Embedding Transdisciplinarity in a Spatial Planning Curriculum

Introduction

The four papers in this special issue illustrate that spatial planning as a profession and as an academic discipline is historically rooted in its problem-based approach to improving the wellbeing and welfare of society. This interdisciplinary nature of the planning profession should also be reflected through a significant role in the higher educational programme, in which civic engagement and social responsibility of the university is emphasized. A fundamental educational task is to understand how to advance planning education towards contemporary challenges and our common future. Each paper describes a specific competence aspect valuable for planning education with well thought-through and documented approaches in a living-lab experimental environment.

Humer (2020) discusses the curriculum and learning trajectories within a masters’ seminar and he also triggers with considerations for designing future courses. He refers to Bateson’s (1972) learning theory of five levels, which offer hooks to span transdisciplinarity over several years in aplanning curriculum. Chang and Huang (2022) provides many insights in combining collaborative planning styles and pedagogy. It describes a professional learning path via stakeholder workshops and how pedagogic aspects can be built in a course using three critical planning skills and applying four levels of Kolbs’ learning cycling to prepare planning students. One of the discussion points brought forward is time. Repeating the Kolb cycle in different classes (levels) could be very beneficial for the learning trajectory. This of course requires good guidance and administration per student and per course (including learning objectives). Van Karnenbeek et al. (2020) especially highlight the students’ learning trajectory during a co-creation path using a learning triangle. The paper shows a fine overview on how to interpret the co-creative planning pedagogies related to the educational setting for planning, but this should actually not be restricted to one ‘living lab’ experience. Their reciprocal dimension supports the idea for embedding over several courses and levels. And various aspects could also be linked to a diversity of cases, not only actors. Connections of competence development are highlighted by Chen et al. (2022), with a focus on learning in a real-world environment to develop students’ competence of boundary crossing. Four important aspects are identified and were applied already over two courses. These could be functional for more courses and over more study years.

Inspired by these four papers, it can be argued that continuity is required to better embed the social learning environment as well as students’ developments in a whole curriculum. Time and competence development, often mentioned, asks for a continuation and integration to further optimise and integrate transdisciplinarity in education and creating advantages for both the students’ learning trajectory (van Karnenbeek et al., 2020) and societal projects. The role of the instructor/teacher will change towards a more coaching, or mentor, role guiding students’ development, for example via several studios focussing on specific personal developments, next to more in-depth content-related courses, in which links to the project cases are created. The four learning gears (Chen et al., 2022) should be kept moving around during the different educational paths in the curriculum over the years. Also for societal projects and its actors, it will not be restricted to the one-time living-lab event. Projects normally stretch out over a longer period, often years. Furthermore, a project gets continuity in students activities, together with growing familiarity and social bonding as very important aspects, in input of feedback and of ideas related to many aspects of the project, and with the latest insights from academia. For a bachelor student, this cooperation could end in a thesis dealing with a reflection upon a specific (theoretical) aspect of the project and their own learning path, as a result of building-up knowledge over the years. Central issue is if it is possible to enlarge the societal relevance within several courses and increase commitment of spatial planning students within their bachelor study, on the one hand, and also shape and design more cohesion and societal relevance in the planning curriculum, on the other hand. In this contribution, I want to further explore options and possibilities around this question. In the second section, I will first explore literature related to the issue. The third section deals with a (rough) proposal to give an answer on the question put forward. The fourth section contains reflections upon the suggestions offered.

Some Background

The basic idea behind a transdisciplinary academic approach is to connect science and society, to link students to a real-life case, to get input from students into the region and to get regional knowledge in class. It often results in new, fresh insights for commissioner(s) and involved stakeholders and for students to apply theoretical aspects. However, the timespan of several weeks is often a huge constraint to acquire enough inside information, including building-up a trustful relationship with locals, as well as to create better validated suggestions and plans for participation and environment plans; it is too much of an intensive ‘pressure cooker’ learning environment. A second argument to somehow include societal impact during the educational program is to better demonstrate societal relevance for students during their study. As spatial planning is often seen as an applied science (also clear in this special issue), this should be visible for students in the relevancy of and coherence between the courses offered.

There is a continuous quest for adapting spatial planning education for new developments and societal relevance, especially visible through scientific debates, conferences, articles, and books (see e.g. this special issue; Davoudi & Pendlebury, 2010; Bertolini et al., 2012; Gissi & Suarez de Vivero, 2016; Rooij & Frank, 2016; Tasan-Kok et al., 2016; Frank & Silver, 2018). As the world around us – as focus for planners – changes constantly, we have to change our educational curricula to prepare students for this environment and deliver prospects to deal with its sustainability, resilience and liveability. Dealing with the uncertainty within practice combined with scientific reflexivity on practice seems a major competence to be achieved, in contrast to the growing control-feeling direction the current (social) media seems to push us.

