Developing Design Principles for Sustainability-Oriented Blended Learning in Higher Education

Climate change forces higher educational institutions (HEI) to reconsider their traditional ways of teaching and organising education. This implies that they should reduce their impact on the environment and provide sustainability-oriented education. Blended learning (fusion of on-campus and online learning) may provide an appealing solution to achieve both objectives. It may reduce HEI’s climate impact by reducing student travel to and from campus and support the development of students’ sustainability competencies. In this paper, pedagogical design principles and recommendations are developed to design such a sustainability-oriented blended learning configuration. A realist review methodology is used to distil and develop pedagogical principles for blended learning. These principles were mirrored against pedagogical approaches that have been identified as suitable for developing sustainability competencies. This mirroring revealed some overlap but also some notable differences. Common principles include self-regulation, community building, discussion, knowledge management, and collaboration, but some principles identified in sustainability-oriented education are noticeably absent, including self-awareness, orientation towards sustainable change, and interdisciplinary collaboration. The insights guide designing sustainability-oriented blended learning and vice versa can also provide ideas for people working in off-line place-based contexts on sustainability-oriented education, to consider blended options.