Contemplative Education Commons^™

Challenging Stem Learning Spaces: The Paradigm Of Contemplative Traditions As The Bedrock Of Creativity And Healing, Raaghav Pandya, Christopher Emdin

Journal of Contemplative and Holistic Education

As the post-pandemic classroom and pedagogy evolve to remedy oppressive norms, young people’s mental health and alienation has taken front stage (Rahmani & Zitouni, 2022). Traditional STEM learning spaces often teach inquiry as a linear, non-deviated approach to problems about self and nature (Hrisa & Psillos, 2022). Furthermore, because our classrooms often strip students and educators of their inherent creative abilities through constant assessments, improvement scales, and market-driven expectations, classrooms cease to become places of healing (Pandya, 2021). Eastern wisdom traditions and their associated philosophies provide a unique pedagogical lens that emphasizes a deep inquiry into self, empathy, and creativity …

Using Research-Focused Llms, David Farnsworth, Elizabeth Stone

Faculty Presentations on AI

This hands-on workshop introduces university faculty to practical AI tools that support the full academic research workflow, from initial discovery to synthesis and writing. Participants explore the “Big 5” research tools—Perplexity.ai, Scite.ai, Elicit.com, ResearchRabbit, and SciSpace.com—along with Google’s Gemini extensions and NotebookLM, a source-grounded AI designed to analyze uploaded documents while maintaining privacy and providing live citations. The session demonstrates how these tools can accelerate literature reviews, fact-checking, visual mapping of citations, and deep synthesis of complex sources. Faculty also learn strategies for integrating AI responsibly into teaching, including helping students manage bibliographies, using AI for rubric-based feedback, and creating …

Ai Strategies For Effective Teaching & Learning, Dr. Jared Johnston, Prof. Adrian Caraballo

Faculty Presentations on AI

This presentation discusses strategies for effectively integrating artificial intelligence into college classrooms, with a focus on developing AI literacy among students and faculty. Core principles highlight AI as a tool for augmentation rather than replacement, with faculty maintaining oversight while supporting learner preparation, clinical reasoning, and reflective practice. The session stresses the need to rethink course and activity design in the AI era, training students to strategically offload tasks without cognitively offloading thinking. Practical guidance includes questions for intentional integration, experiential learning approaches, and real-world classroom examples from operational leadership courses in which students apply AI within authentic educational leadership …

Ai In The Classroom, Dr. Adrian E. Hinkle, Dr. Amanda Wilson, Dr. Jan H. R. Wörner

Faculty Presentations on AI

This presentation examines how educators can thoughtfully integrate artificial intelligence into the classroom while upholding academic integrity, ethical engagement, and the core mission of education. It draws on historical parallels—from ancient concerns about writing to later fears surrounding typing—to frame AI as a double-edged sword that can offload routine cognitive tasks yet risks eroding the mental discipline and critical thinking essential for deep learning. Centered on the guiding question of what students truly need to learn and how technology can help them achieve it, the session offers practical assignment frameworks, such as designing an AI-supported ministry plan and developing a …

Ai In Scholarship, Dr. Tim Hart

Faculty Presentations on AI

This presentation explores the appropriate role of artificial intelligence in scholarly work, distinguishing between uses that support academic rigor and those that undermine intellectual responsibility. While cautioning against reliance on AI for original argumentation, unverified literature reviews, data interpretation, and normative judgments, it highlights practical applications across the research lifecycle, including ideation, literature exploration, argument refinement, structural analysis, reviewer simulation, and manuscript preparation.

Evolving Design Critique For A Changing Industry, Sejin Hwang, Amy Ai, Leo Bang, Yuchen Chen, Kathryn Chen, Tiffany Chang, Stephen Jiang, Chloe Jo, Eileen Lee, Nicole Lu, Ray Liu, Kevin Wei, Elaine Zhang, Ellano Zhou

Student Work

This class serves as an exploratory practice in response to existing studies evaluating critique environments in the design industry. Previous studies identified three key limitations in the critique process: (1) a lack of experience for novice designers working with non-designers when reviewing their work, (2) an ineffective final review structure, and (3) a need for a more constructive and engaging feedback-sharing environment.1 To address these challenges, the course was designed to “critique” critique activities and develop strategic solutions to transform the way design work is reviewed, analyzed, and critiqued. The course was part of a pilot fall semester program called …

Collaborative Aesthetic Experiences And Teacher Learners: Arts-Practice Research In A Teacher Education Classroom, Theresa A. Catalano, Inoussa Malgoubri, Jennifer Bockerman, Hector Palala Martínez, Mackayla Kelsey, Leonardo Brandolini, Ilia Shcherbakov

Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education: Faculty Publications

