Practice change in environmental education: lessons from professional development

Abstract

The field of environmental education (EE) strives to develop innovative practices to address emergent issues such as equity, climate change, and urbanization. Through facilitating workshops and ongoing networks for the exchange of ideas, professional development programs may foster innovation or practice change among environmental educators. This study investigates change in practice among environmental educators who participated in one of three online and face-to-face professional development programs. Drawing from practice theory, we measured elements of EE practice including goals, audiences, settings, activities, resources, and ideas. The results showed that across all three programs participants incorporated new resources and ideas into their practices whereas changes in other practice elements varied among programs. Participants in all three programs produced eBooks or ongoing networks that can be used as indicators of practice innovation. This study suggests that practice theory can be used to inform studies of professional development outcomes and examine EE practice, but that practice innovations may be more readily measured at the group rather than individual level.

Keywords:

• Practice theory
• practice change
• innovation
• professional development
• environmental education

Acknowledgment

We are most grateful to the participants of all three professional development programs in this study for sharing their program experiences with us. We also thank program leaders and facilitators including Judy Braus, Anne Ferguson, Jose ‘Pepe’ Marcos-Iga, Akiima Price, and Alex Kudryavtsev for their support. We also thank Justin Dillon, Shorna Allred and Matthew Brashears for providing feedback on this study. Finally, we thank Françoise Vermeylen and Wang Liao for advice on statistical analysis.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

The professional development programs described in this research were funded by the US Environmental Protection Agency through a cooperative agreement with the Cornell University (Assistant Agreement No. NT-83497401). This paper has not been formally reviewed by EPA. The views expressed are solely those of the authors and EPA does not endorse any products or commercial services mentioned.

Notes on contributors

Yue Li

Yue Li is a postdoc and online course instructor at Cornell University. Her research focuses on professional development for environmental educators through both online and face-to-face activities. She uses social network analysis and practice theory to identify changes of networks among educators and examine the impact of these changes on practice innovation in environmental education programs.

Marianne E. Krasny

Marianne E. Krasny is a professor and director of the Civic Ecology Lab at Cornell University. She conducts research on urban grassroots stewardship practices and online learning in environmental education.