Ignatian Pedagogy: Introduction, Research, Examples

http://jesuitinstitute.org/Resources/Ignatian%20Pedagogy%20Abridged%20%20(Jan%2014)%20210x210%20MASTER.pdf

Ignatian Pedagogy: Introduction, Research, Examples

Michael A. Nichols, John Carroll University

http://jesuitinstitute.org/Resources/Ignatian%20Pedagogy%20Abridged%20%20(Jan%2014)%20210x210%20MASTER.pdf

http://jesuitinstitute.org/Resources/Ignatian%20Pedagogy%20Abridged%20%20(Jan%2014)%20210x210%20MASTER.pdf

http://hrcak.srce.hr/file/160882

(Note: This downloads the paper.)

Context

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B13HZ-tvnk9ydjBMbmZ6SjRJMUE

"Similarly, personal care and concern for the individual, which is the hallmark of Jesuit Education, requires that the teacher become as conversant as possible with the life experience of the learner."

"In the Spiritual Exercises, Ignatius makes the that the experiences of the retreatant should always give shape and context to the exercises that are being used."

"Ignatius encourages the director of the Spiritual Exercises to become as familiar as possible beforehand with the life experience of the retreatant so that, during the retreat itself, the director will be better equipped to assist the retreatant in discerning movements of the Spirit."

NetVUE Learning Community: "Building Capacity for Reflection" F14-F15

"As teachers, therefore, we need to understand the world of the student, including the ways in which family, friends, peers, youth culture and mores as well as social pressures, school life, politics, economics, religion, media, art, music and other realities impact that world and affect the student for better or worse."

Reflection in Action: A Signature Ignatian Pedagogy for the 21st Centruy, Mountin, S. and Nowacek, R. 2008.

http://epublications.marquette.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1176&context=theo_fac

Experience

http://jesuitinstitute.org/Resources/Ignatian%20Pedagogy%20(JI%20Edition%202013).pdf

TOPICS

• Vocational Stories
• The Spiritual Exercises
• Vocation, Reflection and the Undergraduate Experience
• Discernment and Decision Making
• Ignatian Pedagogy
• Personal Vocation and Social Conscience

"Thus we use the term 'experience' to describe any activity in which addition to a cognitive grasp of the matter being considered, some sensation of an affective nature is registered by the student.

In any experience, data is perceived by the student cognitively. Through questioning, imagining, investigating its elements and relationships, the student organizes this data into a whole or a hypothesis..."

Direct Experience - "Beyond the facts"

• Conversations or Discussions
• Laboratory Investigations
• Field Trips
• Service Learning
• Co-curricular Activities

Vicarious Experience - Stimulate Students' Imagination and Use of Senses

• Readings or Listening to Lectures
• Simulations
• Role Playing
• Audio Visual Materials

JCU Web Resources

Reflection

http://jesuitinstitute.org/Resources/Ignatian%20Pedagogy%20(JI%20Edition%202013).pdf

"The Ignatian emphasis on student experience - like so many other critical pedagogies - shifts the focus of the course:"

"We use the term reflection to mean a thoughtful reconsideration of some subject matter, experience, idea, purpose or spontaneous reaction, in order to grasp its significance more fully."

"For Ignatius to 'discern' was to clarify his internal motivation, the reasons behind his judgments, to probe the causes and implications of what he experienced, to weigh possible options and evaluate them in the light of their consequences, to discover what best leads to the desired goal: to be a free person who seeks, finds, and carries out the will of God in each situation."

• Readings
• NetVUE Conference (2011) and Immersion Program
• Faculty Projects - ICP
• Factbook and Bulletin
• Integrative Core Curriculum
• Overall Description
• Issues in Social Justice (ISJ)
• Jesuit Heritage

Experiences -

• Service-Learning
• Field Trips
• Clinical Experiences
• Internships
• Research Experiences
• Experience Texts as ideas and values

The content of the class resides not in the teacher's wisdom but in the breadth of the student's learning experiences.

"Reflection is the Process by which meaning surfaces in the human experience:

Understanding the truth being studied more clearly.

What assumptions are being made in ....? Are they valid? Fair? Are others possible? How would that affect ...?

Understanding the sources of the sensations or reactions I experience in this consideration.

"A major challenge to a teacher at this stage is to formulate questions that will broaden student's awareness and impel them to consider viewpoints of others, especially the poor."

