This document discusses various ways of knowing beyond rational or cognitive learning, including experiential learning, narrative learning, embodied learning, spiritual learning, and learning through emotions. It addresses topics like informal and incidental learning, reflective practice, communities of practice as sites of social and situated learning, and embodied and spiritual forms of learning. Learners are asked to consider the implications of these ideas and to share examples of how they engage students in reflective practice or embodied/spiritual learning.

1. Body, Mind, and Spirit, the
“other” ways of knowing
Session 7
March 2, 2019

2. Agenda
• Your blog post responses – Fostering TL
• Taking stock: where we are in the course
• Learning through the body, mind, and spirit
– Experiential learning
– Reflection on practice
– Situated learning and Communities of Practice
(CoP)
– Embodied learning
– Spiritual learning
– Learning through narrative (storytelling)
– Emotions and feelings as sources of
knowledge

3. How much of our learning do
you think is intentional?
Consider:
•Experiential learning
•Narrative learning (through
stories)
•Embodied learning
•Spiritual learning
•Learning through emotions
or feelings
Except for experiential learning, all of these fall into the
category of “non-rational” (non-cognitive” or other ways of
knowing

4. The Nature of Experiential
Learning
• Often dysfunctional, always incomplete
• Need to use present experience to test
our beliefs, correcting the
misinterpretations we’ve made (potential
for TL)
• We often manipulate experience to fit our
beliefs
• We usually see and hear selectively

5. Informal and Incidental
Learning from Experience
• Informal Learning: Can be planned or
unplanned, but usually conscious
awareness that learning is taking place
• Incidental Learning: A by-product of some
other activity; usually unintentional,
unexamined, and embedded in closely
held belief systems

6. Incidental Learning
• When incidental learning occurs,
people often act with little or no
reflection, and the learning is thus
embedded in their action
• To bring awareness of learning to
surface requires making tacit
assumptions explicit; Ellen Langer calls
this concept “mindfulness”

7. What proportion of our
learning do you think is
informal and incidental as
compared to formal
learning?
What are the implications of
this for the learners you teach?

8. Learning from Reflection in
and on Practice

9. What do we mean by
“reflective practice?”
Stephen
Brookfield’s
concept of critical
reflection
David Boud’s ideas
about reflective
learning through
writing
Donald Schön’s
concepts
• Knowing-in-action
• Reflection-on-action
• Reflection-in-action

10. What strategies do you use to
engage learners in reflective
practice?
Journal writing
Reflective essays
Blogs as reflective learning journals
Digital storytelling (constructing narrative)
Dialogue with mentors
Others that you use?
What about art and images?

11. What about knowledge that is
created “on the fly” and
occurs within a community of
practice? (CoP)

12. What is a Community of
Practice (CoPs)?
What kind of CoPs do you
belong?

13. Key Features - CoP
• Informal, ever-changing membership
• Movement from periphery of practice
to full membership
• Negotiated meanings unique to the
community, replete with its own
jargon
• Sites of knowledge construction

14. Four Major Premises of
Situated Learning
• Learning is grounded in actions of
everyday situations
• Knowledge is acquired situationally
and transfers only to similar
situations
• Learning is a social process
• Learning is not separated from action

15. Unique Factors in Situated
Learning
• Content learned through activities
rather than by acquiring information
as organized/presented by instructors
• Content is inherent in doing the task
• Learning is dilemma-driven
• Subject matter emerges from cues in
the environment and from dialogue
among the community

16. What are the implications
for the idea that knowledge
is socially constructed (in
community, not acquired or
transmitted), to your field of
practice?

17. Embodied and Spiritual
Learning
To what extent, do you
engage in mind / body
practices (yoga, tai chi,
mindfulness practice,
contemplative prayer, or
listening and being open to
knowledge from other
sources through intuition,
emotions, or feelings?

18. Application Activity
Find an image from among those
displayed that best represents your
experience of learning through mind, body,
and spirit.
You will have an opportunity to share it
with the group, with a short explanation if
you so desire