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A critical challenge has emerged— how to make sense of life experiences in the realm of learning. This conundrum is particularly pronounced in the domains of social work and human services education. The call for a paradigm shift is urgent, as the theory of transformational learning contends that hands-on experiences are paramount in the educational landscape. Experiential learning stands as a powerful, proven approach that elevates education by fostering student reflection, critical thinking, service, engagement, and problem-solving. However, the realization of a high-quality experiential or service-learning experience necessitates meticulous planning and intention. It is this critical need that Transformational Learning in Social Work and Human Services Education seeks to address, providing a comprehensive Experiential-Learning Guide filled with pre-planning logistics, resources, and evaluation tools essential for crafting impactful experiential-learning events. Tailored for discerning educators, this book serves as a lodestar for those seeking to deepen their understanding of transformational learning. Its goal is to provide educators with theoretical frameworks underpinning experiential learning, fostering a solid foundation for transformative education. The pages unfold as a treasure trove of practical tools, activities, and resources that easily integrate into classrooms, enhancing the transformative potential of social work and human service programs. It extends an olive branch to educational leaders, guiding them through the intricate dance of applying transformational leadership to elevate the effectiveness and productivity of their programs. Seasoned social work educators and administrators generously share proven models, unlocking the door to the seamless integration of experiential and transformational leadership approaches. Designed for the discerning academic scholar, this book beckons educators and administrators passionate about transformational, experiential, and service learning. Its scope reaches beyond disciplines, offering practical insights for integrating experiential learning into any course. Social Work, Human Service, and Non-Profit Administrators will find invaluable guidance on employing transformational leadership to fortify their programs. The book delves into transformative theory, leadership methodologies, models for experiential and transformational learning, and the nuts and bolts of designing immersive courses. From global experiential learning with a social justice lens to fostering partnerships for community restoration, the book navigates a vast sea of topics, leaving no stone unturned in the quest for educational excellence. Step into the realm of academic transformation and unlock the full potential of experiential learning.

Designing Personalized Learning Experiences offers theoretically grounded and pragmatic approaches to designing personalized learning initiatives for higher education and organizational contexts. With current research concluding that a multitude of variables can enable learners to direct their own experiences and achieve their goals, new guidance is needed to hone the range of instructional approaches, activities, and interactions available to support adult learners. This book offers practical strategies on how to design and implement effective personalized learning interventions, advance learning and engagement, encourage ownership over the learning process, and decrease attrition.Professionals in instructional design, learning and development, organizational development, consultancies, and beyond will be emboldened by the work to leverage a mix of technology-enabled social and content interactions.

Teaching Where You Are offers a guide for non-Indigenous educators to work in good ways with Indigenous students and provides resources across curricular areas to support all students. In this book, two seasoned educators, one Indigenous and one settler, bring to bear their years of experience teaching in elementary, secondary, and post-secondary contexts to explore the ways in which Indigenous and Slow approaches to teaching and learning mirror and complement one another. Using the holistic framework of the Medicine Wheel, Shannon Leddy and Lorrie Miller illustrate the ways in which interdisciplinary thinking, a focus on experiential learning, and the thoughtful application of the 4Rs – Respect, Relevance, Reciprocity, and Responsibility – can bring us back to the principle of teaching people, not subjects. Bringing forth the ways in which colonialism and cognitive imperialism have shaped Canadian curriculum and consciousness, the book offers avenues for the development of decolonial literacy to support the work of Indigenizing education. In considering the importance of engaging in decolonizing and Indigenizing approaches to education through Slow and Indigenous pedagogies using the lens of place-based and land-based education, Teaching Where You Are presents a text useful for teachers and educators grappling with the ongoing impacts of colonialism and the soul-work of how to decolonize and rehumanize education in meaningful ways.

Ecopedagogies showcases a range of creative approaches that educators across multiple disciplines use to empower students to access and engage with nature, an increasingly important consideration in a post-COVID world in environmental crisis.The volume includes chapters written by scholars from the environmental arts and humanities, literature, writing studies, rhetoric, music, religious studies, environmental studies and sustainability, sociology and anthropology, physical education, and outdoor education. Each author walks the reader through the details of how their ecopedagogy works, identifies potential challenges while also detailing how to address them, and explains the rewards to students, instructors, and more-than-human nature that they have witnessed through the use of these approaches. The contributions represent diverse types of academic institutions, offering broad applicability to instructors, including community colleges, private liberal arts colleges, and large state, regional, public, and private universities. The book explores a series of key questions about how educators can facilitate meaningful learning experiences with the natural world, inside and outside the classroom, and it looks at how to foster inclusivity, navigate problems with access, and explore intersections with environmental justice.As a practical guide, the book delivers a well-provisioned toolbox containing exercises, activity guides, and assignments for those teaching environmentally focused college courses.