Teacher should avoid imposing viewpoints that would lead to manipulation or indoctrination.

http://epublications.marquette.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1176&context=theo_fac

What interests me in this subject? Why? Is there something troubling? Why?

http://www.xavier.edu/jesuitresource/ignatian-resources/jesuit-education-ignatian-pedagogy.cfm

Deepening my understanding of the implications for myself and others.

What effects will ... have on my life and others?

Achieving personal insights in events, ideas, truth.

If my (action) is contributing to (problem) am I willing to change?

• "Examen"-like Process
• Writing Prompts and/or Journaling
• Reflect upon the experience in lab/research, clinical, office, in the text

By coming to some understanding of who I am and I might be in relation to others.

In the context of a person living in the world with others.

http://jesuitinstitute.org/Resources/Ignatian%20Pedagogy%20(JI%20Edition%202013).pdf

Why Did I Choose Ignatian Pedagogy?

Action

"Ignatian Reflection, just as it begins with the reality of experience, necessarily ends with that same reality in order to effect it.

Reflection only develops and matures when it fosters decision and commitment."

"Ignatius wanted Jesuit Schools to form young people who could and would contribute intelligently and effectively to the welfare of society."

http://jesuitinstitute.org/Resources/Ignatian%20Pedagogy%20(JI%20Edition%202013).pdf

• When I interviewed at 3 Jesuit Universities
• JCU Website
• Statement in JCU Academic Program Reviews
• Relevance to Integrated Core and Assessment

"The term 'action' here refers to internal human growth based upon experience that has been reflected upon as well as its manifestation externally."

"..Ignatius and the first Jesuits were most concerned with the formation of students' attitudes, values, ideals according to which they would make decisions in a wide variety of situations about what actions were to be done."

Interiorized Choices

External Manifestation

The learner considers the experience from a personal, human point of view. The student may decide that a truth is their personal point of reference or may gradually clarify their priorities. At this point, the student chooses to make the truth their own while remaining open to where the truth might lead.

In time, these meanings, attitudes, values which have been interiorized, impel the student to act and do something consistent with this new conviction.

http://epublications.marquette.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1176&context=theo_fac

Evaluation

When students learn something by reflecting upon their experiences that new-found knowledge leads to some action.

Ignatius hoped the action would be concrete activity but a broader definition of action would include "an understanding, a disposition, a decision, a belief a commitment, or to try something else (like another experiment) that would build upon the previous knowledge."

"Action, in short, is the appropriation of the learning that transforms the learner"

What about "actions that lack any clear moral charge?"

The experience - reflection process may lead to an "enhanced understanding" or "deeper understanding of a topic / problem / idea that goes well beyond memorization.

"Why would knowledge of Ignatian Pedagogy be common in certain pockets of Jesuit campuses (CTL) but not ubiquitous? Why would anyone not at a Jesuit institution consider adopting this signature pedagogy?

"Periodic testing alerts the teacher and student both to intellectual growth and to lacunae (gaps) where further work is necessary for mastery.

This type of feedback can alert the teacher to possible needs for use of alternate methods of teaching; it also offers opportunities to individualize encouragement and advice for academic improvement for each student."

"Ignatian pedagogy, however, aims at formation which includes but goes beyond academic mastery.

Periodic evaluation of the student's growth in attitudes, priorities, and actions consistent with being a person for others is essential."

http://epublications.marquette.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1176&context=theo_fac

"When students themselves engage in this evaluation, they are, in essence, reflecting on their process of reflection (which in turn mediates experience and action) - making the stage of evaluation a type of meta-reflection."

http://epublications.marquette.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1176&context=theo_fac

Some faculty who might adopt it are simply not aware of it.

Some faculty may already be using all or parts and not aware of it.

Some may be reluctant to adopt it because of its religious origin.

"Useful pedagogical approaches include mentoring, review of student journals, student self-evaluation in light of personal growth profiles, as well as review of leisure time activities and voluntary service to others."

"For evaluation to serve its proper role as a key principle of Ignatian pedagogy, instructors must embrace meta-reflection as something students can do with more or less success and therefore as something that instructors are responsible for coaching or even grading."

http://epublications.marquette.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1176&context=theo_fac

http://jesuitinstitute.org/Resources/Ignatian%20Pedagogy%20(JI%20Edition%202013).pdf

Image by Tom Mooring