Roben Torosyan
Portfolio of Service, Scholarship & Teaching
A collection of my work.
- Facilitating FPLCs at Salem State College
- The Role of Facilitator
Scholarly Writing
- Learners of the World, Unite (book I edited by R. M. Lauer)
Lives in transition: Work, relationships and meaning after college
This book in progress, with co-author Jack Kytle (author of To Want To Learn), explores the life transitions of young adults after
college, especially those critical moments when they try to establish
direction in life with respect to choice of career, friends and life
partners, and social and spiritual values. Over ten or more years after
college, the slow realizations and fateful decisions of this period
change the trajectory of a life in profound ways. For many, it
is a difficult, emotional period of alternating excitement about all
that is new, followed by radical doubt arising from sudden freedoms
and heavy responsibilities. The safety nets of family and college are
gone. Decisions about career, about life partner, and enduring
values are all up for grabs. At the same time, the emotional swings
of this time of life make it is easy to underestimate the remarkable
resilience of human beings. Teaching for transformation: Pathways and pitfalls of integrative learning and leadership
This book in progress is for faculty and leaders who want to:
- change their teaching practices to get out of a rut, renew and reinvigorate their callings and leave a meaningful legacy with their learners
To meet these needs, the book revolves around a central insight that connects fields ranging from human development to quantum physics. When a baby reaches five months of age, it can turn an object in its hand and see that even though the object looks different from different angles, its shape remains the same. In the 19th century novella Flatland, a sphere moving through a flat plane looks like a circle changing size, yet remains a sphere. So too when things are pulled by gravity, they appear to move through empty space over time. But as Einstein showed, such movement is actually gravity wrapping itself around the objects.
In each case, that to which we are subject becomes object for transformation. We step back to see objects as separate from ourselves, to see that change over time may be only movement in space, and to see movement in turn as simply a warp in the curvature of space-time.
So too with learning, people need to make object for consideration those assumptions to which they are subject. And when teaching, we need to make object for manipulation those revolutions in thinking that are vital to our disciplines. We also need to make object for consideration our methods of teaching, to not be subject to our teaching habits, but instead make those habits an object of our choosing, to select those that help our students learn and lead change.
To that end, the book:
- Shows relationships between seemingly disparate streams of thought ranging from developmental theory and leadership literature to quantum mechanics and chaos theory- Examines philosophical assumptions behind why we teach and how our very selves often teach more than our lessons alone ever can
- Shows how teaching mistakes, dilemmas and difficulties can be not only respected but used for change. Reading like a personal journal at times, the book shows how many of us think about the thorniest dilemmas of teaching, such as how grading complicates our task, and other tensions between being a gatekeeper and a coach.
Full of templates, tables and worksheets, the book brings theories to life with concrete examples of how transformation and integration translate to classroom practice.