Transformative Learning Through Engagement: Student Affairs Practice as Experiential Pedagogy

Jane Fried’s overarching message is that higher education is based on a profoundly outdated industrial model of the purpose and delivery of learning and needs urgently to be changed. Student affairs professionals and academic faculty have become frustrated with the alienation of so many students from academic learning because they cannot see its connection to their lives. This book – addressed to everyone involved in helping college students learn – presents what we now know about the learning process, particularly those elements that promote behavioral change and the ability to place information in a broader context of personal meaning and long term impact. Central to its argument is that learning must be experiential and engage students holistically; that it must be grounded in brain science and an understanding of the cultural drivers of knowledge construction; that academic faculty and student affairs professionals must cooperate to help students make connections and see the implications of their learning for their lives; and that the entire learning environment needs to be integrated to reflect the organic nature of the process.A second purpose of this book is to enable student affairs professionals to articulate their own role in helping students learn. Student affairs, as a profession, has had difficulty describing its work with students as teaching because the dominant paradigm of teaching continues to suggest a classroom, an academic expert and a model of learning that is basically verbal and cognitive. Student affairs professionals who read this book will be able to understand and articulate the processes of experiential, transformative education to their academic colleagues and to help collegially design integrated learning experiences as partners with academic faculty. The book concludes with a number of brief invited chapters that describe a few emerging models and programs that illustrate Jane Fried’s vision of transformative learning experiences that integrate experience, study, and reflection.This book was written with contributions from: Craig AlimoJulie Beth ElkinsScott HazanElsa M. Núñez Vernon PercyChristopher PudlinskiSarah Stookey

Table of Contents:
Acknowledgments Foreword James E. Zull Part One. Shifting Paradigms in Education 1. Insight. Perspectives on Learning 2. Labels and Viewpoints. Lenses That Shape Learning 3. Searching for Clarity 4. Believing is Seeing. American Cultural Norms 5. Telescopes and Kaleidoscopes. Lenses That Focus Our Vision Part Two. Shifting Individual Paradigms to Effect Change 6. Borderlands. Fear of the Other and Significant Differences 7. Border Pedagogy. From Teaching to Learning Part Three. Applications and Implications 8. Leadership and Context. The Central Role of Student Affairs at a Public Liberal Arts University—Elsa M. Núñez 9. Creating Integrated Selves. Sport and Service-Learning—Vernon Percy 10. Engaged Learning. Beyond the Ivory Tower—Julie Beth Elkins 11. Teaching for Transformation in a Business Education—Sarah Stookey 12. Engaging the Head and the Heart. Intergroup Dialogue in Higher Education—Craig John Alimo 13. First-Year Experience. Practice and Process—Christopher Pudlinski and Scott Hazan References Contributors Index

About the Author :
Jane Fried is a professor in the Department of Counselor Education and Family Therapy at Central Connecticut State University. She is the former coordinator of the Student Development in Higher Education master’s degree program. Dr. Fried is the author of Transformative Learning Through Engagement: Student Affairs Practice as Experiential Pedagogy and Shifting Paradigms in Student Affairs, as well as co-author of Understanding Diversity. She was also one of the primary authors in Learning Reconsidered 1 and 2 and has written several monographs on ethics in student affairs and student development education. She currently writes a blog, where her primary topics of concern are racism and transformative learning, and hosts diversity dialogues to support leaders in higher education who want to develop a deeper understanding of the ways that racism affects our society. James E. Zull was Professor of Biology and of Biochemistry, and Director of The University Center for Innovation in Teaching and Education (UCITE) at Case Western Reserve University. After 25 years of research on cell-cell communication, protein folding, cell membranes, and biosensors, he turned his interest toward understanding how brain research can inform teaching. Building on his background in cell-cell communication, his experience with human learning and teaching at UCITE, and drawing on the increasing knowledge about the human brain, led to writing his acclaimed first book, The Art of Changing the Brain.We deeply mourn the loss of author, teacher, and friend James E. Zull†.†Deceased October 2019.

