning—into their existing knowledge, enhancing their ability to apply insights in new contexts. Incorporating learning strategies like summarizing, mapping, drawing, visualizing, self-testing, and peer teaching into course design can significantly improve this process, enabling students to effectively organize and utilize information when addressing societal issues.

Coaching by questioning: Coaching offers personalized guidance, enabling students to navigate the complexities of societal issues with greater confidence and competence. It fosters critical thinking, problem-solving skills, and resilience, empowering students to take ownership of their learning journey. Asking questionsrather than prescribing actions in coaching students fosters critical thinking and self-directed learning, in alignment with constructivist theories.

Cooperative learning is a structured form of group work where students work together towards shared objectives, emphasizing interdependence and individual accountability. It is characterized by specific roles and tasks assigned to group members, clear objectives, and a strong emphasis on the collective success of the group as well as the individual learning outcomes of its members.

Shaping an impact driven learning landscape

The learning landscape states five design principles that help to design a learning environment geared at helping students to improve their impact capacity. Although every element is important, choices can be made while designing. The choices can be focus at which elements to use in the design. E.g include authenticity and perspective taking but without involving stakeholders (e.g. using a case). The other possibility in what intensity the design principles are used. E.g.  when giving stakeholders a role in the design it can be done by inviting them for a presentation of student work (low intensity) or by giving them a role in the process from start to finish (high intensity). 

The five design principles are:

• Authenticity of the problem
• Stakeholder involvement
• Interdisciplinary cooperation
• Multiple perspectives
• Navigating complexity

Reciprocal collaboration: A primary objective of education oriented towards impact is to facilitate societal transformation. Consequently, it is imperative within the learning context that stakeholders relevant to the societal issue under consideration derive some benefit from the proceedings of the course. This necessitates an inquiry into the contributions made by these stakeholders and the advantages they reap from their participation. This mutual exchange of value is referred to as the reciprocity of the collaboration. Read for further exploration of the fundamental components necessary to actualize this objective.

Help students to thrive in the learning environment

Drawing upon Deci and Ryan's Self-Determination Theory[1], we can identify three basic psychological needs: autonomy, competence, and relatedness. By prioritizing these needs, teachers can effectively support students in their development. 

Autonomy: his means feeling like you have the freedom to make your own choices and that what you do comes from your own interests and desires, not because someone else is making you do it. You feel that your actions truly reflect who you are, rather than feeling forced by outside forces. In didactical terms this refers among others to the amount of student agency. Student agency refers to the capacity of students to act independently and make their own free choices in their learning process. It embodies the idea that students have control over their learning environment, activities, and what they learn. With agency, students are encouraged to take initiative, make decisions, and engage in self-directed learning. 

Competence means feeling skilled and confident in what you do. It's about believing you can successfully finish tasks and reach your goals.

Relatedness is about feeling connected and close to other people. It means having caring relationships and feeling like you belong to a group or community. The idea is that everyone needs to feel this connection to others to be happy and function well, no matter where they are from.

The theory emphasizes that providing supportive environments that foster autonomy, competence, and relatedness is essential for promoting individuals' intrinsic motivation, growth, and overall flourishing. The needs of students in these areas can differ between them. 

[1] Ryan, R. M., & Deci, E. L. (2017). Self-determination theory: Basic psychological needs in motivation, development, and wellness. The Guilford Press. https://doi.org/10.1521/978.14625/28806