Transformative Learning Opportunities Research Articles

Toward a Pedagogy of Critical and Social Imagination: The Arts in Adult Education

We present an argument for a higher priority for art in the educational system and “make a case” for the arts—to provide a rationale for its priority in adult education. This is the plan: to provide this rationale; to present practical guidelines for the processes of engaging in art that may be transformative and critical for individuals and for society; and to illustrate the powerful potential of art as a way of teaching for democratic citizenship. We move toward a Pedagogy of Social Imagination in Art and Adult Education by recounting a real-life empirical study of creating opportunities for transformative learning through engagements with art. John Dewey and Maxine Greene assist in outlining a rationale for exploring arts in adult education.

Teachers of action: when teachers take care of their own professional development

ABSTRACT This narrative inquiry explores the identities of five teachers from Turkey who engage in volunteering and activism besides their everyday teaching. In a teaching environment where the continuing professional development of teachers is neglected and teachers’ autonomy is limited, alongside several structural issues, some of which are a century old, it would be quite normal for teachers to feel restricted. In Turkey, performance pressures due to the nationwide, high-stakes tests limit the participant teachers’ autonomy, while the educational bodies do not provide opportunities for them to become active agents of transformative change. Nevertheless, the participants in this study manifest with their narratives that they take action against the odds that would normally hinder taking action or as a coping mechanism against adversaries in the workplace. Their unique engagements are performed in various forms, taken up early in their lives or later in their careers, and not limited to educational activities or the sphere of the school. Hence, they become examples of informal continuing professional development, which are more likely to create transformative learning opportunities, bringing authentic and long-lasting benefits.

Immersion: Not Just for Students Anymore

Offering community-based global immersion experiences for faculty and staff members provides transformational learning opportunities. This study explored perspectives of faculty and staff participating in university-sponsored immersion programs as professional development and their subsequent influence on both classroom instruction and immersion experiences for students. A qualitative descriptive method was used to capture the experiences of community-based global immersion in faculty learning communities. Perspectives shared through individual interviews illustrated the personal and professional development through engagement in community-based global learning. Faculty and staff reported how dissonance prompted internal transformations to new or modified perspectives. Most significantly, participants identified an increase in compassion for students from diverse backgrounds. Furthermore, through the shared experience, relationships among faculty and staff developed across disciplines, unifying efforts toward strategic goals of providing community-based global immersion for students. These experiences have the potential to foster students’ holistic development, thus furthering the university’s mission of preparing students for future civic engagement.

Community Engagement in Urban Experiments: Joint Effort for Sustainable Urban Transformation

The increasing complexity of urban regeneration issues has recently made multi-stakeholder collaboration an important part to solve policy problems. While residents form an important part in a variety of collaborative governance processes, approaches used are often criticized as too formal, and lacking more inclusive participation. Therefore, new informal mechanisms of collaboration are sought, to ensure a more effective engagement and representation of population groups. Although community-led participation is the approach that leads to a more effective collaborative process, issues of power and inequality are a challenge in many places in planning practice [13]. Ways of civic empowerment, communication, and negotiation provide participants with transformative learning opportunities so that not only their arguments change but also the participants of the participation process themselves [6]. In order to test urban development ideas, the notion of "urban experiment" has been developed in recent years as a recognized and effective approach. The urban environment is viewed as a creative laboratory for testing the implementation of diverse initiatives and innovations [8]. The inner-city neighbourhoods in many cities are struggling to ensure vitality and liveability, thus these areas often represent a widespread location of urban experiments. In addition to these questions, the problem of community representation manifests itself in many inner cities. The potential to transform city centre streets and vacant areas into user-friendly urban spaces and the impact of those transformations on the city’s livability were recently tested by Riga municipality. Urban experiments varied in scale and form, resulting in street pedestrianization, urban gardens, and other temporary initiatives, which allowed more space for walking and cycling, street sales, social events and other activities. Thus, the aim of this article is to explore processes of testbed planning with regard to the role of community participation in the designing, implementing, and analysing phases of the experiment. After presenting the findings, the article concludes with a discussion on factors that influence public participation in collaborative governance including communication, the balance of interests, and the degree of resident involvement in decision-making.

