As educators, we wish to enable our students’ learning at the highest level possible. However, that desire often meets significant barriers, some of the most common of which are learner cynicism, unmanageable workloads for instructors, instructor burnout, and administrative constraints. Most of us began our teaching careers in hope and idealism, which this Community of Practice wants to attempt to recover. Recent scholarship in pedagogical practices has attempted to address this process of reclaiming education – for both educators and learners – as a fulfilling, joyful practice. In this Community of Practice, we hope to find our own paths towards education as a place of wonder, not mere rote action and utility. Together, we can remind ourselves, and our students that curiosity and wonder, exploration and critical thinking, humility and openness, and not grade point averages, are the indicators and aims of successful learning. In our exploratory session, we will have a brief overview of recent scholarship on this pedagogical approach by Kieran Egan, Annabella I. Cant, Gillian Judson, Beth Hurst, Peter G. Filene, Laura Piersol and Timothy D. Walker, and work towards the long-term goal of creating communities of learning that will enrich both instructors and students.
Key Speaker
Sarika Bose
Sessional Lecturer Department of English