Frank and Silver (2018) provided several examples and recommendations for working with practice in education as a new and promising way forward to educate planners and society, only if planning curricula provide relevant skills needed and in a local and regional context. One of their recommendations is that planning educators should embrace the interdisciplinary nature and draw on its diversity. I would plea for transdisciplinarity to be part of education, also based on their third recommendation, to continuously adapt curricula to external conditions. Beunen et al. (2016) proposed in their working paper on Planning Education, a scheme that can help us to understand where the focus of our teaching could be. Their scheme consisted of two axes, one axis focussing on activity versus reflection and the other axis on content versus process, all with their particular characteristics (see Figure 1). Especially, in the first two bachelor study years, the focus should be more on content and process. Gradually, students should develop in their study a more critical stance on projects, the impacts and their own position, thus being much more reflexive, and how participation involves planning. If you want to combine action research and education, taking transdisciplinarity into account seems a logical step to make. I have added in Figure 1 the axis of participation, individual versus stakeholders, to the scheme as relevant for transdisciplinarity. Applying social learning, many opportunities come into view. Participation in every kind of societal-related project helps to exchange experiences and knowledge, combining thus the formal and informal learning. However, students have to perform between front stage and back stage (conform Boyd et al., 2015). Front stage encompasses to act and think as a stakeholder representative, also with contacts in the region. Back stage level requires to do research, analyse, reflect and report to develop academic skills, discuss progress together and with other (content-)experts. When this is translated into an isolated studio educational environment, it means that the student’s learning environment changes, and it has to be handled within a limited timespan and minimal area insights, thus creating a pressure cooker impact. It furthermore implies that students have to change their own paradigm and deal with complex issues in which many stakeholders participate to support a landscape setting. It is also a complex educational translation: how to include many different functionalities and actors and how to consider many connections, such as ecological, physical and mental networks, bearing in mind a governance framework as well as legislation in a societal setting in which trust should be build up, thus requiring a longer period of time.

Figure 1. Dimensions and characteristics of planning education (based on Beunen et al., 2016).

Besselink (2018) argued that it is necessary to incorporate and embed series of living labs in everyday practice of especially communities and municipalities. Each living lab should have a follow up. He proposed to actually amalgamate the experiences gained after a few living labs (level 1, Figure 2) into a knowledge infrastructure (level 2), trying to consolidate experiences. A Community of Interest (CoI) helps to embrace and embed this knowledge gained and support new living labs developments. It then should develop itself further via a Community of Practice (CoP), implementing and expanding on previously gained expertise, ending with a Community of Purpose (CoPu), to continue and enlarge it in local society and knowledge institutions, for instance available for students. Furthermore, it is important to integrate living labs and their results in organisational structures (level 3), securing financial and social values and benefits. These arguments hold also for an educational setting. The living labs as learning educational instrument should evolve from a CoI via a CoP towards a CoPu for more than just one event. Embedding it in a working environment is for actors and stakeholders very relevant (van Karnenbeek et al., 2020).

Figure 2. Learning and development within living lab architecture (based on Besselink, 2018).

Towards an Embedded Living Lab Educational Curriculum

To better include a living lab into transdisciplinary-oriented education, it is important to approach it from both the student and the local societal side. For a student, their learning pathway should be addressed more, having much longer periods of observation and participation available. This will reveal for them changes in projects and a better understanding of processes taking place. Until now, several courses just focus on a project for a few weeks. Maybe the focus should be put more on developing a reflexive attitude and link it to a longer period (Wilson & Beatley, 2018). By incorporating a long-term project observation and participation in the curriculum, it offers students better motivation and skills to be developed during their study. Wilson and Beatley (2018) described examples of a two-semester case, but planning projects take longer to develop, and new ideas and directions emerge over a longer period. Can you identify these as a student in two semesters or do you need more time? Following a project over more than a year also demonstrates to the students the many uncertainties and changes that are linked to planning projects. It also shows that a copy-paste solution for process and end result is not the way forward. Students have to understand the many different project components. This requires that teachers of different classes can adequately reflect on these projects as well, in order to explain and stipulate changes and uncertainties taking place during a project. Also to build up trust with project stakeholders, more time is required.

Looking at the societal point of view it offers extra benefits and new ideas, suggestions and visions from outsiders entering the local activities and approaches. It helps to trigger a different attitude towards a situation, even instigate adjustments into their vision. It creates a new network for local project participants, one with other knowledge and additional input to understand what is happening and based on what kind of arguments. Next to direct input from students as outsiders in each project also indirect input can be generated because of mutual exchange between students of different projects. In this setup, students of different academic generations work together, exchange experiences and coach each other in a group linked to a project. Reed et al. (2018) stressed the engagement impact that support a project and can positively improve the outcome. Having connections with other projects and learn from these can increase the embedding of the project development and results.

