Illuminating Transformative Learning/Assessment: Infusing Creativity, Reciprocity, and Care Into Higher Education

2021 ◽  
pp. 154134462110451
Author(s):  
Michelle Searle ◽  
Claire Ahn ◽  
Lynn Fels ◽  
Katrina Carbone

In this article, the authors speak to the paradox of assessing transformative learning (TL) in higher education. TL theory, developed by Jack Mezirow, is a theory of learning to describe the process of change in how individuals view the world based on previous experiences. Recognizing that the 10 phases of Mezirow’s TL theory are fluid and intertwined, three prominent aspects resonated within the individual narratives: the importance of a disorienting dilemma, the qualities of self-reflection, and liberatory actions. By exploring the complexities, challenges, and possibilities encountered in their classrooms, the shared narratives reveal how students were engaged in TL and embedded within are holistic assessment processes the authors enacted with learners. Throughout this dialogical narrative inquiry focused on assessment, the authors underwent their own TL in the presence of each other, confessing uncertainties and vulnerabilities, thus showcasing the potential to transform understanding with and through reciprocal learning.

Author(s):  
Priscilla Bamba

From the simplest cell phone to virtual reality headsets, students today are bombarded by technology, so this is bound to affect their expectations in the learning environment and the way they relate to cognitive challenges. Today's culture is an immersion of advanced methods of communicating with each other and with their instructors. Adult learners who return to the world of higher education after having been away for some time have often felt the need to strive harder to show they fit into that world. With a broader worldview, more responsibilities, and often more wisdom gained from having held jobs, sometimes for years, they also bring a richer way of relating to the academic world. At the same, time, though, sometimes responsibilities, including full family lives, limit their time and energy they are capable of devoting to studying and completing assignments.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (9) ◽  
pp. 460
Author(s):  
Rosa-María Rodríguez-Jiménez ◽  
Manuel Carmona

This article presents an exploratory and interpretative study on the development of self-reflection and self-knowledge in university teachers by an embodied experience. Dance Movement Therapy and Body–Mind Centering share the fundamentals of the paradigm of embodied cognition through a first-person full-body experience. Using these principles, a training program was designed and implemented in a cohort of 22 university teachers. The article offers details of the program and the adaptations necessary to carry it out in a higher-education context. The results of the qualitative analysis that was conducted suggested that the transformative learning paradigm could be useful to explain the process carried out by the participants. With the necessary limitations, the incorporation of awareness and attentive participation in bodily states and actions manifests as a transformative element in the teacher. The participants, despite initial resistance, see possibilities for applying this knowledge in their teaching practice.


Author(s):  
Leah Moss ◽  
Andy Brown

Recognition of Acquired Competencies (RAC) as it is known in Quebec, Canada or Prior Learning Assessment (PLA), requires a learner to engage in retrospective thought about their learning path, their learning style and their experiential knowledge. This process of critical self-reflection and rigorous analysis by the learner of their prior learning is often the first exposure to the examination of their own knowledge. This article provides case studies of immigrant learners from the Montreal, Quebec area in a Recognition of Acquired Competencies process in vocational education. Through the analysis of interviews with learners, the authors suggest transformative learning is a by-product of the Recognition of Acquired Competencies process.


2018 ◽  
Vol 30 (3) ◽  
pp. 8-18 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sarah Bernadette Epstein ◽  
Norah Hosken ◽  
Sevi Vassos

INTRODUCTION: The practice and teaching of western social work is shaped within the institutional context of a predominately managerial higher education sector and neoliberal societal context that valorises the individual. Critical feminist social work educators face constraints and challenges when trying to imagine, co-construct, enact and improve ways to engage in the communal relationality of critical feminist pedagogy.APPROACH: In this article, the authors draw upon the literature and use a reflective, inductive approach to explore and analyse observations made about efforts to engage with a subversive pedagogy whilst surviving in the neoliberal academy.CONCLUSION: While the article draws on experiences of social work teaching and research in a regional Australian university, the matters explored are likely to have resonance for social work education in other parts of the world. A tentative outline for thinking about the processes involved in co-creating a critical feminist pedagogical practice is offered.  


