Taking an Appreciative Inquiry approach to evidence sustainable education in veterinary teaching

This poster will provide an overview of a project undertaken to evidence sustainable education practices in veterinary medical teaching.
Veterinary medicine is well placed to lead on sustainable concepts such as ecosystem health and socio-economic impacts. Social responsibility and sustainability attributes are outlined in the “Day One” competencies stating “… veterinary surgeons must take account of the possible impact of their actions beyond the immediate workplace, eg, on public health, the environment and society more generally”1.
Beyond this, sustainable education practices invite teachers to reflect on the pedagogy underpinning the teaching and learning processes to encourage increased awareness of issues from both a local and global perspective. Teaching methods such as reflective accounts, debates, student-led learning and work-based learning are core to the undergraduate curriculum. Additional understanding of key principles in ethics and welfare, and skills to cope with uncertainty and risk are embedded in the professional skills teaching.
Students are increasingly aware of the issue of sustainable development and questioning these concepts from the perspective of their professional development. While they are aware of the teaching methods and topics, the importance of these in developing sustainable future practices is not explicit in many cases.
The Appreciative Inquiry (AI) model2 provides a practical framework to support discussion on ways to make these concepts and practices explicit to students and staff. The project is in four parts: curriculum mapping (appreciation of what we do), discussion (meetings to discuss mapping and opportunities), design (adapting and making explicit), and future-planning (ongoing innovation).
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1 RCVS 2014 http://www.rcvs.org.uk/document-library/day-one-competences/
2 Carter, B. 2006 'One expertise among many' – working appreciatively to make miracles instead of finding problems. Journal of Research in Nursing, 11(1), 48–63 doi: 10.1177/1744987106056488