Start Date
16-6-2025 10:00 AM
End Date
16-6-2025 11:30 AM
Abstract
“Learning happens best by doing” (University of Regina, Centre for Experiential and Service Learning, 2023). Reflective of Dewey’s belief that experience is knowledge and our experience is simply ‘what we do’ (Dewey, 1892), students who engage in this type of learning ultimately enhance their academic outcomes.
This presentation shares the experiences of two Canadian professors of disability studies who have integrated experiential learning as a pedagogical tool throughout their combined 45 years of teaching. Most recently, their work has engaged student learning on study abroad experiences (ISAPA 2025; Disability Sport Conference 2024 in Coventry, England).
Through immersive cross-cultural learning, student and teacher perspectives of disability (often influenced by cultural, economic and social factors), have been shaped through these international experiences. The authors will discuss the educational benefits, challenges, and personal growth of both students and instructors.
Study abroad trips are not without challenges. Logistics of planning a group voyage, unknown accessibility in unfamiliar places, inexperienced travellers, and emotional responses to the harsh realities of socially imposed disabling conditions can be difficult to navigate. Yet learning to negotiate comfort into moments that are most uncomfortable helps to nurture maturity and thoughtfulness.
As instructors, we broaden our perspectives of lived experience and intersectionality through our travels. We become more attentive to access and justice on a global scale. We gain an understanding of disability rights (CRPD) and awaken ourselves to how our [pedagogical] practices in the field of adaptive physical activity and therapeutic recreation might help students to become more awakened, too.
Recommended Citation
Rossow-Kimball, Brenda and Cripps, Doug, "Disability Studies on a Global Landscape: Pedagogical Study Abroad Experiences" (2025). International Symposium of Adapted Physical Activity and International Symposium on Physical Activity and Visual Impairment and Deafblindness. 11.
https://sword.mtu.ie/isapa/2025/day1/11
Disability Studies on a Global Landscape: Pedagogical Study Abroad Experiences
“Learning happens best by doing” (University of Regina, Centre for Experiential and Service Learning, 2023). Reflective of Dewey’s belief that experience is knowledge and our experience is simply ‘what we do’ (Dewey, 1892), students who engage in this type of learning ultimately enhance their academic outcomes.
This presentation shares the experiences of two Canadian professors of disability studies who have integrated experiential learning as a pedagogical tool throughout their combined 45 years of teaching. Most recently, their work has engaged student learning on study abroad experiences (ISAPA 2025; Disability Sport Conference 2024 in Coventry, England).
Through immersive cross-cultural learning, student and teacher perspectives of disability (often influenced by cultural, economic and social factors), have been shaped through these international experiences. The authors will discuss the educational benefits, challenges, and personal growth of both students and instructors.
Study abroad trips are not without challenges. Logistics of planning a group voyage, unknown accessibility in unfamiliar places, inexperienced travellers, and emotional responses to the harsh realities of socially imposed disabling conditions can be difficult to navigate. Yet learning to negotiate comfort into moments that are most uncomfortable helps to nurture maturity and thoughtfulness.
As instructors, we broaden our perspectives of lived experience and intersectionality through our travels. We become more attentive to access and justice on a global scale. We gain an understanding of disability rights (CRPD) and awaken ourselves to how our [pedagogical] practices in the field of adaptive physical activity and therapeutic recreation might help students to become more awakened, too.