{"id":200,"date":"2026-01-30T00:12:13","date_gmt":"2026-01-30T05:12:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/priaacademy.org\/blog\/?p=200"},"modified":"2026-04-16T05:27:19","modified_gmt":"2026-04-16T09:27:19","slug":"transformative-pedagogy-in-content-and-process","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/priaacademy.org\/blog\/transformative-pedagogy-in-content-and-process\/","title":{"rendered":"Transformative Pedagogy in Content and Process: PRIA\u2019s Cross-Border Work with HEIs"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Ever since 2010, PRIA International Academy (PIA) has been facilitating regular learning visits to India for students and faculties from various Higher Education Institutions (HEI) from around the world.<\/p>\n\n

The importance of HEIs lies in driving innovation, empowering individuals with skills, addressing societal challenges through research, and deepening their knowledge of community realities. Through curated HEI visits, PIA bridges theory and lived experience, cultivating empathy, reflexivity, and a nuanced understanding of global citizenship that shapes learners into true global citizens.<\/p>\n\n

It equips students with awareness of social, political, and economic realities beyond their own contexts, and an understanding of how local struggles are embedded in global systems.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n\n

The COVID-19 pandemic brought major changes to Higher Education Institutions (HEIs), forcing them to shift from traditional face-to face learning to digital systems. Due to the pandemic’s sudden halt to international travel, educators everywhere were induced to reconsider experiential learning. The disruption was particularly severe for programs based on field-based pedagogy. During this time, PRIA Academy adapted its long-standing HEI engagement model into a virtual field school format. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n

A Global Leadership Virtual Field School was intended to create an interactive opportunity to engage with community leaders in other parts of the world. This educational format was valuable for promoting transformative pedagogy in both content and process, spurring innovative teaching, despite the limitations.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n

Without compromising depth, rationality, or transformative impact, a conventional international field school was converted into a fully online, participatory learning environment. This blog examines how a graduate-level leadership course, drawing PRIA\u2019s practice of participatory pedagogy and Transformative Learning Theory, offered an influential model for inclusive and justice-oriented education through a virtual Field School.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n

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Reimagining the Field School Experience<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n

Field schools directly engage students with the communities that are experiencing the social, political, and economic realities that are studying outside the classroom. Faculty and partners from Royal Roads University and Participatory Research in Asia (PRIA) reimagined the experience in a virtual format when an in-person field school in India was no longer viable.<\/p>\n\n

The Global Leadership Virtual Field School was created purposefully to maintain the relational, dialogic, and experiential core of field-based learning rather than replicating lectures online. During the seven weeks of the virtual site, the graduate students engaged with grassroots initiatives on women’s leadership, youth empowerment, informal labour, urban governance, and gender justice and visited community groups across India.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n

The Transformative Learning Theory<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n

The principal of virtual field school was the Transformative Learning Theory, which emphasizes critical reflection, perspective transformation, and collective meaning making through experience. The rational, emotional, social, and, for some students, spiritual aspects of transformation were all incorporated into the course design.<\/p>\n\n

In the process, students weren’t just passive information users. The presumptions on privilege, power, leadership, and culture were asked to examine by the students. For grassroot activism, the \u2018from below\u2019 was investigated especially in marginalized communities, through organized reflection, discussion, and exposure to a variety of lived experiences. Through such interactions, students enhanced their capacity to develop supportive, reciprocal, and productive relationships with people of different backgrounds.<\/p>\n\n

The key learning objectives included were:<\/h3>\n\n