Daring to do differently: innovative experiences in teaching & leaning methods

• Autor(a) principal: Cunha, Gilda
• Data de Publicação: 2016
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/10400.21/7346
• topic: Teaching; Learning; Knowledge acquisition; Cognitive skills development

Can we learn how to think and perceive reality differently? Can we become co-active in work and life? Can we just be who we already are? We can find today, in different schools and countries, the expression of the philosophers and educators perspectives like Rudolph Steiner, Alfred Whitehead, Jiddu Krishnamurti, Sri Aurobindo, John Dewey, Maria Montessori, Jack Mezirow or Jean Jacques Rousseau. With all their contributions we can consider two main kinds of educational systems; alternative and conventional. The last one mainly focus on knowledge acquisition, cognitive skills development and individual achievement had the influence of John Locke. Integral approach synthetized on the AQAL model (All Quadrants, All Lines) with its five elements (quadrants, levels, lines, states and types) “facilitates the ability to engage in any topic of study, dialog, experience, more intelligently” (Chris Lindquist). In Portugal we can see at least two educational experiences in higher education, of Integral Education in practice: The UBUNTU Academy and the Master in Health Technologies Assessment & Quality Management (HTA&QM). Some practices present in each of these two experiences include embodied reading, engaged reading, presence, reflective dialogue, shadow work, inquiry, perspective taking, self-authorship, witnessing, and meditation. Integrating and transcending the best conventional and alternative approaches to education, inspired by Ken Wilber and his Integral approach and AQAL model, I believe we can say YES to the three first questions.