Mindful Teaching and Learning: Developing a Pedagogy of Well-Being features a community of scholar-practitioners from across disciplines, methodologies, and ideological perspectives exploring and examining contexts that support mindful teaching, mindful learning, and a pedagogy of well-being. Collectively, these chapters document and analyze the opportunities and challenges within pedagogical sites and discuss how the disposition of mindfulness can be nurtured and sustained in educational practice and praxis. Bolstered by the positive evidence-based standards emanating from clinical settings, mindfulness based training has spread into a variety of other fields like psychology, healthcare, and more recently, education.
Within pedagogical environments, an emergent secular conception of mindfulness, under the auspices of educational psychologists like Langer (1987; 1997), Goleman, (2008), Lantieri (2008), Roeser, Skinner, Beers, and Jennings, (2012), and Schonert-Reichl and Lawlor (2010), is making headway. Consequently, Mindfulness Training (MT) resources have been applied to educational contexts in order to maximize the academic, emotional, physical, and psychological benefits provided by this mind-body approach to well-being.
Acknowledging the increasing evidence base for the efficacy of mindfulness interventions as well as the elevated stress levels reported by many educators and their students, this book discusses how mindful practices, praxis, and research can inform and support pedagogy, curriculum, and leadership initiatives in higher education in the twenty-first century. Alongside the multitude of recent studies in the area of Mindfulness, contributors discuss their own experiences using Self-study, Contemplative pedagogy, Living Educational Theory, and Curriculum Inquiry. The content of this book examines ways in which to develop habits of mind and courses of action, as well as a curriculum of study that can support educators as they cultivate competencies for thriving and coping with the modern demands of being a teacher.
Table of Contents:
Introduction: Mindful Teaching and Learning: Developing a Pedagogy of Well-Being
Karen Ragoonaden
Chapter 1: Mindfulness Training: A Transdisciplinary Approach to Assessing Efficacy in Education
Elizabeth R. Mackenzie
Chapter 2: Mindful Education and Well-Being
Karen Ragoonaden
Chapter 3: Enhancing Learning through Contemplative Pedagogy
Kathryn Byrnes and Tom Bassarear
Chapter 4: Living Collaborative Leadership: Cultivating a Mindful Approach
Sabre Cherkowski, Kelly Hanson, and Jennifer Kelly
Chapter 5: Mindfulness-Based Wellness Education: Pedagogical Insights
Geoffrey Soloway
Chapter 6: Mindful Curricular Engagement: Preparing Prospective Educators to See/Act with Discernment and Deliberation
Margaret Macintyre Latta
About the Author :
Karen Ragoonaden is a faculty member at the University of British Columbia, Okanagan campus.
Review :
This slender book delivers a variety of practical tools with a careful attentiveness to both individual and institutional contexts. . . .Those interested in mindfulness and how it pertains to HE, as well as those wanting to put MT to use in HE, will find this book of utility. . . .In conclusion, this volume performs well in regard to its intent to initiate exchanges and will be appreciated by those aiming to put mindfulness into practice in HE.
The nine contributors to Mindful Teaching and Learning share their passion for a mindful approach to education and illustrate that approach with personal practices and references to related literature. The focus on pedagogy is as refreshing as it is important.This 6-chapter collection is essential reading for any teacher or teacher educator eager to bring mindfulness into the classroom.
Mindful Teaching and Learning is a timely addition to the growing body of literature exploring mindfulness and education. One unique feature of this book is the thoughtful use of methodologies that provides the reader with a window into how the authors have come to understand mindful teaching and learning in their own practice. I highly recommend this book to those who are interested in considering the new lenses afforded by mindful approaches to educational practice and scholarship.
Let us imagine that we’ve found ways to parenthesize or bracket the frenetic cacophony of demands that typically inhabit the life-world of a teacher. What would this look like for us and what differences might our being focused make? Imagine slowing down, practicing situated self-reflection and, in doing so, finding a dynamic resonance with others. What personal, professional, small and large educational reform might be the result? . . . Or read Kelly Hanson and her collaborators’ vivid and energizing descriptions of their realization of these possibilities in and through the development of a deliberate and mindful teaching community. An inspiring book of real-life professional and community sense-making.
