International Journal for Transformative Research最新文献

{"title":"Small shifts, big changes: changing the story for students with Sensory Processing Sensitivity (SPS)","authors":"K. Cater","doi":"10.1515/ijtr-2016-0010","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/ijtr-2016-0010","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract It is my privilege to work as a tertiary learning advisor (TLA). Through my role I have had the opportunity to form unique relationships with students during individual consultations. This has enabled me to observe student behaviour, and the metacognitive strategies students use to negotiate the myriad challenges of tertiary study. I noticed trends in student behaviour that did not fit current literature on teaching and learning, and identified possible links between the observed student feelings of overwhelm, and sensory processing sensitivity (SPS) and highly sensitive people (HSP), the term used to describe humans with SPS. This paper examines the transformative journey I took in identifying the key indicators of SPS, firstly in myself, and then in my students. My burgeoning knowledge and reflection on and in my own practice provided self-scaffolding that enabled me to recognise and share the markers of SPS. My study ‘Does an understanding of HSP help students who identify as Highly Sensitive People (HSP) to manage their learning?’ found that HSP students unanimously rate the knowledge of SPS to be life-changing and empowering in managing life and study. All participants also believed that information about SPS should be made available to all in-coming students, and that tutors should be given training and resources in order to better support HSP students. Of significance, it also found that tertiary students with SPS have often already developed useful metacognitive strategies for independent and life-long learning by the time they reach tertiary level education.","PeriodicalId":142117,"journal":{"name":"International Journal for Transformative Research","volume":"25 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2016-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"132077466","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The role of subjectivity: Response to Noriyuki Inoue","authors":"Joan Walton","doi":"10.1515/ijtr-2016-0004","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/ijtr-2016-0004","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This paper offers a response to Dr Noriyuki Inoue’s article published in this issue of the International Journal for Transformative research, entitled The role of subjectivity in teacher expertise development: Mindfully embracing the “black sheep” of educational research. Inoue freely uses the terms ‘subjectivity’ and ‘objectivity’; but referring to findings from quantum physics and consciousness studies, both of which challenge the view that it is possible to observe a world that exists independently of the observer, I ask whether the Japanese concepts of jikkan and ba actually also suggest that it is not possible to separate and define subjective and objective dimensions of reality.","PeriodicalId":142117,"journal":{"name":"International Journal for Transformative Research","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2016-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"127364271","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"How ideas of transformative learning can inform academic blogging","authors":"M. Hammond","doi":"10.1515/ijtr-2016-0006","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/ijtr-2016-0006","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This paper looks at blogging by academics and argues that there is a niche role for an academic blog informed by principles of transformative learning. I begin by describing my experiences of blogging, first, as a reader while carrying out my own doctoral research, next, as a teacher introducing blogs to my students, then as a writer of my own journal blog. I suggest that transformative learning principles provide a frame of reference for understanding these experiences, in particular, by offering an idea of autonomy which puts subjective experience in social contexts. I then suggest that academics interested in transformative learning might learn a more engaging style of writing from bloggers.","PeriodicalId":142117,"journal":{"name":"International Journal for Transformative Research","volume":"50 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2016-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"121470817","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Learning from childhood: children tell us who they are through online dialogical interaction","authors":"Susanna Saracco","doi":"10.1515/ijtr-2016-0001","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/ijtr-2016-0001","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Philosophy of childhood is a field of inquiry in which the protagonists are adults, who are trying to understand children, and children, who are trying to be understood by adults. These two operating agents must find a common ground that renders their communication possible. This piece develops and illustrates the notion that no theorisation can exist if the authors of the theories do not know the subjects of their study, and thus that philosophers of childhood cannot contribute to knowledge about childhood unless they create occasions for the voices of children to be heard. Therefore, when activities are devised for the free expression of childhood, they cannot meaningfully be categorised as separate from philosophy of childhood. The latter cannot exist without the former. Philosophy of childhood and philosophy for children are interlaced in their work with children. Once the nature of childhood is understood through what children tell about themselves, instead of narrated through the interpretive frameworks of adults, the rights of the children can be effectively protected.","PeriodicalId":142117,"journal":{"name":"International Journal for Transformative Research","volume":"57 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2016-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"132913967","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The role of subjectivity in teacher expertise development: Mindfully embracing the “black sheep” of educational research","authors":"Noriyuki