2016 Annual Conference

This session overviews an action research study following Heron’s epistemology of knowledge acquisition- a holistic approach including pre-reflective creative expression in addition to words, concepts, and actions. Discussion will focus on the learning design, creation of communicative space, and the relevance to teaching and learning in a higher education context.

Educators interested in using dialogue, creative expression, multiple ways of knowing, and group processes in adult learning contexts

Transformative learning theory seeks to explore the content of our knowledge, values and feelings through critical reflection, in relation to experience, as a way to understand and articulate personal meaning perspectives. This session reviews an intentional approach to unpacking experience under the umbrella of a constructivist, transformative approach, by utilizing a process designed with the framework of Heron’s extended epistemology of knowledge acquisition. The epistemology is extended in that it reaches beyond theoretical knowledge to incorporate experiential, presentational, propositional and practical knowing. Research participants in a participatory action study accessed these four levels of knowing with various activities and tools so that they could reflect on a specific experience, in a critical way, beyond more familiar cognitive means. This session will explore the design of the study sessions and the creation of a Habermas-inspired communicative space for exploring pre-reflective expressive forms, examining personal assumptions, and generating new, intentional behavior.