Contemplative Education Commons^™

Ursinus Colloquium On Liberal Education: Curriculum Matters, Paul Stern, Ursinus College

Ursinus Colloquium on Liberal Education

This program for Ursinus College's second Colloquium on Liberal Education provides an outline of the open questions, panel discussions and activities of the two-day event.

Room For Breathing: Mindfulness, Currere, And Contemplative Practices In Teacher Education, Hongyu Wang, Jo Flory

Journal of Contemplative and Holistic Education

This paper explores the intersections of using autobiographical (currere) writing and mindful meditations as two forms of contemplative practices in teacher education, from the perspectives of both a secondary classroom teacher and a teacher educator. An experientially-based conceptual inquiry, it is contextualized through first-person autobiographical narrations reconstructed from the authors’ currere writings and mindfulness practices, in order to draw connections between both through the theme of making room for breathing. The pedagogical contexts surrounding how students practice mindfulness and currere in teacher education are discussed, and the body, emotions, temporality, space, and relationality are analyzed as intersecting and complementary …

Your Story, Your Life, Your Learning: Autobiography Reveals Basis For Supporting Personalized, Holistic Pedagogy, Michael Maser

Journal of Contemplative and Holistic Education

Each person ongoingly experiences the world uniquely through vital processes shaping their subjectivity, personhood and sense of self. Learning, an innate characteristic or modality of each human life, of living, likewise arises subjectively or idiosyncratically. In this paper, a phenomenological lens is applied to auto/biographical excerpts concerned with various learning experiences to help reveal essential, subjective characteristics of emergent learning. The insights help establish a basis for challenging the primacy of objectivist learning evaluations. The insights also confirm the importance of personalizing learning as a pedagogical gesture nurturing and enfranchising student learning in significant ways beyond conventional educational approaches …

Centering Linguistic Justice In The First Year Writing Classroom: An Argument For The Incorporation Of Code-Meshing And Narrative In Academic Writing, Traci Salazar

Masters Theses

The author addresses several questions across three chapters in relation to linguistic identity and standard language ideology in academic writing, particularly as it pertains to the First Year Writing classroom. Firstly, what is standard language ideology, and what are the detriments of its effects on students in the writing classroom? This answer is considered with an emphasis on the implications for students whose home languages are not in close proximity to Standard English (SE) and boils down to a homogenous language that is deemed ideal and is imposed upon others by dominant institutions, such as academic institutions. Within a literature …

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 …

Post-Truth's Effect On The Brain And The Future Self: A Critical Communication Pedagogy Response, David H. Kahl Jr.

Journal of Communication Pedagogy

The university was created for the critical examination of ideas to seek truth. However, the proliferation of post-truth messages has made this goal more difficult to reach, creating an important communication pedagogy problem. Hegemonic forces create post-truth messages to mislead people and play to their existing beliefs in order to maintain and advance power. Post-truth messages are particularly effective because they cause cognitive overload and temporal discounting. Critical communication pedagogy (CCP) is a means by which instructors and students can evaluate post-truth messages. CCP allows for dialogue to reduce the cognitive issues that post-truth messages cause and allow for the …

Letter From The Editor In Chief, Jeffrey Lee

Transform

The TRANSFORM journal is a space for leaders, mentors, researchers, and practitioners of transformational leadership to be seen, heard, and valued; it is a place for making connections. Relationship-building is central to transformational leadership at all levels of an organization; this fundamental truth is a trending topic in literature. Otherwise, however, leadership can be an isolating experience.

As an ethnographer, I believe the best way to launch an academic, peer-reviewed journal is to do what I do best: storytelling. I want to share my thoughts on transformational leadership through a story in the form of a letter to my younger …

Implications Of A Community-Based Learning Faculty Fellows Program To Facilitate Teaching And Learning In The Jesuit Tradition, Debra Fetherman, Julie Schumacher Cohen, Ovidiu Cocieru, Gerard Dumancas, Brian Snee, Patricia Wisniewski

Jesuit Higher Education: A Journal

The University of Scranton is one of the 28 Jesuit institutions of higher education located in the United States. Committed to community engagement and the development of Ignatian educators, a Community-Based Learning (CBL) Faculty Fellows Program was implemented academic year 2022-2023. The Ignatian Pedagogical Paradigm and the Engagement of Hope framework were used as models to develop, implement, and assess a CBL faculty development program. Program activities were designed to build faculty skills, capacities, and their identity as community-engaged practitioners. Lessons learned through program assessment on the impact on faculty’s transformation to Ignatian educators and their ability to imagine new …

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 …

Silence As An Educational Tool To Deconstruct Normative Societal Structures And Create Epistemic Trust, Milad Mohebali, Elmira Jangjou

