DFE
Department of Formative Education
Formative Education
An unprecedented venture in American higher education, the Department of Formative Education (DFE) is devoted to the interdisciplinary exploration of questions at once perennial and pressing: How do we educate whole persons for meaningful lives? How do we cultivate community? How do we nurture vision and values? In DFE, faculty conduct groundbreaking research on the cultivation of character, the expansion of imagination, and realization of purpose.
We propose that:
- Education involves both knowing and doing: understanding the world and changing it.
- Education goes beyond the transmission of discrete knowledge and skills to encompass the transformation of the whole person.
- Education must address the full scope of our humanity: intellectual and practical, moral and civic, aesthetic and spiritual.
- Education in school is just one aspect of a life-wide and lifelong formative process.
- Education is not a technical matter of finding efficient means to given ends, but calls for judgment about the worthiness of the ends themselves.
Anthropology and cultural psychology help us think globally about human development, asking:
- How do human beings make use of cultural resources to shape their identities, aspirations, and values?
- What roles do parents, families, and communities play in children’s learning in different sociocultural contexts?
- How does language frame social worlds and mediate meaning making?
The learning sciences and developmental technologies expand our conception of where, what, and how we learn, inviting us to:
- Draw on our understanding of cognitive, social, and cultural processes to create new learning environments;
- Investigate how we learn across formal and informal contexts of home and school, work and play, networks and communities;
- Design and implement learning experiences that use coding, making, and robotics to play a positive role in children’s lives.
The formative humanities explore the existential and normative dimensions of educational experience:
- History of formative education enriches the educational imagination by exploring different traditions of formative thought and illustrative examples of formative practice.
- Philosophy of formative education brings into conversation three perennial questions: What is the human condition? What constitutes our flourishing? What fosters our growth?
- Psychological humanities disclose the lived experience of personhood, examining the demands of relationships, the experience of suffering, and the dynamics of transformation.
We seek to create spaces that:
- Spark self-discovery;
- Challenge us to attend more closely and notice the overlooked;
- Integrate mind and body, thinking and feeling, fact and value, reflection and action, understanding and self-knowledge, life and school;
- Connect learners in community;
- Support dialogue across difference;
- Inspire the pursuit of formative justice.
Programs
Formative Education, Ph.D.
<h3><b>PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS </b></h3>
<ul>
<li>The program is built around the aim of helping students develop into sharp, imaginative, socially engaged, interdisciplinary thinkers. </li>
<li>Drawing faculty from the diverse disciplinary traditions of history and philosophy, anthropology and humanistic psychology, design thinking, and the learning sciences, this program will prepare scholars and practitioners to examine the conceptual, empirical, and normative dimensions of formation. <br />
</li>
</ul>
<p>Foster engaged scholar-practitioners whose rich, interdisciplinary intellectual formation allows them to address complex, normative questions about human transformation. The program seeks to prepare thought leaders in a variety of sectors whose research and work promote the development of whole persons toward lives of meaning and purpose. <br />
</p>
bc:schools/LSOE/academics/programs/higher-ed-edd
Learning Engineering, M.A.
<h3><b>PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS </b></h3>
<ul><li>Students complete design challenges, shadow working professionals, explore technology incubators, and intern with local organizations.</li><li>Graduates leave the program with a dynamic portfolio that showcases the depth and breadth of their design work.</li></ul>
<p>Prepare to design engaging and effective learning experiences that are informed by the learning sciences and incorporate cutting-edge technologies.</p>
DFE
Learning Engineer
Learning Experience and User Experience Designer
Instructional Designer or Evaluator
Curriculum Developer
Educational Technology Consultant
bc:schools/LSOE/academics/programs/learning-engineering
Transformative Educational Studies, B.A.
<h3><b>PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS</b></h3>
<ul><li>Coursework covers leading theories and strategies in curriculum; diversity, equity, inclusion; and formative education.</li><li>Students are pushed to consider what it means to be an educator and how education should respond to contemporary social, environmental, and health crises.</li><li>Program prepares students for 5th year master's programs at the Lynch School.</li></ul>
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<p> </p>
<p>Study fundamental educational questions arising during this moment of social and educational transformation.</p>
DFE
English Teacher
Science Teacher
History Teacher
ELA Teacher
Associate General Counsel
bc:schools/LSOE/academics/programs/transformative-educational-ba
Faculty
Internationally recognized faculty integrate interdisciplinary theory with the most current evidence-based practices.
Research
News
Formative Education at Boston College
At Boston College, we strive to create communities that encourage exploring the different dimensions of intellectual, emotional, interpersonal, and spiritual development across our campus.