Teaching for Transformation

Program Objective

Teaching for Transformation (TforT) is jointly offered by Centre for Faculty Development (CFD) and Centre for Advancing Collaborative Healthcare & Education (CACHE). It was inspired by a growing need in health professions education and practice to prepare clinicians for a multitude of complex social roles. For example, collaboration, advocacy, and systems navigation must be performed within a complex health care system that aims to support compassionate, equitable, and person-centered care orientations, while also managing limited resources, quality, safety, and accountability. Aligned with these needs, TforT brings together educators interested in the theory and practice of transformative education and critical pedagogies.

TforT aims to promote and provide the development of critically reflective/reflexive individuals in relation to their educational roles in health care.

Program Description

TforT brings together educators, clinicians, administrators, leaders, and scholars interested in the theory and practice of humanistic and transformative education and critical pedagogies and practices. The humanist paradigm of education foregrounds self-actualization and the transformative paradigm of education is grounded in a vision of education as an emancipatory practice in pursuit of equity. TforT participants strive to prepare health professions learners for the humanistic, social-relational aspects of health care practice.

TforT explores varying pedagogies, principles, and practices depending on the year. For example, dialogic education, arts-based pedagogy, reflective writing, theatre pedagogy, pedagogies of discomfort, aesthetic education, ways of knowing, active learning, experiential learning, portfolio courses.

These educational approaches may support the following health education goals: compassionate care, equity, diversity, and inclusion, interprofessional education and collaboration, critically reflective practice, advocacy and change agency, systems-based practice, professionalism, ethics of research and clinical practice, person-centered care, patient engagement in education, accessibility and universal design for learning.

TforT is a suite of educational offerings, including an annual conference, the Online Supplements for Education, and custom consultations and programming.