Preparing Teacher Candidates to Serve Students From Diverse Backgrounds: Triggering Transformative Learning Through Short-Term Cultural Immersion

This study followed 24 teacher candidates in a short-term cultural immersion field experience designed to help them reflect on their assumptions and perspectives in order to better understand the culturally, ethnically, and linguistically diverse students they will teach. Qualitative methods were informed by a phenomenological research approach to examine candidates’ transformative learning experiences in a cultural immersion context. The findings are discussed within a three-stage framework of transformative learning: triggering experiences, frame of reference examination, and transformative change

How my multiple border crossings in higher education have contributed to my living theory

Paper presented at HELTASA 2011: Crossing Borders For Change In Southern African Higher Education. 30th November ‐ 2nd December 2011. Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University (Port Elizabeth, South Africa).I am Irish by birth and upbringing. I studied and taught Philosophy and Theology in Italy (1994-2004), where I experienced and used traditional lecturing methods. Currently I teach Philosophy to undergraduates from various disciplines at Strathmore University in Nairobi. My multiple border crossings torespond proactively to diversity and the need for transformational learning in higher education really began upon my arrival in Kenya in 2004, when I faced challenges which I had to overcome to be effective in my teaching practice. In this paper I show how I am using living theory action research to develop a “living” methodology based on in-depth reflection onmy teaching experience and student feedback over time, to adjust various aspectsof my teaching practice to foster transformative learning in my students. This process has enabled me to identify the educational values which motivate my work and which are now the standards of judgement against which I evaluate the effectiveness of my practice. As I narrate my response to some of the more relevant challenges faced, using specifically designed learning projects, I will show how my personalliving educational theory has developed. I hope to show that true effectiveness in“crossing borders for change in higher education” can only be achieved if we are willing to change ourselves in practice in the first place, and so be in a position to help our students want to change themselves and contribute to improving our society.I am Irish by birth and upbringing. I studied and taught Philosophy and Theology in Italy (1994-2004), where I experienced and used traditional lecturing methods. Currently I teach Philosophy to undergraduates from various disciplines at Strathmore University in Nairobi. My multiple border crossings torespond proactively to diversity and the need for transformational learning in higher education really began upon my arrival in Kenya in 2004, when I faced challenges which I had to overcome to be effective in my teaching practice. In this paper I show how I am using living theory action research to develop a “living” methodology based on in-depth reflection onmy teaching experience and student feedback over time, to adjust various aspectsof my teaching practice to foster transformative learning in my students. This process has enabled me to identify the educational values which motivate my work and which are now the standards of judgement against which I evaluate the effectiveness of my practice. As I narrate my response to some of the more relevant challenges faced, using specifically designed learning projects, I will show how my personalliving educational theory has developed. I hope to show that true effectiveness in“crossing borders for change in higher education” can only be achieved if we are willing to change ourselves in practice in the first place, and so be in a position to help our students want to change themselves and contribute to improving our society

Participatory Action and Drought as a Symbolic Context: The Case of Aldama Chihuahua, Mexico

This paper presents a field-based project and a theoretical framework for work with an Action Research paradigm. The complexities of process are illustrated and synthesized in two theoretical models. The design of the study required constant change in the focus of projects as a result of the action produced from genuine involvement. As a result a working template of the execution of the action research projects involving multiple educational institutions was generated by bi-national collaborations. Participants were ecological researchers and schoolteachers, actively engaged in schools and in the education of the community at-large on the effects of drought in their lives. Through formal and informal field based observations, group narratives and technological communication systems, distinct sources of results illuminate an on-going spiraling venue using drought as a symbolic system. This project documents transformative knowledge in education to enhance multidisciplinary approaches toward social change and ecological awareness

Dynamics of Faculty Engagement in the Movement for Democracy's Education at Nothern Arizona University: Backgrounds, Practices, and Future Horizons

As scholarship has become increasingly narrow and disconnected from public life, Kettering research has documented an intense sense of malaise in higher education, what Harry Boyte has called a loss of civic agency. Surprisingly, however, faculty at a few campuses have begun to self-organize to integrate civic work into their teaching and research. This study, by Blase Scarnati and Romand Coles, documents such efforts at Northern Arizona University. Rather than making civic engagement a specific project of one or two faculty, what makes this campus special is that civic engagement has taken hold across the university. Building on research by KerryAnn O'Meara, this working paper shows that civic engagement is not only fulfilling to faculty at an individual level but is starting to impact the civic culture of their institutions

Discovering SELF and Purpose in the Arts: The Role of Imagination and Creativity in Transformative Learning and Adult Education’s Responsibility in Facilitating this Learning for Individual and Social Change.

This study introduces a Lotus-Layered Triangulation Model® and an Elements of Being for Transformational Readiness Model® while exploring the role of creativity in transformation. Collage was a powerful arts-based research tool and creative expression found to significantly enhance transformative learning. The research informs program developers about the potential for creative expression in adult education programs for transformation

Researching the Teaching Context: Faithful Practice

Christian teachers are called to a teaching practice that is biblically grounded or based on a biblical world and life view, but can the same imperative be applied to those wishing to conduct research in Christian education contexts? This paper considers one approach to qualitative methodologies that considers the ultimate goal of truth-seeking in research in the sciences to be a deeply religious activity. The ultimate goal of biblically grounded research is proposed as being greatest-commandment driven, and to accomplish this, an epistemological base that is holistic and relational is proposed. This epistemology moves from a biblically oriented sense of both being and purpose to bring a level of redemptive engagement with social phenomena. Such research is seen in the context of unhiding and/or reclaiming God’s truth to bring transformation and reformation to research subject individuals and communities. The paper includes references to philosophical bases such as reformed critical realism and methodological constructions such as critical ethnography

Researching the Teaching Context: Faithful Practice

Christian teachers are called to a teaching practice that is biblically grounded or based on a biblical world and life view, but can the same imperative be applied to those wishing to conduct research in Christian education contexts? This paper considers one approach to qualitative methodologies that considers the ultimate goal of truth-seeking in research in the sciences to be a deeply religious activity. The ultimate goal of biblically grounded research is proposed as being greatest-commandment driven, and to accomplish this, an epistemological base that is holistic and relational is proposed. This epistemology moves from a biblically oriented sense of both being and purpose to bring a level of redemptive engagement with social phenomena. Such research is seen in the context of unhiding and/or reclaiming God’s truth to bring transformation and reformation to research subject individuals and communities. The paper includes references to philosophical bases such as reformed critical realism and methodological constructions such as critical ethnography

Exploring the dynamics of transformative change of lectio divina in the context of transformative learning theory

https://place.asburyseminary.edu/ecommonsatsdissertations/1853/thumbnail.jp

A Phenomenological Exploration: The Black Bile of Depression

The phenomenon of depression manifests itself in many different forms, haunting us with its simultaneously inescapable, diffuse and pervasive presence. The rich thickness of depression is often severely drained and confined within the overall field of psychology, in which this phenomenon is regularly expressed as an all-encompassing, diagnostic label, to limitedly describe an almost endless number of symptomatic permutations. We shall attempt to distill something of depression’s essence in returning to its ancient, etymological, spiritual and metaphysical roots, in order to begin transcending the traditional clinical notion of depression as simply a disease to be cured and suppressed. The relatively rare and unique theoretical lens and tools offered by phenomenology (as supplemented and informed by personal interviews with people who have personally struggled with depression), allows us to grow into a healthier relationship with this phenomenon - one that can more honorably and constructively serve us in our ongoing development to this largely murky, misunderstood and often misleading force. Perhaps only by exploring and staring into that infamous abyss, may we seek to populate it with stars