Rich Pickings: Creative Professional Development Activities for University Teachers offers both inspiration and practical advice for academics who want to develop their teaching in ways that go beyond the merely technical, and for the academic developers who support them. Advocating active engagement with literary and nonliterary texts as one way of prompting deep thinking about teaching practice and teacher identities, Daphne Loads shows how to read poems, stories, academic papers and policy documents in ways that stay with the physicality of words: how they sound, how they look on the page or the screen, how they feel in the mouth. She invites readers to bring into play associations, allusions, memories and insights, to examine their own ways of meaning making and to ask what all of this means for their development as teachers. Bringing together scholarship and experiential activities, the author challenges both academics and academic developers to reject narrowly instrumental approaches to professional development; bring teachers and teaching into view, in contrast with misguided interpretations of student-centredness that tend to erase them from the picture; claim back literary writings as a source of wisdom and insight; trust readers' responses; and reintroduce beauty and joy into university teaching that has come to be perceived as bleak and unfulfilling. This book does not attempt to construct a single, coherent argument but rather to indicate a range of good things to choose from. Readers are encouraged to explore the overlaps and the gaps.

Transformative Learning Theory and Praxis examines the multi-faceted nature of transformative learning and transformation theory including its merits, restrictions, and possibilities, and presents carefully chosen international case studies and theoretical approaches that enrich the application of the theory within a wide variety of educational settings. By including new approaches to transformative learning theory, this book provides examples and teaching approaches coming from a variety of disciplines, including higher education, arts, classics, new technologies, and academic development. It bridges the gap between theory and practice to help teachers and adult educators embed potentially transformational techniques in the curriculum. Based on in-depth research, this key title provides a means of measuring and documenting transformative outcomes in qualitative studies of high impact learning experiences, and raises new questions and opportunities for the future development of the field. Transformative Learning Theory and Praxis is a must-read text for anyone interested in the research behind, and applications of, transformative learning and transformation theory, including researchers, students, and policy-makers in the field.

Transformative Learning Theory and Praxis examines the multi-faceted nature of transformative learning and transformation theory including its merits, restrictions, and possibilities, and presents carefully chosen international case studies and theoretical approaches that enrich the application of the theory within a wide variety of educational settings. By including new approaches to transformative learning theory, this book provides examples and teaching approaches coming from a variety of disciplines, including higher education, arts, classics, new technologies, and academic development. It bridges the gap between theory and practice to help teachers and adult educators embed potentially transformational techniques in the curriculum. Based on in-depth research, this key title provides a means of measuring and documenting transformative outcomes in qualitative studies of high impact learning experiences, and raises new questions and opportunities for the future development of the field. Transformative Learning Theory and Praxis is a must-read text for anyone interested in the research behind, and applications of, transformative learning and transformation theory, including researchers, students, and policy-makers in the field.

Rich Pickings: Creative Professional Development Activities for University Teachers offers both inspiration and practical advice for academics who want to develop their teaching in ways that go beyond the merely technical, and for the academic developers who support them. Advocating active engagement with literary and nonliterary texts as one way of prompting deep thinking about teaching practice and teacher identities, Daphne Loads shows how to read poems, stories, academic papers and policy documents in ways that stay with the physicality of words: how they sound, how they look on the page or the screen, how they feel in the mouth. She invites readers to bring into play associations, allusions, memories and insights, to examine their own ways of meaning making and to ask what all of this means for their development as teachers. Bringing together scholarship and experiential activities, the author challenges both academics and academic developers to reject narrowly instrumental approaches to professional development; bring teachers and teaching into view, in contrast with misguided interpretations of student-centredness that tend to erase them from the picture; claim back literary writings as a source of wisdom and insight; trust readers' responses; and reintroduce beauty and joy into university teaching that has come to be perceived as bleak and unfulfilling. This book does not attempt to construct a single, coherent argument but rather to indicate a range of good things to choose from. Readers are encouraged to explore the overlaps and the gaps.