Journal of Transformative Learning

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Dennis Dunham
Chair, Committee on Transformative Learning
University of Central Oklahoma

According to first edition of the Journal of Transformative Education,  (Marcos and McWhinney, 2003), Transformative education (TE) has a numbers of contexts such as transformative learning, new career training, humanitarian service programs, rehabilitation, spiritual renewal and others.

The University of Central Oklahoma's Journal of Transformative Learning will be focused on only one context of TE-the notion of transformative learning. One long-term goal of this journal will be eventually to have some consensus on an operational definition.   This presents a weighty task, since the term operational implies the ability to assess and measure.   However, this is critical, as higher education need a working definition that can guide professors towards practical application of TL in the classroom.    The TL world of this journal will contain case studies as well as stories by professors on how they applied transformative learning to their particular field.    Future editions will include success stories, failures, and struggles.  There will also be students writing about their experiences and reflections.  There will be articles on assessment, but will focus more on how a professor adapted the knowledge to their discipline.   There will be articles on the challenges of collaborative across dividing lines, or as UCO's provost, Dr. William Radke, likes to say,  "being a real Uni -versity."

The Journal of Transformative Learning will reflect UCO's own challenges towards transformative learning and hope other writers across the globe will contribute as well.  UCO is an appropriate place to begin the documentation of this major paradigm shift in higher education.  In this first edition, you will often hear a reference to UCO's Central Six-the six areas of transformative learning.  Discipline knowledge, leadership, research, creative, and scholarly activity, service learning and civic engagement, global and cultural competencies, and health and wellness.  You will see those subjects of the Central Six explored in these pages with each author presenting them in different ways.  You will also read the forewords from four writers who shaped the beginnings of transformative learning on this campus. Each author, looking back, will present his or her own reflections.