This paper explores the experiences of six teacher learners and one teacher educator in a graduate course on aesthetic education at a Midwestern university in the U.S. Using collective autoethnography and arts-practice research, the researcher/participants examine how aesthetic experiences were activated in the learning environment and how this activation supported the development of transformational rethinking that led to the changing of formed habits of teaching. Findings reveal how aesthetic teacher education can be therapeutic, aid in building connections between the teacher and students (and among students), inspire wonder and discovery, facilitate the valuing and including of cultural and linguistic backgrounds …

The Pulse Of Connection: Professors' Experience Of Positive Relationships With Students–An Interpretative Phenomenology And Photovoice Study, Ileya N. Grosman

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

In higher education, the focus on student success often takes center stage in research and the professor-as-teacher practice. While numerous empirical studies concentrate on the growth and development of undergraduate students, this dissertation delves into professors’ relational and felt experiences in positive teaching-learning relationships. Four terminal-degreed professors from four different schools and three different disciplines–education, humanities, and leadership–engaged in photography and were then interviewed. Participants reflected on their photographs and their experiences in a teaching-learning relationship with their students. The present study aimed to illuminate the unspoken language of connection by utilizing interpretive phenomenology and photovoice to uncover professors’ relational …

An Inquiry Into Hope And Imagination In Jesuit Education: Ignatian Design Thinking As A Lens For Exploration, Stacy Neier Beran, Patrick M. Green

Jesuit Higher Education: A Journal

Hope and imagination are foundational to a Jesuit education, and as central tenets, inform teaching and learning through Ignatian pedagogy. The authors explore hope and imagination in the Jesuit context through the lens of scholar-practitioner inquiry, drawing from the local context and practice of an Ignatian design thinking course as a source of knowledge. This inquiry approach is rooted in practice-based research, and situates scholarly exploration through lines of inquiry and problems of practice, specifically exploring how design thinking fosters curiosity and creates space for teaching imagination and hope. The authors draw on their teaching experiences, course design, and professional …

Book Review: Kumar, Ashwani. (Ed.). (2022). Engaging With Meditative Inquiry In Teaching, Learning, And Research: Realizing Transformative Potentials In Diverse Contexts. New York, Ny: Routledge., Giovanni Rossini Phd

Journal of Contemplative and Holistic Education

Book Review of following text:

Kumar, Ashwani. (Ed.). (2022). Engaging with Meditative Inquiry in Teaching, Learning, and Research: Realizing Transformative Potentials in Diverse Contexts. New York, NY: Routledge.

Introduction To A Universal Performance Improvement Method (Chigen-Iku), Yoshihiko Ariizumi

Learning, Teaching, & Researching Optimization

This brief article introduces a universal performance improvement method called Chigen-iku, which has been developed carefully and extensively over more than 25 years through more than 100 individual and group projects based on the principles that were selected through my doctorial study in the field of Instructional Psychology and Technology.

Creative Connections: A Guidebook For Arts-Based Inquiry, Julia Marshall, Kimberley D'Adamo, Ann Ledo Lane

Kimberley D'Adamo: Art, Curriculum, Publications, and Other Scholarly Works

Art-based inquiry is an approach to art education that frames art making as a form of inquiry—a way of exploring and learning about ideas, ourselves and the world. The goals of art-based inquiry are understanding important topics, imagining possibilities, and inventing new realities. Students create art in order to meet those goals and they do it with a teacher’s guidance. For Creative Connections, art-based inquiry calls for a slight shift in perspective and change in practice. Adopting art-based inquiry does not mean throwing out everything you do. It means seeing art class diff erently and adapting it to a more …

Art Studio As Thinking Lab: Fostering Metacognition In Art Classrooms, Julia Marshall, Kimberley D'Adamo

Kimberley D'Adamo: Art, Curriculum, Publications, and Other Scholarly Works

What can high school art classes offer to both aspiring artists and students who have other interests and goals? Here’s an answer: thinking skills. Thinking skills are essential for all learners, and both art creation and encoun-tering art provide opportunities for complex thinking and, therefore, for honing conceptual skills. Beyond that, art experiences can spur students to reflect on how they think and to expand and refine their thinking. That is to say, art classes can cultivate metacognition.

This article pursues both trains of thought and describes how an art class can be an art thinking lab—a site for everyone …

Art Practice As Research In The Classroom: A New Paradigm In Art Education, Julia Marshall, Kimberley D'Adamo

Kimberley D'Adamo: Art, Curriculum, Publications, and Other Scholarly Works

Student experiences at Berkeley High School reveal the generative potential of the art practice-as-research approach—how deep, broad, and creative the learning can be, and how powerful this model is in changing student attitudes toward art and themselves as artists and learners. This model of self-directed, inquiry-based learning works well because student art practice is cast as research and is structured as research. As a result, students make discoveries and connections that go beyond their expectations. They also acquire skills and understandings that transfer into their academic studies. In partic-ular, they find that learning can be engaging and that a trail …