Critical global citizenship education for transnational youth: Advancing justice and activism and promoting reciprocal learning

As the numbers of transnational youth who preserve ongoing relationships and fluid senses of belonging spanning multiple countries increase, scholars have emphasized making learning more culturally and linguistically relevant for this population. However, little attention has been paid to the need for cultivating critical consciousness among transnational youth. Theoretically framed by critical global citizenship education (GCE), this qualitative case study explores the way secondary teachers in South Korea utilize GCE to leverage their transnational students' multifaceted experiences, knowledge, and belonging while creating more justice-oriented and transformative learning opportunities for the class. By shedding light on the teachers’ specific and distinctive pedagogical actions and lesson strategies, this study will provide implications for teacher education and GCE for transnational youth in this increasingly diverse and globalized world.

Schuwer, R., Gil-Jaurena, I., Aydin, C. H., Costello, E., Dalsgaard, C., Brown, M., ... & Teixeira, A. (2015). Opportunities and threats of the MOOC movement for higher education: The European perspective. International review of research in open and dist

The MOOC model (Massive Open Online Course, for its acronym in English) has emerged as an innovative alternative for university education, allowing massive access to online courses taught by renowned institutions. This model is characterized by its open, flexible and autonomous nature, which has generated a significant impact on the educational landscape. One of the main advantages of the MOOC is its ability to broaden access to university education. Through online platforms, anyone can enroll in courses taught by professors from world-renowned institutions. This has democratized education by removing geographic and economic barriers that often limit access to traditional education. In addition, the MOOC model offers flexibility in terms of hours and location. Students can learn at their own pace, access course materials anytime, anywhere, and tailor their learning process to their individual needs. This promotes autonomous learning and self-regulation, valuable skills in an ever-evolving educational environment. MOOCs cover a wide range of topics and disciplines, giving students the opportunity to explore various fields of study and gain knowledge in areas of specific interest to them. This encourages the diversity of content and the personalization of learning, since students can choose the courses that best suit their needs and educational goals. However, the MOOC model also presents challenges. The lack of interaction and personalized feedback, due to the large number of participants, can make it difficult to deepen the concepts and resolve specific doubts. Additionally, MOOC course completion rates are often low, raising questions about student engagement and motivation. Despite these challenges, the MOOC as an alternative model for university education has proven to be a valuable tool. It has allowed access to education to people from all over the world, promoting flexibility, diversity of content and autonomous learning. As MOOCs continue to be explored and improved, it is expected that they will continue to play an important role in the educational landscape, providing enriching and transformative learning opportunities.

ASHP Distinguished Leadership Award.

Marie A. Chisholm-Burns, PharmD, PhD, MPH, MBA, FCCP, FASHP, FAST, executive vice president and provost at Oregon Health and Science University in Portland, and Miriam A. Mobley Smith, PharmD, FASHP, interim dean of the University of Hawaii at Hilo Daniel K. Inouye College of Pharmacy, are the 2022 recipients of the ASHP Board of Directors Distinguished Leadership Award. The award recognizes contributions to excellence in pharmacy practice leadership in acute and ambulatory care settings. For nearly 30 years, Chisholm-Burns has embraced transformational learning opportunities that foster diverse and equitable academic and healthcare environments and encourage dialogue and innovation among students, patients, and providers. She seeks and supports opportunities to advance the success of students, faculty, staff, alumni, and other academic stakeholders. Her scholarly accomplishments include more than 380 publications and over $17 million in external funding as principal investigator or coinvestigator on research projects. She has served on governing boards of the Accreditation Council for Pharmacy Education, the American Society of Transplantation, the Georgia College Foundation, and the University of Tennessee Foundation.

Transformative Learning Emerging From Challenges First-Year Students Experienced.

Doctor of physical therapy (PT) (DPT) programs are rigorous, and students report facing overwhelming challenges. Faculty may not be cognizant of the extent of these challenges and miss opportunities to support student learning. The purpose of this article is to describe factors affecting student coping abilities and the lessons they learned from managing their self-identified challenges. Given the growing body of evidence surrounding mental health issues in DPT students, educators are exploring ways to support student well-being and promote their professional development. This study is a component of a larger multisite study of first-year DPT students from 3 private universities. Participants submitted written narratives in response to a critical incident questionnaire designed to better understand first-year challenges. Responses were deidentified, researchers were blinded to participation, and confidentiality was maintained throughout. A consensus-driven interpretivist approach to qualitative data analysis was used. Strategies to ensure trustworthiness included triangulation of researchers, peer review, prolonged engagement, and use of thick rich descriptions. Seventy responses were analyzed. Two major themes are presented: (1) students described factors internal and external to the learning environment that inhibited and facilitated their ability to cope with challenges and (2) students shared academic successes and lessons learned from overcoming challenges, including the development of new behaviors, enhanced self-awareness, and personal and professional growth. Building on previous work, analysis of the lived experiences of first-year DPT students revealed a process of transformational learning through challenge. This process highlights the importance of recognizing and supporting the significant incidental learning that occurs in our students during their journey through PT school. Faculty focusing solely on content knowledge, skills, and even critical thinking may not recognize and support the incidental learning occurring and may be missing significant transformational learning opportunities.

