scholarly journals Decolonising development practice pedagogy: ways forward and persistent challenges in the synchronous online classroom

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Emily Van Houweling
Keyword(s):  
Transformative Learning ◽  
Power Dynamics ◽  
Online Environment ◽  
Front Line ◽  
Online Classroom ◽  
Community Learning ◽  
Virtual Spaces ◽  
Building Community ◽  
Development Practice ◽  
Synchronous Online

Although decolonisation is a pressing goal for many front-line instructors, there are few pedagogical resources for how to do this in the online environment. This article provides a set of strategic approaches that can help combat dominant power dynamics in the classroom and open opportunities for transformative learning. The research draws on instructor focus groups and student surveys from the synchronous, online Master of Development Practice programme at Regis University, USA. Six pedagogical approaches are described in light of their successes and remaining challenges: building community, learning from each other and co-creating knowledge, opening spaces for participation, de-centring Western voices and epistemologies, focusing on the critical thinking, reflection and action cycle and creating connection in virtual spaces.

scholarly journals E-Classroom Interactional Competencies: Mediating and Assisting Language Learning During Synchronous Online Lessons

RELC Journal ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 003368822098527
Author(s):  
Benjamin Luke Moorhouse ◽  
Yanna Li ◽  
Steve Walsh
Keyword(s):  
Language Learning ◽  
Online Teaching ◽  
English Language ◽  
Teacher Educators ◽  
Language Teachers ◽  
Online Environment ◽  
Management Competencies ◽  
Face To Face ◽  
English Language Teachers ◽  
Synchronous Online

Interaction is seen by many English language teachers and scholars as an essential part of face-to-face English language classrooms. Teachers require specific competencies to effectively use interaction as a tool for mediating and assisting learning. These can be referred to as classroom interactional competence (CIC). However, the situation created by the ongoing global COVID-19 pandemic which began in early 2020, and the recent advancement in technologies have led to teachers conducting synchronous online lessons through video-conferencing software. The online environment is distinctly different from the face-to-face classroom and teachers require new and additional skills to effectively utilise interaction online in real time. This exploratory study used an online mixed-method survey of 75 university level English language teachers who had engaged in synchronous online teaching due to COVID-19, to explore the competencies that teachers need to use interaction as a tool to mediate and assist language learning in synchronous online lessons. Teachers were found to require three competencies, in addition to their CIC – technological competencies, online environment management competencies, and online teacher interactional competencies – which together constitute e-CIC. The findings provide greater insights into the needs of teachers required to teach synchronously online and will be of interest to teachers and teacher educators.

Transformative Learning in an Online Environment

2010 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-9 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patricia Cranton
Keyword(s):  
Transformative Learning ◽  
Learning Theory ◽  
Online Teaching ◽  
Transformative Learning Theory ◽  
Online Environment

The purpose of this article is to explore the potential for fostering transformative learning in an online environment. It provides an overview of transformative learning theory, including the variety of perspectives on the theory that have evolved as the theory matured. Strategies and practices for fostering transformative learning are presented, followed by a description of the online environment and how strategies for encouraging transformative learning might be carried into that environment. Students’ voices are brought in to corroborate and to question the importance of these strategies. The article concludes with a discussion of how an educator’s style and strengths can be brought into online teaching, especially with a view to helping learners examine their meaning perspectives.

Personalization Services for Online Collaboration and Learning

2010 ◽  
pp. 1334-1346
Author(s):  
Christina E. Evangelou ◽  
Manolis Tzagarakis ◽  
Nikos Karousos ◽  
George Gkotsis
Keyword(s):  
Online Communities ◽  
Online Collaboration ◽  
Community Members ◽  
Community Learning ◽  
Learning Skills ◽  
Virtual Spaces ◽  
Effective Collaboration ◽  
Collaboration Tools

Collaboration tools can be exploited as virtual spaces that satisfy the community members’ needs to construct and refine their ideas, opinions, and thoughts in meaningful ways, in order to suc-cessfully assist individual and community learning. More specifically, collaboration tools when properly personalized can aid individuals to articulate their personal standpoints in such a way that can be proven useful for the rest of the community where they belong. Personalization services, when properly integrated to collaboration tools, can be an aide to the development of learning skills, to the interaction with other actors, as well as to the growth of the learners’ autonomy and self-direction. This work pre-sents a framework of personalization services that has been developed to address the requirements for efficient and effective collaboration between online communities’ members that can act as catalysts for individual and community learning.

scholarly journals Venturing sustainability: Political lessons from civic engagement and transformative learning in Asia

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Maharani Hapsari ◽  
Dicky Sofjan ◽  
Theodore Mayer
Keyword(s):  
Civil Society ◽  
Civic Engagement ◽  
Transformative Learning ◽  
Power Relations ◽  
Critical Examination ◽  
Underlying Structure ◽  
Power Dynamics ◽  
Complex Nature ◽  
Liberal Conception ◽  
Interpretive Analysis

Current studies on civic engagement offer a critical examination of global civil society's struggles for a sustainable future. The liberal conception of civic engagement sees citizens as voluntary and participatory political subjects in their capacity to achieve a sustainability agenda. In Asia, such conceptions meet with the complex nature of power relations. Using a Gramscian approach and interpretive analysis, this paper draws on the struggles for hegemony, where power relations manifest subtly in state policy, market economy and civil society domains. Learning from the transformative learning experiences of various civil society actors, this study argues that in Asian realities, civic engagement is deeply concerned with the underlying structure of power, forms of negotiation and power dynamics. Political asymmetry is often made implicit by the privileged or uncritically internalized in civic life. There is a need to examine civic engagement as part of "the political", in which antagonism and contradiction are constitutive to social change. Furthermore, civic engagement can, and does, stimulate citizens' deliberate and concerted action against inequality, injustice and indignity.

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