Although Westerners have used over 200 terms to describe self-directed learning (SDL), it is educators in Confucius heritage cultures (CHC) that have successfully promoted and implemented SDL. This article argues that for learners in the Western cultures, especially in the United States to catch up with learners in other industrialized nations…

Many educators view the process of education as transformative. This transformation is important in all classrooms, but it takes on added importance in prison classrooms. The education that inmates receive in prison can mean the difference between the doorway of freedom with a productive future and the revolving door of recidivism. For many prison…

Daisaku Ikeda (1928- ) is a Buddhist leader, peace builder, school founder, and poet. His own biography and lifework provide a model for how one can transform adversity into alternative opportunities for some of the most disenfranchised students. Scrutinizing Ikeda's official website (www.daisakuikeda.org) reveals an extensive collection of his…

This article provides an initial approach for capturing moments of talk about, around, and for writing to explain why writing groups and writing conferences are so often considered "transformative" for the people involved. After describing the widespread and yet disparate transformations so often attributed to collaborative writing talk, I…

Even though there are multiple literacies, the preoccupation and even reliance on the primacy of functional literacy, as seen as an end-point in the formal process of schooling, masks an ideology that rarely goes interrogated throughout all disciplines. This article considers the obligation and structure of functional literacy, and, in particular,…

Critical Civic Inquiry (CCI) is a transformative student voice initiative that engages students in critical conversations about educational equity and inquiry-based learning to increase student voice and promote civic action. A quasi-experimental study was conducted to assess if participation in CCI increased the psychological empowerment (as…

Transformative learning, and its processes as proposed by Mezirow, has been the subject of much debate. This study contributes to the literature about these debates by examining transformative experiences within a foreign service-learning context. Canadian post-secondary students lived and worked to build a school in solidarity with a community in…

Connecting with others and experiences of dissonance are two factors identified as central to transformative learning in engaged teaching and research (Kiely, 2005). At the same time, these ways of knowing are unpredictable and come with the risk of actually disrupting rather than enhancing learning. This article reports the findings of a mixed…

Colleges of agriculture in the US have been challenged to produce candidates prepared with the knowledge, skills, and disposition to engage in a global agricultural industry. Studies show that one of the most influential factors in secondary student perceptions and outlook is their secondary teachers. The adult learning theory of transformative…

Providing opportunities to foster students' civic engagement during their undergraduate education is a goal of many universities. There are a variety of ways in which students participate in community service and in community change efforts and social change initiatives; capturing how students integrate these experiences into their broader…

Contemporary propaganda is ubiquitous in our culture today as public relations and marketing efforts have become core dimensions of the contemporary communication system, affecting all forms of personal, social and public expression. To examine the origins of teaching and learning about propaganda, we examine some instructional materials produced…

Self-talk has been recognised as an important tool used by children to regulate their thinking and behaviour. Existing studies typically characterise children's self-talk according to broad categories that do not allow for investigation of self-regulatory aspects of children's internalised self-talk. The findings reported in this paper are based…

This paper reported results from a qualitative analysis of assets and supports disclosed in the narratives of adult basic education students. These students were identified as exemplary by their instructors for academic achievement, hours of program attendance, or community service. Themes were identified using the "Four Pillars"…

Seeing the need to change parts of one's teaching project may be the starting point for scholars to seek inspiration and guidance from educational psychologists for innovation in their teaching. In this report, the authors address the question of how educational psychologists can assist lecturers in higher education with the implementation of…

At a time of substantial change, globalization, and ubiquitous access to information, educators struggle to change even the most basic aspects of their classrooms. This is especially true for those in challenging contexts where many perpetuate the "mind numbing" practice of rote instruction. This paper describes a collaborative…