Academic Visits as Transformative Learning Opportunities: The Case of Chinese Visiting Academics

Cross-border academic visits by university faculty members are becoming prevalent globally. Unlike previous research, which has focused on the cross-cultural adaptation arising from the cross-border movement of people, we view scholars’ visiting experiences as a learning opportunity in light of Mezirow’s transformative learning theory (TLT). We employ Addleman et al.’s three-stage proposal to better understand the transformative learning process of Chinese visiting scholars. Drawing on Hoggan’s typology, we identify changes in scholars’ worldviews, selves, and behavior as outcomes of transformative learning. We conclude that international experience is beneficial for scholars and call for more study abroad opportunities for Chinese university faculty.

Towards a Pedagogy of Trauma: Experiences of Paramedics and Firefighters in a COVID-19 Era and Opportunities for Transformative Learning

Many workers, especially first responders, experience trauma at work. We gathered experiences of frontline workers in Berlin during COVID-19 and theorize those experiences within an education paradigm. Their experiences were written as part of their reflective writing on a hazard prevention course for emergency workers in 2022. The theorizing focuses on the struggle for meaning precipitated by the student’s experiences of trauma and makes a case for understanding how this may prompt significant learning—even transformative learning—for individuals and possibly the broader society. This theoretical analysis is informed by Carol Gilligan, Axel Honneth, Oskar Negt and Jack Mezirow who help reconnect professional with personal interests and thinking with the emotional dimensions of work. We propose a critical analysis of the ways in which the instrumental, procedural and professional imperatives are disconnected from the personal and emotional dimensions of trauma work. Their struggle for recognition also assists in understanding these connections. The thinking/emotional divide and professional/personal splits are themselves a trauma and the pedagogy of reconnection is transformative.

Interconnectedness, intergenerational interactions and improvisation: Critical aspects of curriculum advancement in the Arts

In 2021 Professor Papaarangi Reid, at The University of Melbourne, shared the ancient proverb “I ngā rā o mua”, translated to mean “before we know where we are going, we must know where we have come from”. This proverb sets the tone for discussing the Arts in the New Zealand curriculum, as during radical upheaval and social change as being experienced in the pandemic, we are forced to examine activities to reflect and discover anew the road ahead (Lindley, et al., 2021; Wood, et al., 2021). This is a critical inflection point for redefining the future of New Zealand Arts Education, as it coincides with the current New Zealand Curriculum (Ministry of Education [MoE], 2007) refresh (MoE, 2021). This research informed paper advocates for mātauranga Māori and te ao Māori in the Arts curriculum to ensure distinctive, bold transformational learning opportunities are experienced by learners within the education system. This article suggests the values of interconnectedness, intergenerational purpose and improvisation can dismantle disciplinary boundaries and offer a critical frame to reconsider a forward-focused Arts curriculum.

The impact of Covid-19 on professional identity formation: an international qualitative study of medical students’ reflective entries in a Global Creative Competition

IntroductionThe Covid-19 pandemic, which affected medical students globally, could be viewed as a disorientating dilemma with the potential to offer opportunities for transformative learning. In 2021 the Medical Education Innovation and Research Centre at Imperial College London launched a Global Creative Competition as a platform for medical students to reflect on their experiences during the pandemic.MethodsSix hundred forty-eight creative pieces with written reflections were submitted by medical students from 52 countries. 155 students from 28 countries consented for their entries to be included in this study. The reflections were analysed thematically and independently by three reviewers to explore how the pandemic impacted students’ professional identity formation (PIF).ResultsThe pandemic increased students’ awareness of the social and global role of doctors in addressing health inequities. Students felt part of a wider healthcare community and showed greater appreciation towards person-centred care. Students also became more aware of their personal needs, priorities, and the importance of self-care.DiscussionIn agreement with Mezirow’s theory of transformative learning (2003), the pandemic led students to re-examine pre-existing epistemic and sociocultural assumptions concerning the role of doctors and explore new perspectives of what it means to be a doctor. In accordance with Cheng’s theory of coping flexibility (2021), students developed both emotion-focused coping strategies (e.g., arts engagement) and problem-solving strategies (e.g., volunteering), suggesting they were able to adjust psychologically and develop agency. However, students experienced tension between their sense of duty and sense of wellbeing, highlighting the need for medical educators to design into programmes formal support systems where medical students have the space and time they need to reflect on their emergent identities as a doctor.ConclusionMedical educators should encourage students to reflect on their identity formation while encountering disorientating dilemmas. The inclusion of arts and humanities within the medical curriculum is strongly recommended to provide an avenue for students to access and express complex emotions and experiences.

