**11. Areas of potential misunderstanding**

The project had several opportunities to discover participant reactions to the new approach. These included the two face-to-face weeks, the learning diaries that formed a required part of the course, dialog during three online meetings that occurred during the online section of the course, the content of the responses that the participants gave to the required tasks and multiple feedback surveys during and after the course.

From the experience of the ProfESus pilot blended learning course the following issues regarding Green Pedagogy became apparent.

#### **11.1 Irritation**

The word as it is used in German can best be compared to the grit that forms the pearl in the oyster, meaning that this is a stage that can be used to generate new understanding and learning. It is unfortunate that the German word has its direct English equivalent, which is rather negative in meaning. Some of the ProfESus course participants therefore understood this stage 3 at first to mean that they should cause annoyance in their students, rather than the intended meaning that an attempt should be made to make learners stop and think when something surprising or out of place is presented to them.

#### **11.2 Provocation**

The challenge with this in stage 3 is that it seems too similar to the first confrontation phase, but also with placing it sometime into the lesson rather than at the beginning. Many teachers understand the value of starting a lesson by provocation, so waiting for this stage had to be justified. However, the second name for this stage, intervention, might make things clearer. Thus, a lesson starts with a confrontation that identifies and defines a problem and after exploration of that problem has begun, targeted interventions that widen the perspective of the problem, are brought in by the teacher.

#### **11.3 The value of the last two stages**

The issue of sustainable development as a central topic for a lesson is becoming more popular as the urgency of the problem becomes more apparent. Repositories such as the World's Largest Lesson and the British Council, which helps teachers globally teaching English, offer a wealth of free resources. It is common in these lesson plans to stop at the point when the sustainability problem has been described and analyzed. The last two stages of the Green Pedagogy approach are extremely important to combat feelings of hopelessness and lack of agency by focusing on

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*Green Pedagogy: Using Confrontation and Provocation to Promote Sustainability Skills*

what students can do in their own context that relates back to the analyzed problem. In the example of the British Council lesson plan entitled 'Climate Change' [26], which does not follow the Green Pedagogy template, it is suggested that generating visions and solutions is added as a time-filler in case the lesson ends early, or the teacher needs to give some homework. Had this lesson plan been created using the Green Pedagogy approach it would have recognized that the last two stages of Green Pedagogy are critical for the mental health of the learners and should not be seen as

Green Pedagogy was new for all the non-Austrian participants in the ProfESus course. Even the participants from Germany, although German-speaking, had not been introduced to this approach before. For the Austrian participants, some of whom were recruited through the project coordinating organization, UCAEP, which also developed the pedagogy, Green Pedagogy was nothing new and already

In the blended ProfESus course, questions arose because of the unfamiliarity of the new pedagogical framework. Below are the four main questions together with

1.Does the Green Pedagogy format not become repetitive over time? The response to this is that if each learning activity ends with a truly actionable plan

2.Can you apply this to all your lessons? The Green Pedagogy approach is almost subject agnostic. Although it may seem difficult to fit Green Pedagogy into the study of mathematics at first glance, there are wide possibilities to apply mathematical skills in the field of sustainable development, such as land consumption, food waste percentages or precipitation amount. Most traditional school and vocational subjects easily lend themselves to the Green Pedagogy

The question also refers to the use of Green Pedagogy throughout a course, which is implied in the methodology aims of Green Pedagogy and therefore it

3.Do you have to go through all the steps? It is recommended that steps are not omitted, and this is particularly important regarding steps 5 and 6, otherwise

4.Is this forcing the teacher views on to the students? The role of the teacher in Green Pedagogy is to provide additional perspectives for the learners to consider. These new perspectives may lead to new solutions that better chime with learners' existing values. Therefore, this is not about a teacher imposing their

We could attempt to see how well the concept of Green Pedagogy was embedded

in our teacher participants by examining the learner diaries that we asked them

is beneficial to integrate sustainable work practices in most lessons.

students can be left feeling overwhelmed and helpless.

at the personal level, this should maintain learners' engagement.

*DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.96432*

**12. Initial teacher reactions to Green Pedagogy**

optional extras.

responses.

approach.

values on learners.

**13. Identifying a sustainable mindset**

embedded in their practice.

*Green Pedagogy: Using Confrontation and Provocation to Promote Sustainability Skills DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.96432*

what students can do in their own context that relates back to the analyzed problem. In the example of the British Council lesson plan entitled 'Climate Change' [26], which does not follow the Green Pedagogy template, it is suggested that generating visions and solutions is added as a time-filler in case the lesson ends early, or the teacher needs to give some homework. Had this lesson plan been created using the Green Pedagogy approach it would have recognized that the last two stages of Green Pedagogy are critical for the mental health of the learners and should not be seen as optional extras.
