CQUniversity
Browse

File(s) not publicly available

Exploring transformative learning and the courage to teach a values based curriculum

journal contribution
posted on 2017-12-06, 00:00 authored by Margaret McallisterMargaret Mcallister
Teaching is a complex art that takes courage to commit to, particularly in the face of stressed students, crowded curricula, tensions in preparation for the graduate role, and ongoing educator shortages. My colleagues and I have been taking on this challenge by imbuing our teaching of nursing with more passion. As Parker Palmer (1998, p. 144), the renowned educationalist once said: “The growth of any craft depends on shared practice and honest dialogue among the people who do it. We grow by trial and error, to be sure – but our willingness to try, and fail, as individuals are severely limited when we are not supported by a community that encourages such risks”. The vision that I have is for nursing educators to come together in communities of practice to talk about the challenging aspects of nursing and ways these challenges can be reframed and reapproached through education. This work is underpinned by the pedagogy of Transformative Learning (TL). At its heart this pedagogy is interested in problematic practices that keep afflicting a discipline such as nursing, and in pondering and revising the educational solutions. In nursing, our biggest problems are where stigma, inequality and inertia persist to make vulnerable communities experience more illness and hardship than others who are more privileged. TL treats students as critical agents - who have the potential to rethink problems and change practices. TL aims to make space within the classroom and online for a dialogue that is affirming so that students believe in their own capacity to make a better world for all people.

History

Volume

15

Issue

6

Start Page

480

End Page

484

Number of Pages

5

eISSN

1873-5223

ISSN

1471-5953

Location

United Kingdom

Publisher

Churchill Livingstone

Language

en-aus

Peer Reviewed

  • Yes

Open Access

  • No

External Author Affiliations

Learning and Teaching Education Research Centre (LTERC); School of Nursing and Midwifery (2013- );

Era Eligible

  • Yes

Journal

Nurse education in practice.

Usage metrics

    CQUniversity

    Exports

    RefWorks
    BibTeX
    Ref. manager
    Endnote
    DataCite
    NLM
    DC