Pre-service teachers’ teaching challenges and the transformative learning opportunities during teaching practice in Indonesian remote areas

ABSTRACT Teaching practice in remote areas is beneficial for pre-service teachers’ professional development. The geographical structure and society in remote areas provide unique experiences. This study focuses on how teaching practice in remote areas opens up opportunities for transformative learning. Forty-one pre-service primary teachers from three universities participated in semi-structured interviews. The interviews were conducted in retrospect after participants had finished their teaching practice. Results show that PSTs encountered nine types of challenges during teaching practice; parents’ low awareness of the importance of their children’s education, local teachers’ low motivation, limited teaching resources at school, pupils’ absenteeism, pupils’ poor numeracy and literacy skills, the principal’s low responsibility, natural hazard factors, pupils’ low ability to understand Indonesian, and local conflicts between different communities. Encountering these nine types of challenges fosters PSTs’ disorientation, which might lead to transformative learning. In conclusion, remote areas have potential for transformative learning.

Encounters in Musical Ethnography as Opportunities for Transformative Learning

In this article, I offer an autobiographical account of teaching musical ethnography in an ethnomusicology classroom. My reflections derive from a variety of modules that are offered as part of undergraduate music programmes and that combine an ethnomusicology fieldwork component with a theoretical introduction to the cultural study of music and, in many cases, with hands-on musical performance. I see the classroom as an ethnographic field and explore its pedagogical potential for affective encounters, for engendering new cultural understandings and an ‘openness to different ways of being, knowing and doing’ (Spencer and Mills 2011). Responding to Wong’s call for education as cultural work (Wong 1998), I am especially interested in a critical pedagogy of ethnography that affords opportunities for transformative learning (Mezirow 1997, McIlwairth 2016) for students and teachers alike.

Is teaching anti-Black racism relevant when recreating a post-COVID nursing curriculum?

Abstract During the COVID-19 pandemic several issues were galvanized as global urgencies. One of which was racism, following reports that Black and low-income communities were disproportionately impacted by the pandemic (Public Health Agency of Canada, 2021) and the lack of race-based data in Canada (Ahmed et al.,2021). But it was the racially induced killing of George Floyd and others that brought global awareness through the Black Lives Matter movement of the extent of structural and institutional racism. We witnessed a convergence of protests regarding anti-Black racism, anti-Indigenous racism, anti-Asian racism, and more recently Islamophobia. These series of events have led to emerging and compelling questions from millennials and Generation Zs within the nursing classroom. Nursing education is called to embrace and draw upon multiple forms of pedagogies, methodologies, and theories that reflect and support student learning and enquiry (Coleman, 2020; Prendergast et al., 2020;). Nursing education’s longstanding history with colonial frameworks, practices, and standards (Holmes, 2008; McGibbon et al, 2014; Waite & Nardi, 2019), attests to the need to decolonize the nursing classroom, which in effect will decolonize colonial practices within clinical settings. One approach to assist nursing education in the classroom and workplace setting is introducing anti-Black racism (ABR) within the nursing curricula. ABR was coined by Akua Benjamin (2003) to explain the historical, lived experiences of African Canadians, and how colonial legacies in policies and institutions continue to mask racist practices. ABR creates spaces of resistances that can protect recipients and providers of the healthcare system and can disclose and rupture any invisible forms of inequitable practices. Based on the four tenets of ABR, which are, history, experience, invisibility, and legacy, ABR creates critical thinking and dialogues across multiple barriers, therefore providing opportunities for transformative learning and action. By implementing ABR within the nursing curricula, nurses may gain meaningful insights into the various ways racism plays out in the lived experiences of Black, Indigenous, and People of Colour by engaging the student into historical events and lived experiences that expound on varied forms of physical, mental and social enslavements. This presentation will conceptually illustrate the relevance of implementing anti-Black racism within Canadian nursing curricula as an effective strategy that can respond to issues pervading the current climate as well as support student learning and development. As nursing has an ethical responsibility to prepare and educate students to care and protect patients, nursing is also called upon to decolonize its classroom, reform educators and students, and create new practices that will reflect a new, post covid curricula.

