ED-5800: Teaching and Learning - Transformative Education

This course engages us in learning in ways that draw attention to how we are ourselves learning. There is a range of subject matters -- some poetry, some math, some close natural observation, some physical phenomena, etc. We attend to how we go about learning, and how our colleagues do, too. We also engage others in doing similar work. 1. One premise: Instead of construing teaching as instructing students towards predetermined end points, this course seeks to bring a liberatory and democratic approach to learning situations by valuing the learners' experiences and insights. Rather than conceiving of teaching as explaining and learning as listening, this course looks at situations where teachers listen and learners do the explaining. 2. Another premise: A second premise is that every person can get involved with and enjoy and get good at every subject matter. We will consider the ways in which various subject matters--the materials of the world--can lend their own characteristic structures to learning situations. The course is designed to help educators think about engaging people in various subject matters, in order to help them think about engaging people in their own. As educators our priorities are the challenge of engaging learners' minds in exploring the subject matter that we intend for them to learn about and equally important is understanding how learners are exploring the materials they are engaging with. This combination of priorities has come to be called critical exploration. The course draws on the groundbreaking work of Eleanor Duckworth and colleagues in critical exploration (including her original Harvard T-440 course).
Min. Credits: 3.0
Credit Basis: Semester credit
Location(s): Antioch Univ New England
Method(s): Online (asynchronous),Online Meeting (synchronous)
Course Type Education

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