Showing papers on "Transformative learning published in 2010"

Transitions to Sustainable Development: New Directions in the Study of Long Term Transformative Change

Abstract: There has been a growing concern about the social and environmental risks which have come along with the progress achieved through a variety of mutually intertwined modernization processes. This book addresses how to understand the dynamics and governance of long term transformative change towards sustainable development.

Transformative Mixed Methods Research

Abstract: Paradigms serve as metaphysical frameworks that guide researchers in the identification and clarification of their beliefs with regard to ethics, reality, knowledge, and methodology. The transforma...

Threshold Concepts and Transformational Learning

Abstract: The constructs of reflective and defensive responses to rupture in knowing are proposed and evaluated as a discipline-independent theoretical foundation for the analytic educational framework of Threshold Concepts (TC). Two premises underlie this work: crucial elements of student experience of difficulty as they encounter existentially unfamiliar, educationally critical content of their respective disciplines occur in common across all disciplinary contexts; and these crucial elements constitute core issues defining the framework of Threshold Concepts. Universally relevant elements require investigation that transcends discipline boundaries in order to be understood well and addressed effectively. From the perspective of phenomenological analysis, student experiences of difficulty under these circumstances are considered to be founded in reflective and defensive responses to rupture in knowing, and to originate in universal human patterns of encounter and response to the existentially unfamiliar (what appears initially as the unknowable unknown), rather than to result from individual inadequacies or to differ in kind according to the context in which it occurs. A comparison of process and structure in the TC community with that of a classical scientific community of practice and research illuminates the process of generating candidate theoretical foundations in each.

Lifting Off the Ground to Return Anew: Mediated Praxis, Transformative Learning, and Social Design Experiments

Abstract: This article examines a praxis model of teacher education and advances a new method for engaging novice teachers in reflective practice and robust teacher learning. Social design experiments—cultural historical formations designed to promote transformative learning for adults and children—are organized around expansive notions of learning and mediated praxis and provide new tools and practices for envisioning new pedagogical arrangements, especially for students from nondominant communities. The authors examine one long-standing social design experiment, the UCLA UC Links/ Las Redes partnership and the work of one exemplary novice teacher to illustrate the importance of mediated, reflective practices in helping apprentice teachers develop a coherent and orienting framework for teaching and learning that has both heuristic and explanatory power. The authors illustrate how cultural historical concepts of learning and development and situated practice become the means for university students to gain distance...

Transformative answers: One way to resist a question's constraints

Abstract: A number of Conversation Analytic studies have documented that question recipients have a variety of ways to push against the constraints that questions impose on them. This article explores the concept of transformative answers – answers through which question recipients retroactively adjust the question posed to them. Two main sorts of adjustments are discussed: question term transformations and question agenda transformations. It is shown that the operations through which interactants implement term transformations are different from the operations through which they implement agenda transformations. Moreover, term-transforming answers resist only the question’s design, while agenda-transforming answers effectively resist both design and agenda, thus implying that agenda-transforming answers resist more strongly than design-transforming answers. The implications of these different sorts of transformations for alignment and affiliation are then explored.*

An Economic Ethics for the Anthropocene

Abstract: Over Antipode's 40 years our role as academics has dramatically changed. We have been pushed to adopt the stance of experimental researchers open to what can be learned from current events and to recognize our role in bringing new realities into being. Faced with the daunting prospect of global warming and the apparent stalemate in the formal political sphere, this essay explores how human beings are transformed by, and transformative of, the world in which we find ourselves. We place the hybrid research collective at the center of transformative change. Drawing on the sociology of science we frame research as a process of learning involving a collective of human and more-than-human actants—a process of co- transformation that re/constitutes the world. From this vision of how things change, the essay begins to develop an "economic ethics for the Anthropocene", documenting ethical practices of economy that involve the being-in-common of humans and the more-than-human world. We hope to stimulate academic interest in expanding and multiplying hybrid research collectives that participate in changing worlds.

From PCK to TPACK: Developing a Transformative Model for Pre-Service Science Teachers

Abstract: New science teachers should be equipped with the ability to integrate and design the curriculum and technology for innovative teaching. How to integrate technology into pre-service science teachers’ pedagogical content knowledge is the important issue. This study examined the impact on a transformative model of integrating technology and peer coaching for developing technological pedagogical and content knowledge (TPACK) of pre-service science teachers. A transformative model and an online system were designed to restructure science teacher education courses. Participants of this study included an instructor and 12 pre-service teachers. The main sources of data included written assignments, online data, reflective journals, videotapes and interviews. This study expanded four views, namely, the comprehensive, imitative, transformative and integrative views to explore the impact of TPACK. The model could help pre-service teachers develop technological pedagogical methods and strategies of integrating subject-matter knowledge into science lessons, and further enhanced their TPACK.

