You are here: Home / Workshops / Theme 1 / Workshop 1.5

Workshop 1.5

Returning to the farming and food systems as they are - action and phenomenon based learning as prerequisite for transdisciplinarity

Convenors

Geir Lieblein, Edvin Østergaard, and Tor Arvid Breland, Norwegian University of Life Sciences
Charles Francis, Norwegian University of Life Sciences/University of Nebraska, Lincoln

If you have any questions regarding this workshop, please turn directly to the convenors by sending an email.

Abstract

The purpose of the workshop is 1. To create a shared understanding of how different universities relate to challenges of the current disconnect with extra-university stakeholders 2. To explore ideas for how to deal creatively with these challenges in each university and as an international learning community 3. To develop plans for action, both at individual institutions and through collaboration among universities.

Description

The scientific revolution has in many ways turned our conception of the world upside down. What we immediately experience of the world, through our senses, has been categorized as secondary data. Due to the subjective nature of experience, this has been labeled ‘non-scientific information’. The conceptual and mathematical representations of our immediate experiences have taken a prime position as the only scientific, objective representations of the world, and thus the valid descriptions of our current farming and food systems. This present reality has seriously constrained action research. In parallel and as a consequence, agricultural and life-science universities are in serious jeopardy, in part due to outmoded and socially-disconnected methods, professional practices and organizational structures. Disciplinary specialization and narrow educational activities in a real sense out of step with the world of practice, having taken over the teaching agenda. There is an urgent need to reconsider the dual mission of higher education: to educate professionals and to foster responsible civic engagement. What is needed for addressing this dual mission is a systemic and phenomenon-oriented research and learning environment that redefines disciplinary boundaries and professional identities. We must also examine and re-contextualize the relationship between university and extra-university stakeholders. A rationale for this workshop is that both action research and action learning are strategies that support relevance of education to students and at the same time create a closer link between university and society. The purpose of the workshop is 1. To create a shared understanding of how different universities relate to challenges of the current disconnect with extra-university stakeholders 2. To explore ideas for how to deal creatively with these challenges in each university and as an international learning community 3. To develop plans for action, both at individual institutions and through collaboration among universities.

Workshop process

Papers will be distributed to the participants prior to the workshop. At the workshop they will be presented during the initial phase in a condensed form (3-5 minutes each). The purpose of these presentations is to establish a context for the main part of the workshop, that will consist of facilitated interactive sessions. The final phase of the workshop will be devoted to action planning.

This is WhiteBlack Plone Theme