Author Biographies

Author Biographies

Creating Transformative Interdisciplinary Learning Opportunities for College Students

Collaboration across multiple perspectives enhances the potential for innovative solutions to the complex issues of our time. An interdisciplinary education (IDE) community of practice (CoP) proved to be a catalyst for bringing together interested faculty from across a large public college to create an IDE learning event focused on homelessness. Using a qualitative research approach, we explored the process and impact on student learning. Four main themes emerged: authentic engagement, transcending perspectives, collective responsibility, and cultivating curiosity. The first three themes identify the transformative power of IDE, while the last theme highlights the challenge of remaining open to differing perspectives. We learned the value of incorporating perspectives beyond strictly disciplinary views, such as narratives from those directly impacted by homelessness—to stimulate empathy, transformation, and the will to act.

Enablers of pedagogical change within universities: Evidence from Kenya, Ghana and Botswana

Quality of teaching and learning in higher education is increasingly recognised as a pressing issue on the African continent, and there have been various reform initiatives to transform classrooms and institutions. However, little is known about the factors that affect pedagogical change in institutions, and enable or constrain these innovations from taking root. This study explores the cases of eight diverse universities in Botswana, Ghana and Kenya, ones that had implemented a range of innovations including problem-based learning, community placements and academic development programmes. The analysis draws on qualitative data involving interviews with lecturers and senior management, institutional documentation and campus visits. Lecturers were seen to engage in diverse ways with the initiatives, being either opponents, surface adopters, transformers or champions. Four factors emerged as key to influencing the uptake of pedagogical interventions: the drivers of the initiative; the existence of a shared vision; resourcing and incentives; and opportunities for reflection and transformative learning. While some initiatives are more ‘champion-led’ and others more ‘institution-led’, sustainable change involves attention to both university structures and individual practice, and to the interactions between them.

Digitizing borderless higher education landscapes through curriculum policy change to educate global citizens

Advancements in science and technology are mobilizing higher education landscapes into borderless settings. Such changes also urge higher education settings to adopt transformative learning opportunities into their curriculum policy. Universities are accountable for helping youth build on their 21st Century competences by highlighting societal issues at global levels such as climate change, refugee crises or big human movements due to poverty, politics, conflicts, wars, or natural disasters. Youth need to build on knowledge, skills, and competences to recognize that any crises in one location can have an immediate impact on neighboring countries primarily and the whole world and challenge their potential to act as global citizens in their deeds and decisions as future change agents for a peaceful future. In this paper, we highlight the need to invest in global citizenship capabilities that will enable higher education students to go beyond their academic settings and network with international students via digital tools. In this paper, higher education students are regarded as future change agents who are willing to develop accountability toward the entire globe by investing in their socio-ecological, socio-critical and socio-emotional capabilities.

The Covid-19 Learning Crisis as a Challenge and an Opportunity for Schools: An Evidence Review and Conceptual Synthesis of Research-Based Tools for Sustainable Change

This paper advances our understanding of how schools can become change agents capable of transforming local practice to address the challenges arising from the Covid-19 pandemic. It presents a novel application of cultural-historical activity theory to reinterpret evidence on widespread learning loss and increasing educational inequities resulting from the pandemic, and to identify scalable transformative learning opportunities through reframing the crisis as a double stimulation. By reviewing evidence of the emerging educational landscape, we first develop a picture of the new ‘problem space’ upon which schools must act. We develop a problem space map to serve as the first stimulus to articulate local challenges. Integrating this problem space with research on professional change, we identify conceptual tools to capture learning gaps and implement pedagogic interventions at scale, in order to enhance schools’ agency in directly addressing the crisis. These tools can act as the second stimulus, enabling educators to address local challenges. We conclude by discussing the Covid-19 educational crisis as a unique stimulus for professional learning and outline the potential for durable shifts in educational thinking and practice beyond the pandemic. We argue that this unprecedented historic disruption can be harnessed as a transformative professional learning opportunity. In particular, we consider how research on professional change offers local, scalable interventions and tools that can support educators in preventing the new insights from ‘slipping away’ post-pandemic. Utilising the notions of boundaries and tool-mediated professional change, we examine the ways in which this disruption generates opportunities to envision alternative futures for equitable learning in school.