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 narrative style, this paper looks at how a particular teaching-learning event, a meeting in 2003 between Canadian high school students and their Costa Rican host families in Pedrogosso, Costa Rica, unveils pedagogies of global citizenship. By interweaving insights obtained from scholars of education, experiences of students, and reflections by…

"Bildung" has a long tradition in continental European education but in England it is less well known and is underused to theorise about education. In this paper the German concept of "Bildung" is applied to pre-service teacher education in England where teacher education has become increasingly dominated by instrumental and…

Cooperative learning can be considered as an umbrella term for a number of classroom practices. In this paper we consider the educative nature of cooperative learning in physical education, and we have challenged ourselves to examine how cooperative learning can enhance the education of young people. We do this by revisiting cooperative learning's…

John Dewey's educational philosophy provides a compelling resource for empowering adult vocational education through a cultural vision, ultimately rooted in a view of social democracy as the creative task of lifelong learning before us. This is supported by Dewey's interpretation of knowledge construction in its varied cognitive, ethical, and…

Notions of 'personal and social development' within experiential learning literature remain philosophically underdeveloped, often identified as something like practical wisdom or practical reasoning. Experiential learning practitioners and theorists make frequent claims regarding the 'life-changing' significance for participants; particularly in…

This article seeks to clarify the purpose of high-stakes exam and its relationship with teaching and learning by elucidating the educational thought of the eminent neo-Confucian thinker Zhu Xi. The paper contends that Zhu Xi views standardised testing as an essential means to evaluate the learning outcomes, honour exemplary scholars and select…

Although the French Renaissance sceptic Michel de Montaigne (1533-92) is a much-admired thinker among many literary historians and some philosophical ones, his oeuvre hardly features in critical surveys of ideas in education. This is strange given that Montaigne offers modern educators an exemplary form of communicative discourse which anticipates…

A complex and contested concept, sustainability presents a great challenge to teachers and learners. Field study is a potentially promising venue to unpack the problematics of sustainability in practice. This paper reflects on the Cascadia Sustainability Field School, offered through the University of Victoria, Canada, providing an overview of the…

This qualitative study explores how a community of enquiry pedagogy in combination with a social semiotic approach to visual analysis influenced the changing knowledge and concepts of knowledge experienced by students in an undergraduate teacher education course. The art of the Constitutional Court of South Africa was the focus of our study and…

In response to the changing demands of the U.S. healthcare system and the needs of the nursing profession, the Institute of Medicine, in collaboration with the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, spearheaded a two-year initiative to develop recommendations for the future of nursing. Discussions of these recommendations within nursing education led to…

The educational challenges faced today are driving us toward a new step in the evolution of educational theory and practice. Educators are called to go beyond simply presenting alternatives, to integrating the best of mainstream and alternative approaches and taking them to the next level. "Integral Education" accomplishes this by…

During a kayaking expedition in 1983, the author was sucked into an underwater tunnel in Mexico's Rio Urique. He miraculously emerged unharmed, but this near-death experience awakened in him a primal awareness that had been coddled to sleep by his so-called civilized perceptions. He gained intuitive insights from this awakening that enabled him to…

Contemporary schooling, particularly high schools, could benefit from a return to the model of Plato's Academy in which ecstatic experience provided a central and informative role in addressing the higher stages of human development. Supplementing traditional curricula with integral practices that address body, mind, and spirit, and reviving the…