Tag: bridging

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An appreciative inquiry into the transformative learning experiences of students in a family literacy project

Author/s: David Giles and Sharon Alderson

Edition: Volume 48, Number 3, November 2008

Summary: Educational discourse has often struggled to genuinely move beyond deficit-based language. Even action research, a predominant model for teacher development, starts with the identification of a problem (Cardno 2003). It would appear that the vocabulary for a hope-filled discourse which captures the imagination and influences our future educational activity seems to have escaped us. Moreover, we seem bereft of educational contexts where the experience for students is holistic and transformative. Appreciative inquiry is a research approach that seeks to facilitate change based on participants’ actual experiences of best practice (Cady & Caster 2000, Cooperrider & Srivastva 1987, English, Fenwick & Parsons 2003, Hammond 1998, Hammond & Royal 1998). Based on assumptions that ‘in every organisation something works’ and ‘if we are to carry anything of our past forward in our lives, it should be the good things’, appreciative inquiry energises participants to reach for higher ideals (Hammond 1998, Hammond & Royal 1998). Rather than giving priority to the problems in our current practice, appreciative inquiry gives attention to evidence of successful practice. In this way, proponents describe it as ‘dream forming’ and ‘destiny creating’. This paper will outline an appreciative inquiry with adult students in the context of a tertiary bridging program. The inquiry was able to capture the students’ stories of transformative learning experiences.

Keywords: change, experience, appreciative inquiry, adult learners, bridging, transformative learning

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Innovations in bridging and foundation education in a tertiary institution

Author/s: Rae Trewartha

Edition: Volume 48, Number 1, April 2008

Summary: A 2006 survey of programs at Unitec, New Zealand concluded that, in the main, Unitec programs and courses were not meeting student needs in the area of foundation and bridging education. Invoking international research and practice, a report was compiled proposing a number of recommendations to remedy this situation. Academic Board, in accepting recommendations that were based on developing and re-developing foundation and bridging courses and programs to better staircase students into degree programs, and to support first-year students in undergraduate degree programs, has challenged the Unitec community to think in new ways about the needs of students entering the institution. It was argued in the report that the key determinant in developing these strategies should be the need to provide students with bridging/foundation education that supports them to develop the contextualised discipline knowledge and academic literacies they need in order to transition to the next level of study as independent, critical learners – as students who know ‘how to learn’. Over the last few months, many exciting and challenging developments have occurred in relation to this initiative. This paper begins by examining the research that informed the recommendations in the report. Initiatives that are proposed or underway arel then outlined, and discussed in conjunction with examples of the challenges associated with making this shift in institutional thinking and practice.

Keywords: foundation, education, bridging, Unitec, courses, programs, literacies

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