Review :
"In Transformative Learning Through Engagement, Jane Fried and Associates provide convincing evidence that transformative learning is a crucial but undervalued aspect of university and college education. The book focuses on the role of student affairs professionals (also referred to as student services in Canada) in supporting transformative learning within a U.S. context, but it offers valuable insights about learning that are of importance to anyone involved in higher education. In drawing upon recent scholarship about the science of learning and behavioural change, this book underlines the value of creating integrated learning environments that educate the head, heart, and hands of students, thus better enabling them to engage with and adapt to a rapidly changing world. Fried and Associates present a strong case outlining how educational institutions urgently need to change in order to enable students to develop the knowledge and tools needed to become actively engaged citizens within a changing global context. Society is increasingly diverse and undergoing rapid social, cultural, economic, and environmental changes. New and complex issues that cross disciplinary boundaries require more integrated and collaborative approaches to problem solving. To that end, Fried asserts that universities and colleges need to break down structural and functional barriers in order to better support students in achieving transformative and integrated learning. This book will enable student affairs professionals and others involved in higher education to understand their roles in adapting to new educational realities." Canadian Journal of University Continuing Education "This book examines the important role student affairs professionals can and should play in teaching and learning. As colleges and universities adapt to the new realitites of higher education (including new understandings about how people learn), student affairs professionals can provide experiential learning opportunities that help students cross inter- and intrapersonal borders. With discussions of dominant paradigms and cultures within US contexts and examples of a range of campus applications, the book provides a framework for thinking about student affairs as key to college learning, particularly in areas related to diversity. It is a useful tool for student affairs professionals working to contribute to the educational missions of the twenty-first century." Diversity & Democracy "Considers the role of student-affairs professionals in helping students learn." The Chronicle of Higher Ed “Jane Fried delivers an incisive critique of the obsolete yet persistent assumptions, structures, and measures pervading higher education. Invoking recent scholarship about the science of learning, she debunks dualistic and linear ideas about where and how learning and development happens. Fried is compassionate, but with blistering urgency, guiding Student Affairs educators past our insecurities as teachers, broadening the learning environment and reconciling our capacity for integrative approaches in pursuit of knowledge, vocation, and democratic community." Jason Laker, Professor, Department of Counselor Education, San José State University “Fried’s suggestions that [student affairs professionals and subject experts] should work closely together...may have merit. It is consistent with our knowledge of learning and it confronts a real and growing challenge. True, it is daunting (and thus brave) but we should take it seriously. We may encounter those old enemies inertia, habit, and attitude, but let’s hope that the need for serious change, so strongly supported by Fried, brings it to the attention of energized and creative professionals in higher education—both academics and administrators.” James E. Zull “Anyone who selects education as a career will find this book both illuminating and affirming. Examples of the roles student affairs can play in helping to structure integrated learning and Jane Fried’s practical and in-depth explanation of how learning occurs make this book an excellent primer for new professionals and an essential reference book for all others. It confirms the assertion upon which the popular Learning Reconsidered is based: ‘The most important factor is that transformative learning always occurs in the active context of students’ lives.’ Teaching from the perspective of what one learns from this book, especially about diversity and citizenship, will help educators eliminate the one question that every student has asked at some time: 'Why do I have to take this course?' This book is a winner!" Gwen Dungy, Executive Director, NASPA “For those of us desiring a pathway that offers an education to students that is holistic and integrated, we now have a book to guide our thinking and action. This book focuses on educating the head, heart, and hands of our students, particularly on how student affairs professionals can become partners with faculty as teachers, providing integrated experiences and interventions in the lives of students that will foster their holistic and integrated learning and development.” Larry A. Braskamp Professor Emeritus at Loyola University Chicago and Senior Fellow at the American Association of Colleges and Universities