Professor Sarah Holdsworth

Research

Sarah’s current research focuses on notions of sustainability in relation to curriculum development, graduate attributes, professional education in the built environment, undergraduate assessment. Sarah‘s current research includes projects on the development of learning activities and materials to foster urgent skills for an environmentally constrained future, and devising drivers for the diffusion of sustainability studies in higher education programs.

• Practices and discourses of sustainability

• The role and function of higher education including learner-centred approaches

• Higher education learning, teaching and curriculum

• Diverse learners and learning environments

• Sustainability education (pedagogy, L&T and curricula), capabilities and capacity building

• The drivers and barriers for/to curriculum change

• Organisational learning and cultural change processes help to /or are required to embed sustainability into the curriculum of a universities

• Suitable change framework for sustainability education that can be applied by universities and professional organisations.

Research grants and projects

2010–2011   Development of sustainability education modules for the Australia Graduate Certificate in Professional Development, training packages and work place education, funded by Swinburne University.

2010   Project: 5 star Sustainability Tertiary Education, for Sustainability Victoria, to develop a rating system to assess sustainability in tertiary institutions, funded by Sustainability Victoria.

2005   Beyond leather Patches: project to work with the staff of two schools at RMIT to revise their teaching to include Education for Sustainability, funded by the Victorian Department of Sustainability and Environment.

Sarah’s professional roles have involved change projects in relation to tertiary learning and teaching, academic development in higher education, and theorisations of academic identity and subjectivity. Sarah received her doctoral degree in 2012; which evaluated the ability of academic development programs to provide educators with the capabilities to deliver sustainability education. A theoretical framework from the related literature was developed, and used to critically evaluate three international case studies of known best practice. On the basis of the analysis of local land international experiences and the case studies key features of academic development were identified to guide universities in curriculum change.

Sarah’s experience has provided her with an understanding of a wide range of environmental tools and their application in companies and other organizations, the community consultation process, and the workings of both the private and public sector in relation to environmental issues. Her interests lie in the development of long term strategies based on substantial changes to social and technological paradigms to develop pathways towards sustainability. Sarah's main research focus is the identification of key mechanisms required to turn sustainability innovations into embedded practice in a university context.

• MEnv Sci Monash, PhD RMIT

• BEd(Sec) Environmental Science Melb

Accomplishments

• Nominated for RMIT L&T award 2003, 2004, 2011