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…

Diversity and diversity education are driving forces in metropolitan universities that seek stronger alignment with nearby metropolitan statistical areas. As a result, many metropolitan universities wish to engage in diversity efforts; however, they often lack the resources for doing so. In addition, institutional efforts are often the result of…

Transitioning into faculty roles can be a challenging experience. Responsibilities related to teaching, research, and service can be difficult to balance, and mismatch between personal preferences for work focus and instructional expectations can be problematic. This is particularly true of visiting assistant professors who want to work toward…

As the number of adults seeking to learn the piano increases, so too does the need for piano teachers to understand how to better facilitate their learning. Self-direction is an oft-cited requirement of adult learning, but one that is often absent from piano studios. This practitioner-based research investigates the role of the teacher in…

This qualitative study, situated within a larger interdisciplinary effort by a graduate school of education and human development at a large private university on the east coast, documents the perspectives of administrative interns on the significance of their experiences engaged in clinical practice. Semi-structured interview data from 20…

This study aims to understand the recurrent challenges of professional development school (PDS) partnerships experienced by many countries. It does so by conceptualizing PDS partnerships as endeavors to cross institutionally and epistemologically developed boundaries between teacher education, schooling, and academic research. After introducing…

In order for teacher education programs to act as significant scaffolds in supporting new teachers to become informed, creative and innovative members of a highly complex and valuable profession, we need to re-imagine ways in which teacher education programs operate. We need to re-imagine how courses are conceptualized and connected, how learning…

The importance of leadership in organizations has increased and leadership training and development has advanced and peoples' performance. Institutions in higher education are investing heavily in advancement of leadership programs aimed at improving learners' leadership skills and scholars. To this day, many scholars in higher institutions…

Leadership programs have been extensively promoted in rural communities in Australia. However, few have been evaluated. The results of the evaluation of a rural leadership program provided in this paper highlight the need for adult learning theories to be more overtly identified and utilised as the basis of planning and implementing leadership…

The cultural experiences of minority learners are often omitted from the formal curriculum leading to exclusion and a sense of cultural loss. In this study, the researcher's lived experience serves as the basis to develop a novel research strategy: transformative autoethnography. The researcher uses the method of autoethnography to more…

In this paper, I explore the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning through the lens of transformative learning theory and critical theory. In doing so, I expand the notion of a Scholarship of Teaching so as to go beyond the solving of practical problems in teaching and the improvement of teaching effectiveness. I focus on an emancipatory…

Understanding what is lacking in the online teaching literature is critical to helping researchers and practitioners develop programs and support mechanisms for online teachers in higher education. This review formulates a critique of the standards- and competency-driven vision of online teaching from the perspective of transformative learning…

This dissertation was an in-depth investigation of successful online teaching in the context of higher education. It is presented in nontraditional dissertation format as approved by the Department of Curriculum and Instruction, Iowa State University. This dissertation includes three publishable journal articles that would represent Chapter 2, 3…

Many inmates arrive in prison with weak educational backgrounds and social skills as well as psychological problems and drug and alcohol addiction. The focus of this phenomenological study was to identify roles of prison educators in helping inmate students overcome their challenges through transformative experiences that motivate the students to…

"Transformative learning" is a term used by Mezirow (1991) and his followers to designate a specifically "adult" kind of learning that involves shifts in how learners view the world and themselves. New research into learning in VET suggests that in some subject areas transformative learning may play more than an incidental…