In a time of globally changing environments and economic challenges, many institutions of higher education are attempting to reform by promoting standardization approaches. Meaning-Centered Education explores the counter-tide for an alternative vision of education, where students and instructors engage in open meaning-making processes and self-organizing educational practices. In one contributed volume, Meaning-Centered Education provides a comprehensive introduction to current scholarship and pedagogical practice on meaning-centered education. International contributors explore how modern educational scholars and practitioners all around the world are implementing a comprehensive framework that supports meaning making in a classroom. This edited collection is a valuable resource for higher education faculty and scholars interested in renewing the deep purposes of higher education.
Table of Contents:
Foreword Ronald Barnett
Introduction. Olga Kovbasyuk and Patrick Blessinger
Section One: Theory and Principles of Meaning-Centered Education
Chapter 1. The Nature and Origins of Meaning-Centered Education, Olga Kovbasyuk and Patrick Blessinger
Chapter 2. Emerging Contexts and Meanings of Human Education, Dmitry Leontiev
Chapter 3. Dialogic Education in the Age of the Internet, Rupert Wegerif
Chapter 4. Meaning-Centered Experiential Learning: Learning as an Outcome of Reconstructed Experience, Denise Potosky, Jim Spaulding, and John Juzbasich
Section Two: Worldwide Successful Practices: Voices of Experience
Chapter 5. Fostering Intercultural Dialogue via Communication Technologies, Alyssa J. O'Brien and Olga Kovbasyuk
Chapter 6. Making the Shift towards a Meaning-based Paradigm in European Higher Education: A Spanish Case Study, María Luisa Pérez Cañado
Chapter 7. Meaning-Centered Integrative Instruction in Learning Communities, Harriet Shenkman
Chapter 8. True Collaboration: Building Meaning in Learning through Sharing Power with Students, Anton O. Tolman and Christopher S. Lee
Section Three: Enhancing Meaning-Centered Teaching and Learning
Chapter 9. Meaning's Secret Identity, Russell A. Hunt
Chapter 10. How to Enhance Meaning-Centered Writing and Reading, Anne Ellen Geller
Chapter 11. Supporting Students’ Search for a Meaningful Life through Inquiry-guided Learning, Virginia S. Lee
Chapter 12. Research as Transformative Learning for Meaning-Centered Professional Development, Peter Charles Taylor
Chapter 13. The Future of Meaning-Centered Education, Olga Kovbasyuk, Patrick Blessinger
Conclusion. Olga Kovbasyuk and Patrick Blessinger
About the Author :
Olga Kovbasyuk is Co-Founder of the Institute for Meaning Centered Education, and Professor of Intercultural Communication at Khabarovsk State Academy of Economics and Law (KSAEL), Russia.
Patrick Blessinger is Founder and Executive Director of the Higher Education Teaching and Learning Association (HETL), as well as a lecturer and researcher in education.
