The School Completion Programme (SCP) was first established in Ireland in 2002 with what appeared to resemble a "bottom up" model of support. The programme was based on authentic effort at partnership with schools, parents and relevant agencies through local management committees and enjoyed a fair share of autonomy in how they would…

Ostensibly, the orientation towards learning outcomes in adult English language and literacy delivery ensures that the focus is on standardised skill development and knowledge acquisition of students. Such measureable development is seen as foundational to broader employability skills and job readiness. It is an agenda however which ignores the…

Young people now must compete in a global, knowledge-based, innovation-centered economy; they must acquire not just academic knowledge, but also character attributes such as intrinsic motivation, persistence, and flexibility. To accomplish these ambitious goals, the National Research Council (2012) of the United States recommends the use of…

The Teaching for Transformative Experience in Science (TTES) model has shown to be a useful tool to generate learning and engagement in science. We investigated the effectiveness of TTES for facilitating transformative experience (TE), learning, the development of topic interest and transfer of course concepts to other courses employing a…

This article explores the perspectives of seven teachers in England who teach pupils with severe profound and multiple learning difficulties about their learning to teach this group of students. Teachers' views were captured through a combination of synchronous and asynchronous online communications. Four themes emerged from teachers' perspectives…

The 41st annual conference of the Adult and Higher Education Alliance (AHEA) was held at the University of Central Florida in March 2017 and explored the theme, "Writing Our Way: Giving Voice to Adult Learning." Papers in these proceedings include: (1) Transformative Learning Following Job Loss-A Dissertation Renewal (Robert Benway); (2)…

In the early 1990s, a popular American dorm-room poster luminously asserted crass materialism as "JUSTIFICATION FOR HIGHER EDUCATION". Self-consciously premised on the paradoxical success of my failure or failure of my success as a professor of Renaissance literature and culture, this essay draws on Erasmus's educational theory of…

This article explores how dialogue journals can lead to a transformative learning experience. Adult Latino students enrolled in a community college developmental reading class agree to speak truth to power through this critical writing process. Using Mezirow's (2002) transformational learning theory, Brookfield's (2000) concepts on teaching for…

Social constructivist theorists tend to identify qualitative educational research as discovering meaning and understanding by the researcher's active involvement in the construction of meaning. Although these approaches have been widely influenced by Vygotsky's social constructivist approach, his own theoretical framework has received…

What would a professional development experience rooted in the philosophy, principles, and practices of restorative justice look and feel like? This article describes how such a professional development project was designed to implement restorative justice principles and practices into schools in a proactive, relational and sustainable manner by…

As pedagogy experts, teacher educators should lead the charge for improved teaching and learning, but are under-utilized pedagogy resources in liberal arts universities. In this paper, the collaborators, one a teacher education assistant professor and the other an associate professor of art history, identify critical friendship group approaches…

As educators and lifelong learners, we were drawn together by the question: How have we fostered our own capacity for agency, self-efficacy and risk-taking in the research practices we utilize? This paper reveals a connectivity and enabling thread that has enriched our experiences within and across our disciplinary areas. In particular this paper…

This article investigates three teacher learners' service learning experiences, in order to explore the extent to which approaches to service learning can lead to legitimate learning outcomes tied to transformative teacher growth and situated in tenets of social justice. Using student interview data, the author posits that service learning fails…

This article presents findings from a research study wherein participants demonstrated the use of similes, metaphors, and analogies, termed "conceptual metaphors," in response to disorienting dilemmas instigated by breast cancer. In this qualitative case study of 18 breast cancer survivors, conceptual metaphors were used in three…

In order to have long-term impact ESD concepts, practices and policies should move into societal, policy and research arenas with high visibility and traction. In the process of going "transboundary", the ESD label may fade but the practice and organization of social and collaborative learning may gain.