Inoue","doi":"10.1515/ijtr-2016-0003","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/ijtr-2016-0003","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract In Western cultures, subjectivity has often been seen as the “black sheep” of educational research because of its heavy emphasis on objectivity. Consequently many research initiatives in education share the assumption that objective reasoning should play a central role. However, mentoring teachers’ practice improvement research often requires us to go beyond the objective dimension and encompass the subjective dimension of the research process such as teachers’ intuition, tacit knowledge and personal meaning-making. The challenge that lies in front of us is how to mindfully make sense of the role of subjectivity in teacher expertise development. This paper examines this issue in terms of three case studies of in-service teachers’ action research projects and points to what it takes for us to mindfully embrace subjectivity in mentoring teachers’ practice improvement research.","PeriodicalId":142117,"journal":{"name":"International Journal for Transformative Research","volume":"3 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2016-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"130790811","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Educational Epistemology, Culture and History: Response to Joan Walton","authors":"Noriyuki Inoue","doi":"10.1515/ijtr-2016-0005","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/ijtr-2016-0005","url":null,"abstract":"I read Dr. Walton’s response to my paper with great interest. I truly appreciate her writing up the response that I believe will allow us to think deeper about the issues raised by my paper. I would also like to thank the journal’s editor-in-chief Dr. Margaret Farren for giving me the opportunity to write this response to Dr. Walton. First of all, Dr. Walton offers an important point about the dichotomy between objectivity and subjectivity. She argues that the dichotomy is tentative in nature, given the fact that all human perception can be regarded subjective. She makes a compelling argument that objectivity is not an independent entity that complements subjectivity, suggesting what seems objective is merely an inter-subjective agreement that is constructed among people. Thus the sense of objectivity is a construction in our minds in a socio-cultural context: We make sense of the world we experience and construct meanings, some of which we choose to label as objective. She makes this point by referring to quantum physics and the consciousness research where the consensus built among scientists and philosophers is the fundamental departure from the traditional paradigm of science. In these cutting-edge research domains, the nature of objective reality cannot be fully captured with positivistic science. To me, her discussion is a good follow up discussion to the issues that I raised in my paper. The main topic of my paper is teacher expertise development but it can be seen to encompass a broader issue of how future social research should be envisioned and construed. In the field of education, especially in the United States, the quality of teaching is often discussed in terms of meeting teaching standards and performance goals that are considered to be “objective” criteria (Ravitch, 1995; Valli & Buese, 2007). I do not necessarily consider the use of standards and goals meaningless, but as my paper suggests, what seem to be at the core of teacher expertise development does not end with merely setting such criteria no matter how “objective” they seem to be. Rather, it is each individual teacher’s psychological construction of meanings, what they choose to do to overcome challenges in each classroom situation and how they interpret their teaching to plan for the next step. This means that what is transformative in teacher education cannot be truly captured without incorporating the subjective dimension and dynamics of inter-personal forces inherent in day-to-day teaching. As is widely known, the accountability movement that has swept across schools in the United States in the last decade can be seen as a movement to dismiss such subjective dimension and teachers’ meaning-making process in the name of objectivity (Ingersoll, 2013; Zeichner, 2010). In fact, as Dr. Walton suggests, this is the very point qualitative researchers in the Western cultures have been arguing, long before the accountability movement: The first person account of experiences is","PeriodicalId":142117,"journal":{"name":"International Journal for Transformative Research","volume":"11 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2016-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"133434926","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Orphans as agents for change","authors":"S. Gjøtterud, E. Krogh, C. Dyngeland, Nicholaus Solomon Mwakasumba","doi":"10.1515/ijtr-2015-0008","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/ijtr-2015-0008","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Transformative experiences can happen at unexpected times, in unexpected ways. This paper tells the story of how a gift of a goat can lead to the transformation of a life. Many organisations globally are engaged in a struggle to overcome poverty and injustice by providing livestock as a means for transformation. The animals in themselves are not enough for the transformed lives; they can be a valuable starting point. In the Uluguru Mountains in Tanzania, a Tanzanian and a Norwegian together took one such initiative in order to support teen-age orphans, one of the most vulnerable groups in the community who were struggling to survive. As practitioners and researchers, the four authors had been taking part in the development of the Mgeta Orphan Education Foundation (MOEF), which had developed through action learning/action research. Selected students received a goat and training, and the opportunity to join and develop a network of orphans throughout the region. In this article, we discuss the benefits and challenges the orphaned youngsters face when joining the foundation. How do they benefit from having the goat and what are the challenges, how do they learn and how do they contribute to fellow farmers in their communities? We claim that many of the students have experienced transformation, and provide examples