Fostering Relevance: An Investigation of Three Teachers’ Efforts to Inspire Transformative Experience

• In Event: How Do Context and Socializers Shape Motivational Beliefs Across Theoretical Perspectives?

Abstract

Through professional learning community collaborations, three high school teachers adapted an intervention (the Seeing Science Project) utilizing mobile technology as a tool to bridge in-school and out-of-school experience, promoting increased relevance (as measured through transformative experiences). All projects involved students taking pictures when they noticed connections to class content and posting these pictures on a class site. The current research used a mixed methods approach to evaluate the degree to which students underwent transformative experiences in relation to the Seeing Science projects and to describe their experiences. The quantitative results revealed a significant increase in transformative experience scores after the project and the qualitative results supported these findings, with the majority of students sharing positive examples of transformative experience characteristics.

Authors

• Cassendra M. Bergstrom, University of Northern Colorado

• Kevin J. Pugh, University of Northern Colorado

• Yousef Alardhi, University of Northern Colorado

• John Darag, University of Northern Colorado

• Katelyn Hatch, University of Northern Colorado