Transformative Teaching in Online Spaces: Results from a 3-Year Australia-Korea Teaching Project

Various literatures that examine transformative learning in the tertiary sector point to disruptive approaches – ones that take students out of the classroom to alter their perceptions, assumptions, and knowledge paradigms (Mezirow 2012). For example, land-based learning argues that a shift in the physical environment allows for reciprocity and community exchange (Simpson et al 2014). Cross-cultural exchange programs facilitate exposure to students from different backgrounds (Himelfarb and Idriss 2011). Experiential learning that disorients students can transform the learning experience (Lam et al 2005). These disruptions to routine ways of learning are part of social and psychological transformation, and they are the kinds of strategies that are embraced by those who want to teach transformatively.

However not all teaching institutions have the means to offer physical disruptions to the tertiary classroom. As the Virtual Exchange literature demonstrates, there are now online platforms that offer a way to provide some of these experiences (Turula, Kurek and Lewis 2019). Yet significant pedagogical, logistical, and administrative challenges remain.

This paper delves into this question about the viability of online platforms as legitimate disruptors of the traditional tertiary classroom. The paper begins by reviewing theories that speak to tertiary transformative learning, then summarizes the literature on online educational platforms. A gap in the literature is identified: do online platforms truly facilitate disruptive transformational learning? The paper then turns to the empirics of a three-year project that sought to offer transformative learning to tertiary students from Australia and South Korea. Both online and in-person teaching was offered to students studying theories of social justice. The paper details the challenges of the program, along with its successes. It concludes that transformative learning is possible through online platforms, but that some elements go missing. A corrective to these missing elements is suggested.