Looking back on his vocational journey, the author explores three "conversations" among academic and local church religious educators originating in teaching practice that culminate in a discussion of religious education as a field of study. These conversations focus attention on teaching in the transformation of persons and communities, on…

This article reports on a research project that explored the manner in which veteran school principals become aware of, and committed to, new perspectives and practices. Personal stories of formative and transformative change from the careers of 23 school principals were collected and analyzed comparatively. Four analytic tools were devised that…

This article proposes the Teacher Observation Programme for in-service teacher trainees. The program is reflective, collaborative, and builds confidence. It enables teachers to grow in their ability to self-evaluate. Trainees who have made decisions about their own observation, who have created and used their own observational tools, and who have…

Maxima was an intervention project that focused on assisting teachers to establish more inquiry-based, gender-inclusive, and culturally relevant learning environments. The authors grounded the project by using sociotransformative constructivism as a theoretical framework to steer the implementation of three guiding concepts for professional…

The authors focused on the experiences of teachers involved in two diversity initiatives at Iowa State University in order to demonstrate that such initiatives succeed only if they are characterized by the mutuality of learning that teachers and students share, which is an intrinsic part of transformative education. Multicultural teaching…

With the evolution of technology, students can now take online classes that may not be offered in their home schools. While online courses are commonly found in many high schools, WebQuests are used more commonly in elementary schools. Through the exploration of WebQuests, students are able to integrate the Internet into classroom activities. The…

For the purpose of reflective analysis, this article, which employs narrative inquiry as a research methodology, combines two "crossing the boundaries" dilemmas I experienced over the course of a decade. While the dilemmas relate to different issues that emerged in my career (standardized testing as a K-12 teacher and the formal…

Amanda Haertling Thein, Richard Beach, and Daryl Parks explore the subtle yet powerful changes that transpire when white students encounter multicultural literature and experience tensions between their beliefs and those that appear in the texts. As students mediate the tensions, they become more critically aware of their beliefs and may be more…

The advantages of transformative learning approaches in graduate education parallel the tenets of mentoring and lifelong learning. Under this theoretical framework, adult student achievement in leadership programming can be assessed as a developmental and individualized process. The mixed methods study presented here illustrates that it is…

Graduate students seeking certification as literacy specialists were asked to send monthly newsletters home with their students as a requirement for one of their courses. They were also asked to critically examine their newsletters, to discuss the impact, if any, it made on their relationships with parents, and to reflect on the experience. This…

The 2010 International Pre-Conference of the Commission on International Adult Education (CIAE), American Association for Adult & Continuing (AAACE), was successfully conducted from October 24-26, at the Hilton Clearwater Beach Resort, Clearwater Beach, Florida. This publication includes the papers presented during the conference. These are:…

Increasing diversity and linguistics complexity in classrooms is occurring in schools throughout the world. Bilingual teachers need to develop knowledge and skills to succees in teaching diverse students. Demographic shifts are bringing increasing numbers of international students from diverse racial, ethnic, religious, class, and linguistic…

Elementary and secondary school teachers certainly know that assessment is like a mirror. What their students learn reflects back on them. However, there is often a disconnect between student and faculty assessment in higher education. While all professors take responsibility for creating and disseminating knowledge, most do not like to be held…

This chapter describes an innovative writing program at Simon Fraser University that has implications for fostering transformative learning.

In summarizing the shared themes of the authors of the previous chapters, this chapter explores the role of the transformative educator, the transformative classroom environment, the transformative text, and the student when teaching for change.