2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 245-256
Author(s):  
Yaroslav Haleta ◽  
Oksana Filonenko ◽  
Olexander Ratsul ◽  
Anatoliy Ratsul ◽  
Tetiana Babenko

Successful reform of the higher education system in the context of COVID-19, both in a single country and in the world in the context of its development toward democratization, requires updated approaches to assessing the results of socialization of various categories of young people, and especially students. Since student age is a period of active formation of the inner need of a person to correlate his own aspirations with the interests of society, it is sensitive for the assimilation of social experience, socially significant activities, and the formation of an active creative personality. Higher education in the context of COVID-19 faces an important task - to ensure the education of "vital and socially competent person who can make independent choices and make responsible decisions in various life situations" the formation of their own motives and interests. It is important how much the student as a subject of socialization, independent in the information space, what is the level of his social competence, how quickly he chooses the field of activity in which he can achieve high professionalism. The article deals with the problem of socialization of student youth in modern conditions of a higher educational institution, associated with the processes of development and education of the individual. The features, stages and socio-pedagogical conditions of successful socialization of students in the context of COVID-19 are revealed.


2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Scott Singeisen ◽  

The term meaning-making has been used in constructivist educational psychology to refer to the personal epistemology that persons create to help them to make sense of the influences, relationships and sources of knowledge in their world.1 According to the transformative learning theory of sociologist and educator Jack Mezirow, adults interpret the meaning of their experiences through a lens of deeply held assumptions.2 When students experience something that contradicts or challenges their way of negotiating the world they have to go through the transformative process of evaluating their assumptions and processes of making meaning. Mezirow called these experiences that force individuals to engage in this critical self-reflection “disorienting dilemmas”.3In ‘Educating the Reflective Practitioner’, Prof. Donald Schön suggests that artistry is necessary for the solution of problems in professional practice that occupy the indeterminate zones of uncertainty, uniqueness, and conflict. The two traditional approaches to the teaching of artistry, however, are problematic. The first, its elimination from a curriculum based on technical rationality, is predicated on the belief that artistry is mystical and essentially unteachable. The second, its reduction to a set of procedures, has proven not to work with indeterminate phenomena that are inherently unmanageable. Schön proposes a third strategy: reflection in action, based on his observations that considerable tacit knowledge is already built into practice. By entering the condition of action and reflecting on what has been done, one can resolve “indeterminate” problems in situ by d oing.4It is the view of this paper that by first positioning students in a disorienting dilemma, and by second, providing a framework for ‘reflection in action’ for students to identify and use analogous architectural research elements, students develop a personal methodology and their own contextual position relative to the history of architecture.


Vivências ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 15 (28) ◽  
pp. 145-151
Author(s):  
Franciele Soares de Melo

Reading: a passport to read the world in and from higher education. This study emphasizes the reading ability in Higher Education and through the objective of developing a reflection on the importance of reading, given that it is essential to the students’ learning and, therefore, it implies in their academic qualification and performance as a professional. It is also worth noting the importance of the teacher to for the theoretical foundations regarding the teaching of reading, in order to base his/her pedagogical action. In addition to improve the specific knowledge of the discipline, it is imperative that the teacher masters the various technological tools so that his/her pedagogical work can be completed by developing activities directing to that skill. Thus, reading is a determining factor for the improvement of competences related to the world understanding and logical criticality, which leads the individual to have an active, dynamic and responsive attitude towards the world.


2021 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 43-51
Author(s):  
Osmar Pedrochi Junior ◽  
Diego Fogaça Carvalho ◽  
Tattiana Tessye Freitas da Silva ◽  
Nielce Meneguelo Lobo da Costa

