Narratizing Disciplines and Disciplinizing Narratives

Author(s):  
Sasha A. Barab ◽  
Melissa Gresalfi ◽  
Tyler Dodge ◽  
Adam Ingram-Goble

Education is about revealing possibility and exciting passions, empowering learners with the disciplinary expertise to meaningfully act on problematic contexts in which applying disciplinary knowledge is important. Toward this end, we have been using gaming methodologies and technologies to design curricular dramas that position students as active change agents who use knowledge to inquire into particular circumstances and, through their actions, transform the problematic situation into a known. Unlike more traditional textbooks designed to transmit facts or micro-stories, our focus is on building interactive experiences in which understanding core concepts, such as erosion or the idea of metaphor, and seeing oneself as a person who uses these to address personally meaningful and socially significant problems is valued. It is the explicit goal of this manuscript to communicate this power of educational videogames, as well as the design steps that we have been using to make this happen.

Author(s):  
Sasha A. Barab ◽  
Melissa Gresalfi ◽  
Tyler Dodge ◽  
Adam Ingram-Goble

Education is about revealing possibility and exciting passions, empowering learners with the disciplinary expertise to meaningfully act on problematic contexts in which applying disciplinary knowledge is important. Toward this end, we have been using gaming methodologies and technologies to design curricular dramas that position students as active change agents who use knowledge to inquire into particular circumstances and, through their actions, transform the problematic situation into a known. Unlike more traditional textbooks designed to transmit facts or micro-stories, our focus is on building interactive experiences in which understanding core concepts, such as erosion or the idea of metaphor, and seeing oneself as a person who uses these to address personally meaningful and socially significant problems is valued. It is the explicit goal of this manuscript to communicate this power of educational videogames, as well as the design steps that we have been using to make this happen.


This chapter looks at Ambient Learning City, the fullest implementation of the Emergent Learning Model because it looked at learning “beyond the classroom”; WikiQuals; JISC Digital projects in FE; as well as the work of several others, especially Thom Cochrane and Vijaya Khanu Bote, who have taken the core concepts of learner-generated contexts and applied them in university and primary school settings, extending our work beyond the UK post-compulsory context. A key dimension of the open context model of learning was the PAH Continuum, which showed how the heutagogic practice of enabling learner agency could be embedded in any educational institution. Each year on 23rd September, World Heutagogy Day pulls together emerging practice on a range of themes, which continue to inform work, such as creativity, resources, environment, teaching and digital learning. The authors also look at third places as change agents of learning as in the Erasmus Plus project “The Origin of Spaces”. Overall, this chapter provides a range of examples of the kind of transformation of education that digital projects can enable and exemplify.


2018 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 67-77 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ryan J. Petteway ◽  
Payam Sheikhattari ◽  
Fernando Wagner

The growing prominence of community-based participatory research (CBPR) presents as an opportunity to improve tobacco-related intervention efforts. CBPR collaborations for tobacco/health, however, typically engage only adults, thus affording only a partial understanding of community context as related to tobacco. This is problematic given evidence around age of tobacco use initiation and the influence of local tobacco environments on youth. The CEASE and Resist youth photovoice project was developed as part of the Communities Engaged and Advocating for a Smoke-free Environment (CEASE) CBPR collaboration in Southwest Baltimore. With the broader CEASE initiative focused on adult smoking cessation, CEASE and Resist had three aims: (1) elucidate how youth from a high-tobacco-burden community perceive/interact with their local tobacco environment, (2) train youth as active change agents for tobacco-related community health, and (3) improve intergenerational understandings of tobacco use/impacts within the community. Fourteen youth were recruited from three schools and trained in participatory research and photography ethics/guiding principles. Youth met at regular intervals to discuss and narrate their photos. This article provides an overview of what their work revealed/achieved and discusses how including participatory youth research within traditionally adult-focused work can facilitate intergenerational CBPR for sustainable local action on tobacco and community health.


Author(s):  
Jay R. Deagon ◽  
Miriam Ham ◽  
Wendy Hillman

AbstractEducated and skilled women are active change agents. This paper focuses on informal hospitality education as a tool for social change and empowerment for severely marginalized Nepalese women. Studied over 18 months, a small group of women cooking for a boutique local and international tourist market in Kathmandu participated in cookery skills training. The Australian educator/researchers focused on the educational experience to uptake and retention of cookery skills and technical language. As a result of the educational intervention, changes in personal attributes and perceptions of inherent sociocultural gender roles/caste emerged. Participation in the cookery skills training program contributed partially as a catalyst that improved confidence, communication skills and exposed to the women pathways toward self-sustainability, emancipation and empowerment within an often-hostile working environment for women from severely disadvantaged backgrounds in Nepal.


1984 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 73-80 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ian Fleming

Current evidence supports the effectiveness of behavioural methods in the treatment of trichotillomania (compulsive hair-pulling). In particular, the Habit Reversal Method has been demonstrated to be effective. Some discussion has centred on defining the active components of this “package” and whether it is applicable to all clients. This case study reports on the successful use of the method to treat a 19-year-old female. Treatment produced an immediate reduction in the number of hairs pulled out, although the client relapsed. Functional analysis was unable to detect any factors associated with this other than loss of client-therapist contact, and the re-introduction of treatment with an emphasis on client self-reinforcement for progress produced significant improvement. This continued upon withdrawal of treatment and was maintained at a follow-up 6 months later. In addition, the intervention resulted in the client being able to exhibit increased control over the behavioural chain which culminated in hairs being extracted. A relationship appeared to exist between these two forms of behaviour change. The findings were discussed with regard to the proposed active change agents in the treatment of trichotillomania.


2017 ◽  
Vol 80 (4) ◽  
pp. 473-483
Author(s):  
Rebecca A. Gilliland

This study reviews the application of a new training model, Sprint’s Social Media Ninja program, an innovative approach to using new media to initiate change. Sprint recognized change management must occur from employee ambassadors to relevant audiences including consumers and other employees. By teaching volunteer employees the strategic message savvy and tactical strengths needed to address social media comments about Sprint, “Social Media Ninjas” have become active change agents in Sprint’s reputation management strategies, product launches, and turnaround story. These unmasked company employees volunteer to address questions, concerns, and comments about the company, as well as to start original conversations.


2009 ◽  
Vol 2 (10) ◽  
pp. 15
Author(s):  
MARJORIE BESSEL
Keyword(s):  

1984 ◽  
Vol 29 (12) ◽  
pp. 940-940
Author(s):  
Stephen A. Appelbaum
Keyword(s):  

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