This article troubles a pervasive concept within higher education studies: authentic assessment. Authentic assessment is well-established within higher education, and yet its common usage leaves it limited in possibility. Often understood as a practice focused on tasks, where assessments represent a 'reality' beyond universities, authentic…

Caring is a key instructor characteristic in higher education with transformative potential. Instructor caring fosters deep connections with students, both inside and outside the classroom, and has consistently proven to be a potent catalyst for student success. Due to the residual effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, the importance of having caring…

Social and emotional learning (SEL) programs have traditionally evaded or been silent on issues of (in)equity and, thus, critiqued for their lack of attention to how social injustices create different outcomes for different groups (The Education Trust, 2020). Furthermore, these efforts have been criticized for placing the burden on individual…

This narrative shares a personal account of how the actions of one person can truly motivate, inspire, and challenge another person to transform. This reflective story outlines the actions of my transformational leader and also indicates how those behaviors align with a transformational leadership model published well after the interaction. I also…

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…

In response to the significant disruption posed by emergent AI technology, we propose a four part framework for teaching and learning practice and development. Rather than focus on the specific technologies of the moment, this framework provides actionable suggestions for individuals with varying views of AI and its positive and negative…

Amongst a group of poet-scholar friends, all of us students of the American poet Robert Bly, we often speak of our "gratitude to old teachers," the title from one of Bly's (1999) poems. We cherish a meditative awareness of deeply rooted presences holding us up, buoying us as we stride across "Water that once could take no human…

How might literature be shared with students for transformative purposes? Literature has the power to shape students' worldviews through the exploration of diverse human experiences, but how students engage with diverse characters is important to reaching transformative goals. The author identified teachers' pedagogical moves within a preschool…

Students who participate in a study abroad experience report it as a life-changing event or an experience that will have long-term effects on both students and faculty. But what exactly does that mean? Is this simply a natural result of such a trip or is it more involved? By looking at the research and informal evaluations of the participants, it…

To understand the nature of student-faculty partnerships we began to explore the literature on students and educators as pedagogical partners. What emerged was a strong alignment between our transformational partnership as co-teachers in higher education and how our co-teaching practice has evolved to influence our relationships with students.…

In this manuscript, we discuss the unique characteristics of critical bicultural-bilingual pedagogues. A sociocultural transformative framework anchors the notion of critical bicultural-bilingual pedagogues and builds on my own as well the work of other scholars. There are two overarching themes that are considered regarding critical…

The use of culturally relevant texts can support students' reading development, foster a love of reading, help students form positive identities, and broaden their social consciousness. Well-matched culturally relevant texts have particular promise in increasingly diverse classrooms. Drawing on the academic literature and their experience as…

A core component of invitational education is taking an intentionally inviting stance, whereby the teacher achieves and maintains an optimally inviting environment by intentionally practicing care, trust, respect, and optimism with students. These elements are rooted in the affective domain. Affective teaching involves the use of empathy. Humans…

Cultural historical activity theory perspectives are drawn in this paper to realize collective transformative agency and the externalization of individual student identity, with students seeking personalized assistance from their teacher while learning mathematics at a grade eight classroom in Sweden. Even as teacher-researcher collaboration and…

It is not every day that a former student greets a teacher with, "Your course changed my life." The authors are the professor and student of the transformative course. Alicia Gonzales wanted to understand how to work with students to co-construct an environment where persistent problem solving in a technologically rich classroom was the…