ResumoNeste estudo se tem por objetivo refletir a respeito da avaliação da aprendizagem no contexto do Ensino Superior em uma perspectiva andragógica. Cada segmento de ensino apresenta desafios específicos à avaliação da aprendizagem, seja com a função de estimar o rendimento dos estudantes, diagnosticar dificuldades ou intervir e ajustar os processos de ensino e de aprendizagem, a avaliação é sempre um desafio a ser considerado. A avaliação, no olhar andragógico, respeita os conhecimentos anteriores dos estudantes, aprendidos dentro ou fora do particular curso de formação. No Ensino Superior, as experiências dos alunos adultos devem ser levadas em consideração e a eles deve ser dada a chance de estabelecer relações entre as experiências pessoais anteriores e as novas experiências proporcionadas no curso. Nesse sentido, a autoavaliação é importante para a tomada de consciência e por fazer parte da formação profissional. Saber se autoavaliar é o primeiro passo para ser autônomo e é uma característica desejada no mundo do trabalho. A utilização de portfólio para avaliação traz consigo a perspectiva de avaliação individualizada, uma vez que cada portfólio é único e produzido pelo próprio estudante, portanto, influenciado pelas suas experiências e conhecimento individual. Caraterísticas mais citadas na literatura para se ter a avaliação na visão andragógica são os feedbacks e a prévia ciência do aluno quanto aos critérios a serem utilizados no processo avaliativo. Como conclusão se evidenciou a premência em tratar o aluno adulto realmente como o adulto que ele é, uma pessoa que traz com ela uma carga de conhecimento do mundo. Esse é um desafio a ser enfrentado pelos docentes, nos processos de ensino e de aprendizagem, nos quais se inclui a avaliação. Palavras-chave: Ensino Superior. Andragogia. Avaliação. Feedback; Portfólio. AbstractThis study aims to reflect on the Higher Education learning assessment from an andragogical perspective. Each teaching segment presents specific challenges to the learning assessment, either with a student’s performance estimation function, or diagnosing difficulties or intervening and adjusting teaching and learning processes, assessment is always a challenge to be considered. Assessment, in the andragogical perspective, respects the students' previous knowledge, learned inside or outside the course. In Higher Education, the adult students’ experiences must be considered, and to them must be given the chance to establish relationships between previous personal experiences and the new experiences provided by the course. In this sense, self-assessment is important for raising awareness and it is a part of professional training. Knowing how to evaluate oneself is the first step towards being autonomous and is a desired characteristic in the world of work. The use of portfolio for evaluation brings with it the perspective of individualized evaluation, since each portfolio is unique and produced by the student himself or herself, therefore, influenced by his or her experiences and individual knowledge. Themost cited characteristics in the literature, to have the evaluation in an andragogical view, are the feedbacks and the student's previous knowledge regarding the criteria to be used in the assessment process. As a conclusion, there was an urgency to treat the adult student really as the adult he or she is, a person who brings with him or her a load of the world knowledge. This is a challenge to be faced by the teachers, in the teaching and the learning processes, which includes evaluation. Keywords: Higher Education. Andragogy. Assessment. Feedback. Portfolio.


2022 ◽  
pp. 23-39
Author(s):  
Catherine Hayes

Pedagogical creativity is an opportunity to innovate, create agency, and raise awareness of critical commentary on issues which are often regarded as being central to the concepts of social justice and identity within the context of transformative learning. This chapter provides an insight into the theoretical basis of gamification and its usefulness in explicating the meaning that others ascribe to their individual experiences of the world and how they interpret them. Higher education remains a central forum and situationally responsive focus to highlight those issues which remain topical, yet often unaddressed. This affords a lens of intellectual, rationale articulation of what matters – lives lived in a world still tainted with injustice and the lack of society's impetus and appetite for progressive change. Gamification is posited as a means of facilitating freedom of expression for individuals and collective communities, for whom voicing personal beliefs and standpoints has been a barrier for rationale debate on issues of oppression and the advocacy of agency in practice.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 6-11
Author(s):  
OLEH LAVNIKOV ◽  
HANNA LESHCHENKO ◽  
LIUDMYLA MAKSYMENKO ◽  
ARTUR STANISHOVSKYI ◽  
NATALIIA VOVCHASTA ◽  
...  

The aim of this article is to study the peculiarities of the formation of the individual style of future translators in the context of the implementation of a systematic approach, based on the experience of higher education institutions that train translators in accordance with market needs. It is determined that the most spoken languages are English, Mandarin Chinese, Hindi, Spanish and French, which are spoken by more than 3.67 billion people in the world, and according to the largest number of native speakers – Mandarin Chinese and Spanish. Installed that the leading institutions of higher education, which occupy the highest positions in the world in the field of education of students majoring in translation, are the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of Massachusetts Amherst.


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