Participatory Learning and Popular Education Strategies for Water Education

Abstract

AbstractThis paper presents some experiences of bringing critical pedagogy and participatory learning approaches into postgraduate university classrooms in teaching about water and sustainable development. Employing critical pedagogy and participatory approaches offer ways of escaping conventional lecture and tutorial approaches to pedagogy in university, strategies for incorporating and sharing student knowledge and experience, engaging students in the production of theory and knowledge (and not just their consumption), and problem‐posing approaches that encourage critical thinking and creativity. First I discuss the need to break away from conventional university teaching approaches and the usefulness of critical pedagogy and participatory perspectives that seek education for social change. Then I explore four elements of participatory learning that have been effective in my water education practice and seem to offer lessons for innovation in water education in higher education. These elements are i) asset‐based teaching and learning, ii) participatory learning to enable deliberative processes and collective learning, iii) problem‐posing pedagogy, and iv) involving students in construction of knowledge.