Presenter: Claudia Bernasconi

Session Description: This presentation includes an overview of transformative learning, including it definition and its ontological (“who we are”) and epistemological (“who we create knowledge” or more broadly “how we learn”) implications. What is the potential of transformative learning and why is it valuable? How can in-the-classroom and outside-of-the-classroom education support it? These questions will be addressed through examples from two courses in the graduate architecture program. The presentation will also include a discussion of critical approaches to service learning (critical service learning), civically engaged learning (civically engaged critically learning), and community-engaged learning, and how these approaches overlap with and are supported by transformative learning. The presentation concludes with considerations regarding the disciplinary, deontological, and ethical aspects of transformative learning.

For more on the topic, here is a sample recent publication: Bernasconi, C., & Blume, L. B. (2023). A Synechistic Conceptualization of Othering: Social Ontological Questions in Service Learning. Michigan Journal of Community Service Learning, 29:2. DOI: https://doi.org/10.3998/mjcsl.3672

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