Feminist Pedagogy

This article advances a teaching strategy to help students reflect on how they engage in class discussion by considering silence and silencing of voices in classroom discussions among peers as epistemic violence where a student’s capacity as a knower is questioned. We provide examples of silence(ing) we experienced as graduate international students from the Global South studying educational policy and leadership studies in the United States, to then share how we have used silence as a pedagogical tool to deconstruct the assumptions of the field and the society that keeps the silence as normative. We introduce third thinging as a …

Teaching To Develop Perspective, Skills, Confidence, And Identity As Problem-Solving Engineers, Russell Kirk Pirlo

Research and Reflection on Learning and Teaching in Higher Education

The “core” of an engineering degree program typically comprises the concepts, equations, and technical skills needed, as well as their practical application to common problems of the profession. This core is then divided into the “content” that must be covered in each course. It is widely recognized, however, that successful individuals do not thrive as professionals on content alone. Thus, there is significant and increasing emphasis across higher education to “educate the whole person.” These efforts aim to develop “deep” qualities like grit, critical thinking, perseverance, learning from failure, valuing diversity, teamwork, leadership, curiosity, recognizing opportunity, creating value, and acting …

Ursinus Colloquium On Liberal Education: Revolutions In Liberal Education, Paul Stern, Ursinus College

Ursinus Colloquium on Liberal Education

This program for Ursinus College's first Colloquium on Liberal Education provides an outline of the open questions, panel discussions and activities of the two-day event. Information about the panelists and moderators is also included.

How Doctoral Students In A Formal Leadership Program Conceptualize Followership: A Mixed-Methods Study, Katy J. Johnson

Dissertations, Theses, and Projects

The purpose of this exploratory mixed-methods study was to determine how doctoral students in a formal leadership program conceptualize followership. The methods used to conduct this analysis included distributing a Qualtrics (released in August 2022) survey and conducting one-on-one interviews with a sample of degree-seeking doctoral students within a formal leadership program. The researcher collected quantitative and qualitative data addressing students’ followership style, leadership attitudes and beliefs, and perceptions of followership. These data were analyzed concurrently using a triangulation design. A total of 67 students completed the survey, and seven students were interviewed. The findings revealed that the participants employ …

Becoming The Imperfect Friend: Sḵwx̱Wú7mesh And Contemplative Pathways To Healing And Reconciliation In Higher Education, Denise Marie Findlay

Journal of Contemplative and Holistic Education

Throughout this reflective essay I explore Sḵwx̱wú7mesh Indigenous philosophy and contemplative education as ethical pathways to healing and reconciliation in higher education. I put forth the idea of becoming the imperfect friend in a world ethos of death by a thousand cuts as a response to the violence of colonialism perpetuated in academia. I reflect on the Sḵwx̱wú7mesh values of eslhélha7kwhiws and stélmexw as contemplative dispositions that lend themselves to the process of becoming the imperfect friend. I conclude by describing a Sḵwx̱wú7mesh -led program hosted by Simon Fraser University (SFU) in 2022-2023, named Moving Together In The Ways …

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.

“Why You Always So Political?”: A Counterstory About Educational-Environmental Racism At A Predominantly White University, Martín Alberto Gonzalez

Chicano/Latino Studies Faculty Publications and Presentations

Using critical race counterstorytelling, I tell a story about the experiences of Mexican/Mexican American/Xicanx (MMAX) undergraduate students at private, historically and predominantly white university in the Northeast. Drawing on in-depth interviews, participant observations, pláticas, document analyses, and literature on race and space and racism in higher education, I argue that the racially hostile campus environment experienced by MMAX students at their respective university manifests itself as a form of educational-environmental racism. Through narrated dialogue, Aurora (a composite character) and I delve into a critical conversation about how educational-environmental racism is experienced by MMAX students through a racialized landscape in the …

Rubrics - Creating Transparency For Effective Teaching And Learning, Seamus Harrington

Other Resources

No abstract provided.

Research On Effects Of Grading, Heather J. Leslie Phd

Learning Design Center: Staff Scholarship

I believe we have shared goals for our students to become happy, ethical, caring, compassionate, independent, self-motivated, curious critical thinkers and lifelong learners. Decades of research on the effects of grades and grading undermines those goals. This executive summary presents just some of research on how grading affects students’ mental health, intrinsic motivation, critical thinking, and relationships with teachers and peers. Student survey results are included from a course taught without the use of grades.

Talking With Faculty About Cognitive Science And Learning, John Girash

Professional and Organizational Development Network in Higher Education: Archives

When it comes to teaching, faculty at a research-intensive institution can be very much like our students in relation to their studies: very smart people whose primary interests lie elsewhere or, at least, whose expertise is not in this area. And we hear over and over again the common wisdom that faculty want research-based ideas on teaching. This implies that we can treat the teaching of teachers about research-supported aspects of learning in ways analogous to teaching students about other academic topics.

In introducing research-based ideas into the pedagogical discussion, it can be tough to find a balance between concepts …