The Rich Picture Method: A Simple Tool for Reflective Teaching and Learning about Sustainable Food Systems

Michelle Grant,Nina Buchmann,Anna K Gilgen

doi:10.3390/su11184815

Abstract

The World Food System Summer School is an innovative two-week course that seeks to develop the knowledge, skills and attitudes of the next generation of decision makers to build sustainable food systems. Meaningful learning, where the participant is able to relate new information to existing knowledge, is a critical part of education about complex systems and requires the integration of reflective approaches to teaching and learning. We adapted the rich picture method in three summer schools in Switzerland, South Africa and Côte d’Ivoire (74 participants with 29 nationalities) to support the reflection of participants on their knowledge gained on complex food systems. Coding and comparing 51 pairs of pre- and post-course pictures of food systems clearly demonstrated newly gained knowledge: The number of sub-categories drawn significantly increased from 11 to 19 in the post-course pictures, the largest increase occurred for environmental sustainability (57%). The rich picture method is a highly valuable and simple tool to gain insight into how participants’ knowledge changes and where there are gaps in meeting the learning objectives. This is particularly useful within a highly diverse participant cohort, as it allows participants to discuss and reflect on their own learning experience in a personalized way. Additionally, the rich picture method provides insights for faculty to improve their approaches to teaching on food systems.

Highlights

The challenges facing food systems today are complex and pressing
The overall application of these competencies is of critical importance for graduates of education programs in this space, as faculty we still have an interest in assessing the gain of component parts—namely knowledge, skills and attitudes and how they change as a result of an educational intervention
The participants fully engaged with the Rich pictures (RPs) method and drew their knowledge about food systems within the allotted time

Summary

Introduction

Creating a more sustainable food system requires us to work across diverse disciplines, sectors and scales—competencies that are not often the focus of traditional tertiary education programs [1] Education in this space needs to support learners to build these competencies by acquiring and integrating new knowledge, skills and attitudes that enable successful task performance and problem solving as applied to real-world challenges at the interface of food systems and sustainability [1,2]. The overall application of these competencies is of critical importance for graduates of education programs in this space, as faculty we still have an interest in assessing the gain of component parts—namely knowledge, skills and attitudes and how they change as a result of an educational intervention This information can support us to reflect on the program design and delivery and what participants from different backgrounds are learning. How this knowledge is evoked while solving a particular problem is strongly influenced by an individual’s own framing of the situation [5]

Objectives

Methods

Results

Conclusion