Instructional technology innovation as transformational learning: female faculty's narratives of experience

Workplaces are potential learning communities that invite critical reflection on practice that can be shared with others. Higher Education (HE) may be described as a workplace in which instructional development activity may be a form of inquiry in which faculty see "the taken-for-granted with new eyes" [33, p.3], prompting them to critically reflect upon their experiences and practice and leading to a foundational reframing of their core beliefs, assumptions, and values and subsequent actions [31]. Instructional innovation in HE can be personally risky, yet this is the level at which transformational thinking and action occurs and is sustained. The incorporation of instructional technology into teaching practice extends an already complex environment, introducing an unfamiliar realm of expertise. This complexity may be increased for female faculty who already experience some degree of marginalization in HE. The study on which this paper is based is a feminist project of narrative inquiry informed by the theoretical constructs of transformative learning, and feminist pedagogy in technology-enhanced environments. In this framework narratives of experience can be understood as "statement(s) of belief, of morality" that are values-based, doing social and political work as they are told [19, p.12]. In this study 47 female faculty from Canadian universities participated in research conversations as both method and site for the construction of personal and sociocultural understanding and change. Comparative analysis of the conversations reveal several interacting themes including psychosocial issues related to female faculty teaching with technology, the role of collaborative design conversations in perspective transformation, and relational practice for action learning.