Colleen Kawalilak

Restorying the present by revisiting the past: Unexpected moments of discovery and illumination through museum learning:

Two adult educators, guided by autoethnography as methodology, share the restorying of their own lifelong learning narratives and unexpected insights gained from having experienced the powerful potential of museum learning and culture. Having previously regarded museum visits as an experience that primarily tapped the intellectual, cognitive domain, the authors, drawing from experiencing the Pier 21 Museum in Halifax and the War Brides installation exhibit at the Glenbow Museum, Calgary, were thrust into multiple ways and dimensions of how we learn, how we view the world, and how we locate ourselves in the world. Shared stories illuminate the potential for museum education to animate, breathe life into and offer a deepened understanding of our own personal, lifelong learning narratives.

The cross-cultural reflective model for post-sojourn debriefing

ABSTRACT Reflective writing is a practice often encouraged in study abroad programs. Reflection can be facilitated through experiential learning, but little research is available on how to guide or structure-related learning activities. In this article, we discuss the Cross-cultural Reflection model (CCR), which emerged through our own process of researching three commonly used models for reflective writing. We document our procedure for researching, creating, testing, and modifying the CCR model, before and after using it with students in a post-sojourn debriefing workshop. In the discussion, we examine which aspects of the models examined informed the CCR model and which elements we introduced as a result of working with the models in two research retreats. The sharing of the process is intended to inform practices of reflective writing in post-sojourn debriefing to enhance international experiences, programmes, and practices.

The Schools Ain’t What They Used to Be and Never Was – 21st Century Schools, Learners, and Teachers

This writing presents our views, as university teacher educators and scholars, concerning some issues pertaining to the readiness of contemporary Canadian education to move forward, well, with confidence and competence, into the mid-21 st Century. We posit that all which is possible, educationally, lives in the give and take between Canadian education‘s geo-political, economic and linguistic past, the current functioning of contemporary schools as contested learning and teaching sites, and the increasing impacts of globalisation. We draw from guiding adult education principles in support of an enriched and expanded commitment to teacher professional development as a pathway to sustainable education reform.