Based on this reflection, I would propose to enlarge the reflexive attitude of students in combination with a transdisciplinary local or regional living lab environment to incorporate it in the whole spatial planning bachelor curriculum. By observing and active participation, students develop a more reflexive attitude. The student should determine during that period what is happening, when, and why, and by whom, and is an active project participant or just an observer. It does not imply that the student should be involved in the project all year round. On a regular basis (e.g. monthly), progress should be monitored as well as when there are important developments taking place, such as specific meetings or decisions prepared and made. A regular ‘diary’ of events and developments over the years should help to interpret the progress linked to the study and the reflexivity development of the student.

Connecting current bachelor courses with a pre-selected set of ‘running cases’ or projects acts as a learning pathway for students. The ‘running case’ approach can be embedded in the curriculum by linking it to a portfolio approach. Selected cases must be located around the university and must be easy to follow over several years by students. They adopt a case, and this case should be used as examples in other content-related courses. This requires from teachers to actively follow these cases, e.g. by using an internal blog. As a side effect, students should better understand the relevance of that course in the curriculum related to their ‘running case’. This ‘running case’ could end in a bachelor-thesis, describing a reflexive attitude linked to the case and sustained by additional scientific literature and extra quantitative or qualitative data.

Discussion and Reflection

The proposed setup is to integrate local practices with theories in education over a longer period of time, not only for a few weeks. We have to prepare future planners to deal with the challenges of continuous changing landscape and uncertainties, linking social, economic and environmental sustainability and liveability, combined with an inspirational impact. When focussing on one project over several years, this changing aspect becomes more apparent. To include local practices in a learning environment, it needs to be based on local experience and issues with objectives to optimize learning transfer and to facilitate cross-disciplinary collaboration and co-creation based on a real-world experience. But how well can you develop competences in one class and the related students’ motivation (Humer, 2020; Chen et al., 2022)? Students already highly appreciate working on a local issue and with local commissioners for one practical situation, to experience the complexity of an assignment and the impact of locality. Students stress the fact that regular exchange between commissioners, stakeholders and students is required to improve the result. Students also expect more or less direct local feedback, especially because a course is only scheduled for a few weeks. Local stakeholders, however, have a total different timeframe which sometime leads to frustrations. What also became clear is that students, when confronted for the first time with a transdisciplinary task, were not yet able to really think out-of-the-box from the start of the project, to be free enough to suggest and develop new and alternative directions for solutions. They are in a more instrumental learning mode, also influenced by described learning outcomes and available time. Students showed nevertheless during these weeks a growing awareness from instrumental learning towards conceptual and social learning.

An issue to discuss concerns if students should be working only on the university campus or in the region to have more direct contact with local stakeholders. Or is a mixture more successful? By working local trust can be build up, but this will not be enough in a few weeks to set up or extend any CoP, let alone a CoPu. This time issue also restrains students to get a better overview of the complexity in their study area.

Looking from a spatial planning perspective, the dynamics of current changes from a top-down to a more bottom-up planning process is visible for students through local contacts. They get a better view on the dynamics related to the landscape, its actors and drivers of change. Local commissioners get new views and ideas to work with. To judge and reflect upon the performance of planning, time is required, at least to develop trust between students and relevant stakeholders, and to better grasp the physical and mental connection between the scenery and its actors in the landscape. With a more closer look at the processes and the stakeholders, relevant persons and process steps could be better identified.

Using a living lab as study environment evokes the question how to observe and participate without influencing the result too much. With each form of observation or participation, there is a chance that the researcher, in this case a student, is seen as an intruder, next to someone who can deliver new ideas. This will always influence the validity of the research and data collection because this participation will arouse other behaviour. When the student/researcher is part of a group for a longer period by doing participative action research, this should be taken into consideration. This helps especially to build up trust between the researcher and a group. After a while, there might grow specific familiarity which marginalise the impact and influence of the researcher in the group.

Taking the different described advantages and disadvantages into consideration to be really transdisciplinary in education, I propose to extend a living lab experience over several years and integrate it in an educational curriculum. Otherwise, it could end in a deception for all parties involved, with only a few, small highlights. A longer period is needed to build up trust between students and involved stakeholders, but also for students to better understand the dynamics of a real-life case and relate it to theory. Local participants benefit more from a longer period of cooperation because they get access to the latest developments taught, and in turn it should keep lecturers more sharp on new developments linked to their own expertise and classes. A longer period of cooperation within case studies requires a solid organisation and communication. Using this longer time period does not imply that required timeslots should be taken from other classes. Furthermore, it is part of a more reflexive training spread over the years in which a student invests by attending – irregular – meetings and having short interviews with participants. By ending with a bachelor thesis about the case studied, a student can demonstrate their reflexive skills, qualities, abilities and competences and should be able to link it to theoretical aspects. It also offers the supervisors for the thesis projects more focus and a more aligned approach.

Acknowledgement

I wish to thank Betty Chang and Astor Huang for organising this special session at AESOP 2018 and initiating this special issue. Further, I wish to thank Chris Baltjes for the initial idea in 2017 about the running case in the curriculum. Also, I would like to thank Monique Jansen for creating the illustrations.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Additional information

Funding

The author reported there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.