Experiential Learning Design comprehensively demonstrates the key theories and applications for the design of experiential approaches to learning and training. Learning is gradually moving away from management and delivery of content, and toward experiences that encourage learners to engage and take greater responsibility for their own progress. This book's empirically sound, multi-disciplinary approach balances technical-rational and artistic-intuitive design elements to accommodate the complex, fluctuating capacities of human learning. In-depth chapters cover design principles, social and environmental factors in learning, the importance of senses and emotions, and links between body and brain. This bold, unique perspective shift will enrich the work of learning scientists, instructional designers, educational technologists, and beyond.

This volume explores unschooling as a growing phenomenon within the broader field of home education and considers the unique position of parents who engage in this self-directed form of education with their children. Drawing on an in-depth hermeneutic phenomenological study, the volume investigates the double consciousness of parents as they balance the costs/benefits of unschooling and navigate the roles of leading/following and parenting/teaching in the education and upbringing of their children. The author conceptualizes unschooling in the context of curriculum theory and situates it within the larger home education movement. By highlighting the fluctuating, (un)divided position that parents assume, the volume examines how learning and living are rendered inseparable in unschooling, thereby revealing unschoolers'experience of a curriculum of learning-through-living. This book will be of great interest to researchers, scholars, and postgraduates working across the fields of curriculum studies, parenting and family studies, and the sociology of education.

Moore asks the question of whether and under what conditions experience constitutes a legitimate source of knowledge and learning in higher education. Drawing on theory and research, the book addresses three types of challenges and opportunities facing experiential educators: the epistemological, the pedagogical, and the institutional.

Offering a fresh approach to bringing life to schools and schools to life, this book goes beyond touting the benefits of learning gardens to survey them as a whole-systems design solution with potential to address myriad interrelated social, ecological, and educational issues. The theoretical and conceptual framework presented creatively places soil at the center of the discourse on sustainability education and learning garden design and pedagogy. Seven elements and attributes of living soil and learning gardens are presented as a guide for sustainability education: cultivating a sense of place; fostering curiosity and wonder; discovering rhythm and scale; valuing biocultural diversity; embracing practical experience ; nurturing interconnectedness. The living soil of learning gardens forms the basis of a new metaphoric language serving to contest dominant mechanistic metaphors presently influencing educational discourse. Student voices and examples from urban schools provide practical understanding of how bringing life to schools can indeed bring schools to life.

What is experiential education? What are its theoretical roots? Where does this approach come from? Offering a fresh and distinctive take, this book is about going beyond'learning by doing'through an exploration of its underlying theoretical currents. As an increasingly popular pedagogical approach, experiential education encompasses a variety of curriculum projects from outdoor and environmental education to service learning and place-based education. While each of these sub-fields has its own history and particular approach, they draw from the same progressive intellectual taproot. Each, in its own way, evokes the power of'learning by doing'and'direct experience'in the educational process. By unpacking the assumed homogeneity in these terms to reveal the underlying diversity of perspectives inherent in their usage, this book allows readers to see how the approaches connect to larger conversations and histories in education and social theory, placing experiential education in social and historical context.

The new millennium presents us with unexpected events that challenge us to think and act in different ways. Meeting these challenges requires creation of knowledge and development of wisdom. This book draws together forty years of scholarship, practice and original research, to catalyze our expertise in learning about what we don't know.

'Teachers and site administrators will find their'how'and'why'questions answered in this inspirational and motivational book.'-Neal A. Glasgow, Educator/Author'Thomsen′s explanations and examples of service learning show us that students can engage in higher and more complex thinking skills while they serve others, address learning standards, meet the expectations of the curriculum and-oh, by the way-find out that school can be fun!'-Dr. Richard Castallo, Chair Department of Educational Leadership & Policy Studies California State University Northridge'Service Learningin Grades K-8 is a compelling work which addresses a universal need often overlooked in school curricula-the need to practice compassion and generosity. Kate Thomsen provides educators with a practical handbook for teaching wisdom and empathy along with math, language arts, social studies, and science.'-Lauri Pepe Bousquet, MS, CAS, Professor of Education LeMoyne College, Syracuse Improve academic, social, and citizenship skills in all students! Designed to inform and inspire, Service Learning in Grades K-8: Experiential Learning That Builds Character and Motivation, examines the beneficial effects of service learning, explores different types of service learning projects, and explains how to start a successful program. Author Kate Thomsen offers a comprehensive research base, practical and logistical information, and descriptions of varied programs in order to help teachers adapt this strategy to their own students′ needs and interests. Thomsen′s practical text includes: The basics for getting started Examples of both curriculum-based and community-based programs Key features of quality projects Specific examples of teambuilding and reflection activities Research documenting the benefits of service learning Service learning is a powerful educational tool for all students because it directly connects course content to relevant community issues, links to academic standards, engages multiple learning styles, and develops social-emotional attributes.