Developing Transformative Spaces In Higher Education

Higher education has been presented as a solution to a host of local and global problems, despite the fact that learning and assessment can also be used as mechanisms for exclusion and social control. Developing Transformative Spaces in Higher Education: Learning to Transgress demonstrates that even when knowledge may appear to be the solution, it can be partial and disempowering to all but the dominant groups. The book shows the need to contest such knowledge claims and to learn to transgress, rather than to conform. It argues that transformative spaces need to be found and that these should be about the creation of new opportunities, ways of knowing and ways of being. Working in and through spaces of transgression, the contributors to this volume develop frameworks for the possibilities of transformative spaces in learning and teaching in higher education. The book critiques the ways in which Western higher education culture determines the academic agenda in relation to dialogue on social differences, minority groups and hierarchical structures, including issues of representation among different groups in the population. It also explores the personal and political costs of transgression and outlines ways in which transitions can be transformative. The book should be of interest to academics, researchers and postgraduate students engaged in the study of higher education, education studies, teacher training, social justice and transformation. It should also be essential reading for practitioners working in post-compulsory education.

This volume captures the spirit of collaboration and innovation that its authors bring into the classroom, as well as to groundbreaking undergraduate programs and initiatives. Coming from diverse points of view and twenty different disciplines, the contributors illuminate the often perplexing debates about what matters most in higher education today. Each chapter tells a unique story about creating vital pedagogical arenas that have the potential to transform teaching and learning for both faculty and students. These exploratory spaces include courses under construction, cross-college and interdisciplinary collaborations, general education reform initiatives, and fresh perspectives on student support services, faculty development, freshman learning communities, writing across the curriculum, on-line degree initiatives, and teaching and learning centers. All these spaces lend shape to an over-arching, system-wide project bringing together the often disconnected silos of undergraduate education at The City University of New York (CUNY), America’s largest urban public university system. Since 2003, the University’s Office of Undergraduate Education has sponsored coordinated efforts to study and improve teaching and learning for the system’s 260,000 undergraduates enrolled at 18 distinct colleges. The contributors to this volume present a broad spectrum of administrative and faculty perspectives that have informed the process of transforming the undergraduate experience. Combined, the voices in these chapters create a much-needed exploratory space for the interplay of ideas about how teaching and learning need to matter in evolving notions of higher education in the twenty-first century. In addition, the text has wider social relevance as an in-depth exploration of change and reform in a large public institution.

This volume captures the spirit of collaboration and innovation that its authors bring into the classroom, as well as to groundbreaking undergraduate programs and initiatives. Coming from diverse points of view and twenty different disciplines, the contributors illuminate the often perplexing debates about what matters most in higher education today. Each chapter tells a unique story about creating vital pedagogical arenas that have the potential to transform teaching and learning for both faculty and students. These exploratory spaces include courses under construction, cross-college and interdisciplinary collaborations, general education reform initiatives, and fresh perspectives on student support services, faculty development, freshman learning communities, writing across the curriculum, on-line degree initiatives, and teaching and learning centers. All these spaces lend shape to an over-arching, system-wide project bringing together the often disconnected silos of undergraduate education at The City University of New York (CUNY), America’s largest urban public university system. Since 2003, the University’s Office of Undergraduate Education has sponsored coordinated efforts to study and improve teaching and learning for the system’s 260,000 undergraduates enrolled at 18 distinct colleges. The contributors to this volume present a broad spectrum of administrative and faculty perspectives that have informed the process of transforming the undergraduate experience. Combined, the voices in these chapters create a much-needed exploratory space for the interplay of ideas about how teaching and learning need to matter in evolving notions of higher education in the twenty-first century. In addition, the text has wider social relevance as an in-depth exploration of change and reform in a large public institution.

This edited book draws on an international cohort of authors, all working towards sustainable, decolonizing human development for more just futures in a variety of learning spaces. Integrating sustainable human development with ‘reparative futures’, the chapters present diverse examples of how transformative learning spaces can be created through different participatory methodologies and with different stakeholders. The book will be of interest to researchers, graduate students, practitioners and policymakers in the areas of higher education, development studies and transformative innovation.

Re-imagining Academic Staff Development: Spaces for Disruption, a book with a strong commitment to social transformation, is a welcome addition to the field of academic development studies. South Africa may have unique social challenges, but in highlighting higher education?s central role in responding to them, this book reminds academic developers everywhere of the intrinsic politicalness of our work. In a series of theoretically diverse chapters, all written by members of the Centre for Higher Education Research, Teaching and Learning at Rhodes University, we are provoked to reconsider the meaning of our practice and why we do it. An enlivening read! ? Barbara Grant, The University of Auckland, New Zealand.

Creating Transformative Online Communities in Higher Education provides a practical approach for building authentic learning experiences into the design and delivery of online teaching and learning systems. Combining three conceptually related ideas—complexity theory, transformative learning, and the Community of Inquiry—this novel, highly applicable framework enables instructors to create compelling virtual learning experiences for students. As higher education faculty, instructional designers, and graduate students shift from presenting information to creating experiences, the book offers an evidence-based disruption of the current thinking on and practice of course design.

This edited volume analyzes cases of higher education programs engaging with sustainable development. Offering cases from across the globe that focus on the role of universities in promoting societal transformations and building sustainable futures, the volume specifically discusses how higher education institutions can educate for the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). As critical spaces for research, development, and innovation, higher education institutions are fundamental change agents for societal transformations. Their role in disseminating sustainability through different paths is undeniable, and it is worth discussing the dimensions that surround the concept of sustainability within universities. Considering the role of policy, curriculum, practice, teaching, research, and development paths in universities, this book looks at the contributions of higher education sector to our vision of sustainable development. This publication offers readers a chance to look at different higher education institutions’ engagement with sustainable development through political, managerial, curricular and practical steps.

The leading authorities in the field produced this comprehensive resource, which provides strategies and methods for fostering Transformative Learning (TL) practice in a wide variety of higher and adult education settings. The book answers relevant questions such as: What are effective practices for promoting TL in the classroom? What is it about TL that is most helpful in informing practice? How does the teaching setting shape the practice of TL? What are the successes, strengths, and outcomes of fostering TL? What are the risks and challenges when practicing TL in the classroom?