Motivation, learning, and transformative experience: A study of deep engagement in science

Abstract: This study investigated the prevalence of transformative experiences, antecedents of transformative experience, and the relation between transformative experience and deep-level learning (conceptual change and transfer) for high school biology students (N = 166). Results suggested that the high school students in our sample typically engaged in low levels of transformative experience with respect to biology, but those students who strongly identified with science and who endorsed a mastery goal orientation were more likely to report engagement in higher levels of transformative experience. Furthermore, a higher level of engagement in transformative experience was positively associated with (a) conceptual change in understanding the concept of natural selection, but not inheritance, at the post- and follow-up assessments and (b) transfer at the follow-up assessment. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Sci Ed94:1–28, 2010

Mirroring, Gestaltswitching and Transformative Social Learning: stepping stones for developing sustainability competence

Abstract: Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to identify components and educational design principles for strengthening sustainability competence in and through higher education.Design/methodology/approach – This is a conceptual paper that uses an exemplary autobiographical empirical case study in order to illustrate and support a line of reasoning.Findings – A number of “Gestalts” of mind‐sets of sustainability competence and key elements of the learning processes needed for developing such competence have been identified.Originality/value – This is one of the first papers to consider sustainability competence from a transformative social learning perspective. The value of the paper lies in its potential to help teachers of university courses in re‐designing their educational processes with sustainability competence in mind.

Learning with technology

Abstract: Richard Mayer argues that few of the many strong claims made for the transformative potential of new technologies have been convincingly tested against research evidence. A major reason is that too often a "technology-centred", as opposed to a "learningcentred", approach is followed. A convincing theory of how people learn with technology can be based on three important principles: "dual channels" (people process sound and visual images separately), "limited capacity" (people can only process a small amount of sound or image at a time), and "active processing" (meaningful learning depends on engagement in appropriate cognitive processing). These are explained and applied to argue that effective instruction with technology helps cognitive processing in learners without overloading their cognitive system; this can be achieved by reducing extraneous processing, managing essential processing, and fostering generative processing. How this can be done applying different techniques and principles, together with supportive evidence, are presented in detail.

Global Citizenship, Global Health, and the Internationalization of Curriculum: A Study of Transformative Potential

Abstract: Social transformation models of internationalization suggest the need for radical reform to curricula to foster engaged global citizenship, yet little is written depicting how individual courses an...

Service-learning: Thinking outside the box:

Abstract: Service-learning is a form of experiential learning that combines academic coursework with voluntary service in the community. There is a dearth of critical analysis of the effects of service-learning. To address this issue, this practitioner research aimed to explore and understand its effects. An inductive approach, using qualitative and grounded theory methods, was used. Twelve semi-structured, in-depth individual interviews and two focus groups, one held at the beginning and the other at the end of the students’ service placement, were conducted. Sequential and comparative analysis was made of the data gathered from various sources related to the course. The study demonstrates how intellectual and personal development can occur through service-learning. It also highlights potentially negative effects, but suggests that, overall, service-learning is potentially conducive to students’ transformation.

Homegrown terrorism and transformative learning: an interdisciplinary approach to understanding radicalization

Abstract: Since 2001, a preponderance of terrorist activity in Europe, North America, and Australia, has involved radicalized Westerners inspired by al Qaeda. Described as ‘homegrown terrorism’, perpetrators are citizens and residents born, raised, and educated within the countries they attack. While most scholars and policy-makers agree that radicalization plays a central role in persuading Westerners to embrace terrorism, little research properly investigates the internal and cognitive processes inherent to radicalization. Transformative learning theory, developed from the sciences in education, health, and rehabilitation, provides an unconventional and interdisciplinary way to understand the radicalization process. The theory suggests that sustained behavioural change can occur when critical reflection and the development of novel personal belief systems are provoked by specific triggering factors. In applying transformative learning theory to homegrown terrorism, this study helps explain how formerly non-violen...

Philosophy in mixed methods teaching: The transformative paradigm as illustration

Abstract: As teachers of mixed methods, we have a responsibility to nurture our students' abilities to think through their choices in terms of mixed methods research based on a critically examined understanding of their philosophical assumptions. The belief systems associated with the transformative paradigm are used to illustrate the importance of teaching philosophical frameworks as a part of mixed methods instruction. Teachers and students of research will improve their practice by engaging in critical self-reflection and dialogue about the philosophical assumptions that underlie their positions as researchers. This is an important area of exploration for mixed methods researchers who seek to improve the validity of their findings.

