Virtual territories: transformative learning in online higher education contexts

Abstract

There are significant challenges in applying the principles of transformative learning in online, higher education contexts. Integrating theory with practice and simultaneously ensuring the authenticity of that practice creates a rich and complex virtual territory for research and opportunities for building upon theory. The principles of transformative learning provide vital navigation tools to learners, educators and researchers alike for exploring and inhabiting the online territory. In turn, that inhabitation contributes to an ongoing redrawing of the boundaries and contours of the territory, making it a fluid and ever-changing process. This chapter builds upon a study of an online professional development course facilitated from Australia by the author with a cohort of educators at a Singapore polytechnic. The author, as a collaborative practitioner researcher, reflects on this project and on two other ‘virtual territories’ that have since been explored. The chapter proposes strategies for practitioners and researchers to interrogate and evaluate the challenging terrains of authentic practice in online environments.