Impacting Teaching and Learning

The second book in this series, Impacting Teaching and Learning: Contemplative Practices, Pedagogy, and Research in Education, demonstrates research-based practices from a variety of teacher education programs, bringing together a rich collection of voices from diverse settings. All of the authors in this book share their research investigating the varied ways learners respond to contemplative practices, and the skills and dispositions that contemplative practices cultivate in preservice teachers. Authors explore challenges faced institutionally, with students, and personnel.

Byrnes, Dalton, & Dorman have managed to achieve throughout their 3-volume, edited collection, ideas both practical and inspiring. They offer the reader great scope and depth in describing contemplative practices from a variety of settings and perspectives. Teacher educators will understand more deeply what contemplative education is, ways to incorporate its practices, and why it is so valuable in supporting teacher education students and practicing teachers. Throughout the chapters, they provide the tools for self-transformation through experiences that move the soul, awaken the heart, and strengthen pedagogical thinking., A remarkable book that is full of important information for those who want to dig deeper into the complexities of integrating contemplative pedagogy into teacher development. Reflective practices are explored as a way to develop the courage to shift status quo pedagogies, see and lead with heart and mind, create balance with the increasing demands of the university system, and develop one’s ability to come to deeply know oneself.  Grounded in research and personal experiences, this book is a treasure of the profound language of possibility joyfully emerging as the authors share insights from their journeys as contemplative teacher educators., Dorman, Dalton, and Byrnes have curated a useful and important set of examples of what it means to incorporate contemplative approaches to learning and teaching. I am sure that this volume, and the other two in the series, will be of great use to anyone wanting to deepen their relationship with their students, colleagues and themselves., Contemplative practices have been corporatized and co-opted in many spaces in education to create docile bodies in the classroom. Yet this book offers deep, engaged empirical possibilities of the soul, spirit, mind, and body in learning environments by reminding us that none of us are locked in any one field, space, or genre of thought or writing. That we are always multidimensional, interconnected, and our best when extending compassion, care, and empathy is a remarkable reminder and a marker for educational research. I recommend this book highly as required reading in Teacher Education and beyond., Elizabeth Dorman, Kathryn Byrnes and Jane Dalton and are to be commended for this vitally required three-volume series for the field of contemplative teacher education. The series offers abundant riches in theory, application, and research for teacher education. The three-volume work fills a timely need to apply the principles and processes of contemplative inquiry to preservice teacher education. Today’s teacher education needs to include contemplative orientations to address the challenges of preservice teachers becoming more fully human and to offer specific contemplative foundations and approaches for those who design and teach in preservice programs. The essays in these volumes will be valuable to both faculty and the preservice teachers themselves.

Elizabeth Hope Dorman, Ph.D., is Associate Professor of Teacher Education at Fort Lewis College, a public liberal arts college in Durango, Colorado, where she teaches graduate and undergraduate students in secondary, K-12, and elementary education programs. Her scholarship focuses on the integration and effects of mindfulness and contemplative pedagogies on teacher development of social-emotional competence, particularly in diverse contexts and courses that address multicultural perspectives and equity issues. Kathryn Byrnes, Ph.D. is the Baldwin Program Director in the Center for Learning and Teaching at Bowdoin College, and faculty at the Teachings in Mindful Education (TiME) Institute in Maine. She served as Board President of the Mindfulness in Education Network (MiEN), and taught in-person and online courses on Mindful Education at Lesley University and Bowdoin College. Her scholarship and professional development work focuses on the integration of contemplative pedagogy in educational contexts. Jane E. Dalton, Ph.D is an Assistant Professor of Art Education at the University of North Carolina in Charlotte, teaching art education and studio art. A textile artist, Jane’s work has been exhibited throughout the United States. She is the co-author of The Compassionate Classroom: Lessons that Nurture Empathy and Wisdom.