Transformative Multiliteracies Pedagogy: School-based Strategies for Closing the Achievement Gap

Abstract: Despite ongoing concern about the underachievement of low-income and culturally and linguistically diverse (CLD) students, there has been little focus on the kinds of pedagogy required to reverse this underachievement. Pedagogical approaches have been increasingly transmission-oriented, focusing on preparing students for high-stakes testing. Such approaches ignore the socioeconomic and sociopolitical roots of underachievement as well as research highlighting literacy engagement as a strong predictor of literacy achievement. The Transformative Multiliteracies Pedagogy frameworks presented here locate CLD students' underachievement within societal power relations and highlight the negotiation of identity between teachers and students as a central means of creating contexts of empowerment. Heuristic tools educators can use to critically assess their own practice and to articulate potentially productive pedagogical directions are discussed.

Partnership Formation for Change: Indicators for Transformative Potential in Cross Sector Social Partnerships

Abstract: We provide a grounded model for analysing formation in cross sector social partnerships to understand why business and nonprofit organizations increasingly partner to address social issues. Our model introduces organizational characteristics, organizational motives and history of partner interactions as critical factors that indicate the potential for social change. We argue that organizational characteristics, motives and the history of interactions indicate transformative capacity, transformative intention and transformative experience, respectively. Together, these three factors consist of a framework that aids early detection of unnecessary partnering efforts and provide indicators of partners’ transformative potential. Further we discuss the reciprocal, multi-level nature of change in social partnerships through the interplay between the organizational, individual and social levels of reality. The formation stage of partnerships contributes to the partnership and corporate social responsibility (CSR) literatures a deep understanding of the organisations’ early interactions by placing within a historical context that reveals their dynamics and their potential to deliver organisational and social change.

Critical social theory and transformative learning : evidence in pre-service teachers' service-learning reflection logs

Abstract: This paper reports on the opportunities for transformational learning experienced by a group of pre-service teachers who were engaged in service-learning as a pedagogical process with a focus on reflection. Critical social theory informed the design of the reflection process as it enabled a move away from knowledge transmission toward knowledge transformation. The structured reflection log was designed to illustrate the critical social theory expectations of quality learning that teach students to think critically: ideology critique and utopian critique. Butin's lenses and a reflection framework informed by the work of Bain, Ballantyne, Mills and Lester were used in the design of the service-learning reflection log. Reported data provide evidence of transformational learning and highlight how the students critique their world and imagine how they could contribute to a better world in their work as a beginning teacher.

Use of the Transformative Framework in Mixed Methods Studies.

Abstract: A concern exists that mixed methods studies do not contain advocacy stances. Preliminary evidence suggests that this is not the case, but to address this issue in more depth the authors examined 13 mixed methods studies that contained an advocacy, transformative lens. Such a lens consisted of incorporating intent to advocate for an improvement in human interests and society through addressing issues of power and social relationships. Included for review were 10 criteria for a transformative study and rigorous procedures for mixed methods research. The findings of this study suggested that several transformative criteria are being used in published mixed methods studies but that some are underutilized. This analysis helped advance eight key elements that authors might use for incorporating a transformative lens into a mixed methods study.

Building on Mezirow’s Theory of Transformative Learning: Theorizing the Challenges to Reflection

Abstract: The prevailing theoretical discussion on reflection within adult and higher education focuses on the cognitive and rational dimensions of reflection, at the expense of the emotional and social dime...

Transformative Learning as a Context for Human Patient Simulation

Abstract: Nurse educators are charged with the responsibility of empowering novice nurses to become autonomous thinkers with the capacity to cope with the many challenges of modern day practice. Human patient simulation is a powerful technology-based educational tool ideally suited for the application of emancipatory pedagogies that aid in the transformation of individual meaning schemes. Transformative learning theory provides educators with the tools to empower students to challenge their preconceived beliefs, assumptions, and values and socialize them appropriately to thrive in modern day clinical practice. The purpose of this article is to critically analyze the role of clinical scenarios using human patient simulation to promote transformative learning events in undergraduate nursing education. The authors focus on the role of debriefing in the promotion of the critical reflection and social discourse that is integral to the learning process and the implementation of scenarios that provide students with disorientating dilemmas for perspective transformation.

