ABSTRACT
Before You Begin: Proactive Planning for Effective Transformative Education describes the foundations and emotional and relational processes of Transformative Education in the course planning phase. We explore how personal values, teaching philosophy, teaching goals, and learning objectives inform the course development process and invite reflection on how these aspects can connect to pedagogical and curricular decisions. We encourage faculty to consider where they might be in relation to these aspects and the backgrounds and motivations that their students might bring when they sign up for a diversity course. With these considerations in mind, we provide strategies for conceptualizing the course, deciding teaching goals, developing syllabi, and choosing content, assignments, and activities through the emotional and relational processes of Transformative Education (particularly positionality and reflexivity, engaging emotionality and resistance, and encouraging empathy and perspective taking). We also offer strategies for developing a course syllabus that attends to faculty’s emotional experience within Transformative Education. We conclude with Reflection Questions for faculty to explore how the material may apply to readers’ particular styles and contexts, inviting faculty to consider their emotional and personal responses, and make active choices about application. Additional resources related to the specific chapter content are also included.