to give evidence of this claim. However, the students are not the only ones who are transforming; so are we who, as co-researchers, have had the opportunity to play a role in and witness their efforts.","PeriodicalId":142117,"journal":{"name":"International Journal for Transformative Research","volume":"252 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2015-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"123030203","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Digital Geogames to foster local biodiversity","authors":"Sonja Schaal, Steffen Schaal, Armin Lude","doi":"10.1515/ijtr-2015-0009","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/ijtr-2015-0009","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract The valuing of biodiversity is considered to be a first step towards its conservation. Therefore, the aim of the BioDiv2Go project is to combine sensuous experiences discovering biodiversity with mobile technology and a game-based learning approach. Following the competence model for environmental education (Roczen et al, 2014), Geogames (location based games on smartphones) for experiential outdoor learning activities are developed. The Finde Vielfalt Simulation (FVS) Geogame focuses on adolescent visitors of German youth hostels. The FVS-players are involved in a narrative keeping the traditions of their ancestors’ heritage as decisions are needed to balance biodiversity and economic success. They discover the natural environment and they solve location-based tasks at several places. If the players manipulate a simulation successfully they stand the test of the ancestors. The initial theoretical framework consists of the components biodiversity-related attitudes, behaviour and knowledge, general environmental behaviour and attitude towards nature. According to the Uses and Gratification Theory, the game-related enjoyment is added. For the assessment different scales were developed or adapted and tested for secondary-school children. The framework evolved stepwise through systematic expert hearings, interviews with the target group, participant observation as well as through an online survey. In a first step the situational interest was considered to be important for the valuing of biodiversity. The final version of the framework was used and validated within a pilot study with 180 secondary school students. The framework development was a highly transformative process engaging different actors, using complementary methodological approaches and integrating different disciplinary perspectives.","PeriodicalId":142117,"journal":{"name":"International Journal for Transformative Research","volume":"28 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2015-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"133531181","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The transformative potential of action research and ICT in the Second Language (L2) classroom","authors":"M. Farren, Yvonne Crotty, Laura Kilboy","doi":"10.1515/ijtr-2015-0012","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/ijtr-2015-0012","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This study shows the transformative potential of action research and information and communications technology (ICT) in the second language (L2) classroom. Two enquiries from teacher-researchers are detailed in the article. Their engagement in a collaborative professional development Masters programme was pivotal in designing and implementing ICT creatively in their classroom. Gee (2008) advocates the use of the preferred media of our classroom students in order to address their learning. Prensky (2001) urges us to feel the fear and do it anyway with our digital native classes. A post-primary teacher and a primary teacher show us how they felt the fear, did it and transformed aspects of their own teaching in the process. The Masters programme required the teachers to engage with innovative practices, informed by their own values, and integrate technologies that were new to them into their repertoire of classroom strategies. Peer validation meetings with colleagues enabled meaningful insights to emerge from the research. The teachers improve and transform their second language (L2) practice in collaboration and validation with others.","PeriodicalId":142117,"journal":{"name":"International Journal for Transformative Research","volume":"10 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2015-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"130885187","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Professional engagement in child protection: promoting reflective practice and deeper connection with the lived reality for children","authors":"Jocelyn Jones","doi":"10.1515/ijtr-2015-0010","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/ijtr-2015-0010","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This paper uses first person inquiry and presentational form to argue the case for a sensory approach to understanding professional connection and disconnection with children who may be being abused. The approach is underpinned by an epistemology or theory of knowledge which stems from a participatory world-view where appearances are not permanent or separate from us: the act of perception takes place between the active sensible world and our own bodies, where ‘otherness’ expresses itself directly to our senses. Thus perception, conceived in this way, can lead to right action in the moment; or discounting what is actually being said by a child and disconnection. Buber’s notion of the ‘I-You’ is used to explore feelings and the movement to relation when professionals witness children’s ‘stories of suffering’ (Buber, 1965; Laub, 1992; Jones, 2008). The paper concludes by arguing the case for practitioners to become researchers of their own practice in rigorously facilitated inquiry groups. It is argued that this form of practitioner-research serves to quality assure frontline practice, and create new knowledge (or practice wisdom) such that feelings can be constructively worked with to improve connection with the lived reality for children.","PeriodicalId":142117,"journal":{"name":"International Journal for Transformative Research","volume":"12 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2015-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"126113258","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}