Practicing what we teach: Experiential learning in higher education that cuts both ways

Abstract

As innovative pedagogies such as experiential learning unsettle traditional assumptions about tertiary teaching, a deeper understanding of how teachers experience such shifts is required. Whilst the literature emphasizes that effective experiential learning should entail transformative educational experiences for students, less attention is paid to the implications for educators. Through a collaborative autoethnographic approach, this research explores the experience of three tertiary educators delivering experiential learning in human rights education and highlights their process of transformative learning, which produced changes in their professional identities. Drawing on scholarship of experiential and transformative learning, we argue that the delivery of experiential learning initiates a process of critical self-reflection that can prompt educator transformation into not only facilitator, as commonly depicted in the literature, but also co-learner. As such, a deep shift in educator identities may also occur, adding a layer of transformation in experiential learning that remains neglected in the literature.