Measuring the Importance of Precursor Steps to Transformative Learning

Abstract: Transformative learning has been important in the development of adult education since Jack Mezirow proposed it more than 35 years ago as a theoretical description of the steps learners undergo in changing their worldviews. However, despite much qualitative research, little quantitative study has been made of the incidence of transformative learning or the 10 steps predicted by Mezirow to precede it. This study of 256 undergraduate business school students reports the incidence of transformative learning and each of the 10 precursor steps. The more steps respondents remembered experiencing, the more they also reported transformative learning. The highest incidence of reporting transformative learning was associated with the precursor step of critical reflection, followed by the steps of disorienting dilemmas and trying on new roles. Implications for practitioners and researchers are discussed.

Critical social theory and transformative learning: evidence in pre‐service teachers’ service‐learning reflection logs

Abstract: This paper reports on the opportunities for transformational learning experienced by a group of pre‐service teachers who were engaged in service‐learning as a pedagogical process with a focus on reflection. Critical social theory informed the design of the reflection process as it enabled a move away from knowledge transmission toward knowledge transformation. The structured reflection log was designed to illustrate the critical social theory expectations of quality learning that teach students to think critically: ideology critique and utopian critique. Butin’s lenses and a reflection framework informed by the work of Bain, Ballantyne, Mills and Lester were used in the design of the service‐learning reflection log. Reported data provide evidence of transformational learning and highlight how the students critique their world and imagine how they could contribute to a better world in their work as a beginning teacher.

Heutagogy: spirals of reflection to empower learners in higher education

Abstract: This paper is informed by narrative research undertaken as part of continuous reflection on our individual practice. It is based on student responses to experience of study and professional development as part of collaborative reviews and discussion forums. This is informal research, based on qualitative approaches. The paper considers how students are facilitated to take control of their own learning and engage in reflective practice through a paradigm of heutagogy, which explores the processes involved as student’s start to engage in self‐directed study. As course programme leaders it is necessary alongside this that we enable course teams to become conscious of the processes of reflection and to be critical of their own practice, values and attitudes towards learners. This collaborative paper therefore represents a spiral of reflection on our experiences, as we explore the implementation of theory and practice – in terms of reflection on learning and teaching.

Young Children and the Environment: Early Education for Sustainability

Abstract: Young Children and the Environment tackles one of the biggest contemporary issues of our times - the changing environment - and demonstrates how early education can contribute to sustainable living. An essential text for students in early childhood education and a practical resource for child care practitioners and primary school teachers, it is designed to promote education for sustainability from birth to 8 years. The text refers to national and international initiatives such as ‘Sustainable Schools’, ‘Child Friendly Cities’, and ‘Health Promoting Schools’ and explores their existing and potential links with early childhood education. Groundbreaking content draws on recent literature in the areas of organisational, educational and cultural change and environmental sustainability. Early childhood case studies and vignettes exemplify leadership in practice, and ‘Provocations’ are integrated throughout to inspire new ways of thinking about the environment, the wider world, young children and the transformative power of early education.

Student-centredness: the link between transforming students and transforming ourselves

Abstract: It is widely accepted in the higher education literature that a student-centred approach is pedagogically superior to a teacher-centred approach. In this paper, we explore the notion of student-centredness as a threshold concept and the implications this might have for academic staff development. We argue that the term student-centred in the Rogerian sense implies a focus on the person of the student and is deeply resonant with Barnett's assertion that the emergent being of the student is as important as the development of skills and knowledge. To facilitate transformative learning in higher education an academic must know how to value the person of the student in the learning process. Academic staff development initiatives need to work with the person of the academic and take into account the level of personal development required for each academic to be able to facilitate this kind of learning.

Doing Anti-Oppressive Practice: Building Transformative Politicized Social Work

Abstract: Doing Anti-Oppressive Practice: Building Transformative Politicized Social Work Donna Baines (Ed.) Black Point, Nova Scotia, Fernwood Publishing Canada, 2007 234pp., ISBN 9781552662236, $27.95 (pap...

Social learning in a policy-mandated collaboration: community wildfire protection planning in the eastern United States

Abstract: Policies such as the US Healthy Forests Restoration Act (HFRA) mandate collaboration in planning to create benefits such as social learning and shared understanding among partners. However, some question the ability of top-down policy to foster successful local collaboration. Through in-depth interviews and document analysis, this paper investigates social learning and transformative learning in three case studies of Community Wildfire Protection Planning (CWPP), a policy-mandated collaboration under HFRA. Not all CWPP groups engaged in social learning. Those that did learned most about organisational priorities and values through communicative learning. Few participants gained new skills or knowledge through instrumental learning. CWPP groups had to commit to learning, but the design of the collaborative-mandate influenced the type of learning that was most likely to occur. This research suggests a potential role for top-down policy in setting the structural context for learning at the local level, but a...