Field-Based Art Programming As a Facilitator for Transformative Learning Experiences in Tertiary Education: Participants Reflections on Land Arts of the American West

Field-based art programming proposes a different pedagogical model to respond to contemporary challenges that artists face, ranging from ecological crises to the education and development of artists. This article analyzed interviews with field-based art programming participants across two decades, focusing on artists’ experiences through their own voices. Out of the interviews with participants from Land Arts of the American West, in which participants travel, camp, and create at different sites throughout the Southwest, the participants narrate important elements of field-based art programming. Using Mezirow’s theory of Transformative Learning, this article uses participants’ descriptions to analyze the pedagogical aspects of field-based art learning that denotes a transformative experience, distinct from what is available to them in conventional tertiary art classes. Central reoccurring themes identified include immersive nature, art-making, community, and place. Participants’ responses reveal Disorienting Dilemmas and having transformative experiences.

Enabling the Exploration of Disorienting Dilemma in the Classroom

While learning involves the acquisition of skills and the development of repertoires, some educators harbor even more profound learning goals, seeking to enable learning that is transformative. Theorizing about transformative learning posits that it is precipitated by a disorienting dilemma. Disorienting dilemmas may be thought of as times when new information causes a person to call into question their values, beliefs, or assumptions. Transformative learning can occur through rich, experiential learning experiences or life events, and it can also occur in the classroom. While much has been written about transformational learning, the teacher’s role in the process is undertheorized.

Transformative Learning in Field Education: Students Bridging the Theory/Practice Gap

In a four-year, four cohort study utilising a series of six focus groups, forty Masters of Social Work students preparing to graduate defined their personal and professional experiences of transformation in their respective social work field education settings. Using an inductive thematic analysis, students highlighted four key themes in their transformative learning (TL) process: (i) defining the nature of disorienting dilemmas in field education; (ii) critical self-reflection, coping and moving through disorienting dilemmas; (iii) identifying the transformative outcomes in a field context; and (iv) facilitative factors to TL in field education. The findings illuminate the essential role of the field supervisor in creating ‘relationship’. The field supervisor/student relationship is the conduit to students’ deep learning, critical reflection, identity shifts and empathy supporting the student’s navigation through their disorientating moments towards transformative and meaningful outcomes. This study extends our understanding of the role of TL theory within experiential learning contexts and the feasibility of its use in the social work field education experience.

Avantgarde utan auktoritet – miljöaktivism i en lågstadieklass

Denna artikel undersöker elevers handlingar efter möten med så kallade desorienterande dilemman i undervisning som förlagts till skogsmiljö. Artikeln bygger på en studie genomförd i den svenska grundskolans årskurs 2, där en lärarstudent, tillsammans med sin handledare, planerat och genomfört en Storyline, med syfte att låta eleverna skapa relationer till träd och därigenom att motverka växtblindhet. Det empiriska underlaget består av fältanteckningar från deltagande observation och transkriptioner från video¬inspelningar och från en intervju med lärarstudenten. Materialet analyseras genom kvalitativ innehållsanalys mot bakgrund av affektivt och transformativt lärande. Resultatet visar att när eleverna i studien gavs frihet att utforska skogsmiljön på egen hand, öppnades möjligheter till estetiska erfarenheter och till möten med desorien¬terande dilemman. Affektivt och transformativt lärande kan vara en pedagogisk ut¬gångspunkt som kan leda till elevens förändrade självbild och förändrat sätt att betrakta världen. Nyckelord: estetiska naturmöten, affektivt lärande, transformativt lärande, miljöperspektiv, desorienterande dilemman Avant-garde without authority – environmentalism in a lower primary class AbstractThis article examines students’ actions after encountering disorienting dilemmas within outdoor education in the forest. The article is based on a study conducted in a Swedish primary school, in second grade (8 years), where a student teacher, together with a supervisor, has planned and conducted a Storyline with the aim of creating relationships with trees in order to counteract plant blindness. The empirical data consists of field notes from participant observation and transcripts from video recordings and one interview with the student teacher. Qualitative content analysis is used with focus on affective and transformative learning. The result shows that when students had the opportunity to explore the forest on their own, possibilities of aesthetic experiences and encounters with disorienting dilemmas were given. Hence, affective and transformative learning may be a vital pedagogical departure, which can lead to students’ changing self-image and ways to view the world. Keywords: aesthetic meetings with nature, affective learning theory, transformative learning, environmental perspective, disorienting dilemmas

Clinical programs, social justice and transformation through student learning

This article considers whether different types of Clinical Legal Education (CLE) programs have the same potential to provide a transformative learning experience for students. The author uses Mezirow’s theory to postulate that, although addressing a societal need, ‘missing middle’ Clinical Legal Education programs – those that assist middle-income Australians – may not provide the necessary environment, including an environment ripe for ‘disorienting dilemmas’, for transformative learning. After a comparison of missing middle clinics in Australia and poverty law clinics in the United States of America (US), the author suggests that disorienting dilemmas may only be offered by Clinical Legal Education programs aimed at assisting society’s most vulnerable people.

Disorienting Dilemmas: A Studio Model for Teaching Meaning-Making and Reflection in Action

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.