scholarly journals Experiential Graduate Education: An Experiment in Transformative Learning

2013 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Marilyn Laiken
Keyword(s):  
Transformative Learning ◽  
Adult Students ◽  
Adult Educators ◽  
Transformative Learning Theory ◽  
Graduate Course ◽  
Mature Adult ◽  
Constructive Learning ◽  
Personal Mastery ◽  
Transformative Impact

Five years of teaching a graduate course in organizational learning have convinced the author that the course has a transformative impact on her mature adult students. The article examines the nature of this form of experiential education in the light of transformative learning theory and learning organization concepts. Using the course as a case example, the author offers a number of specific approaches to: developing a constructive learning environment; enhancing team learning; surfacing and discussing assumptions; supporting systems thinking; and personal mastery. Finally, the author examines the role of the instructor as a facilitator of transformative learning. The objectives are to help adult educators reflect on one kind of environment that seems to have a transformative impact and to explore how to continue to successfully design such experiences for and with adult students.

Exploring Transformative Learning at the Cultural Interface: Insights From Successful Aboriginal University Students

2018 ◽  
Vol 49 (1) ◽  
pp. 2-13
Author(s):  
Braden Hill ◽  
Grantley Winmar ◽  
Jenna Woods
Keyword(s):  
Transformative Learning ◽  
Learning Theory ◽  
Transformative Learning Theory ◽  
Adult And Continuing Education ◽  
Emotional Challenges ◽  
Education Theory ◽  
Cultural Interface ◽  
Transformative Impact ◽  
Adult And Continuing ◽  
Western Australian

Transformative learning theory articulates a process whereby students experience a change in perspectives that expands and transforms their worldview. Despite being well established and regarded within the literature relating to adult and continuing education, Mezirow's (1978) seminal education theory remains largely absent in the research relating to Indigenous higher education. This study explores the transformative impact of university learning on the student journeys of three Aboriginal graduates from a Western Australian university. Applying a collaborative auto-ethnographic approach, each author-participant's personal narrative of their student experience was exposed to comparative, thematic and critical analysis. It was found that each author had faced similar cognitive and emotional challenges at university. Significantly, it emerged that university had changed the author-participants’ identities in ways that aligned with Mezirow's transformative learning construct. The narrative data also revealed elements that appeared related to the students’ negotiation of Nakata's cultural interface. A dominant theme in the data referred to the relationships formed during university, as being integral to transformation. Furthermore, family was understood to have a paradoxical influence on their educational journey. The insights garnered from this study prompt further consideration as to how transformative learning theory might be mobilised at the cultural interface.

scholarly journals Adult Learning and Change: An Autobiographical Portrait of a Chinese Woman in Canada

2013 ◽  
Vol 33 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Chun Ge Liu
Keyword(s):  
Adult Learning ◽  
Transformative Learning ◽  
Life Experiences ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
Cultural Learning ◽  
Theoretical Level ◽  
Mature Adult ◽  
Learning And Change ◽  
Transformative Impact ◽  
Insight Into

The themes of adult learning, cross-cultural learning, and transformative learning are common to many continuing educators working at universities across Canada. In this essay, I narrate my experiences as a mature, adult learner returning to university. Following a literature review and discussion of methodology, I begin this autobiographical portrait with a description of my initial education and life experiences in China. From this foundation, I describe and interpret my cross-cultural sojourn as a graduate student in Canada. This sojourn was both happy and sad, both empowering and disempowering. My story is one of learning—learning as an adult, learning in a cross-cultural setting, and learning that ultimately had a transformative impact on how I view myself and my world. Through exploring my own experiences with learning and change, I hope to offer readers of the Canadian Journal of Continuing Education a unique opportunity for insight into personal processes that are difficult to truly understand at a theoretical level alone.

At the Crossroads of Transformative Learning and SoTL

2020 ◽  
pp. 201-220
Author(s):  
Rachel C. Plews ◽  
Moira Laffranchini Ngoenha
Keyword(s):  
Teacher Education ◽  
Transformative Learning ◽  
Faculty Member ◽  
Learning Theory ◽  
Flipped Classroom ◽  
Teaching Practice ◽  
Transformative Learning Theory ◽  
Systematic Reflection ◽  
Reflection On Practice

This chapter explores the ongoing collaboration between an educational developer and a faculty member at a university of teacher education in Switzerland as an inquiry into one's teaching practice to improve the implementation of the flipped classroom approach. Through the lens of transformative learning theory, the chapter examines how SoTL can serve as faculty enrichment in addition to an approach for systematic reflection on practice. Special attention is paid to the role of the educational developer as a mentor throughout the inquiry. The chapter concludes with practical strategies for developing a productive SoTL relationship between educational developers and faculty member, as well as visibility across an institution.

Adapting Adult Educators’ Teaching Philosophies to Foster Adult Learners’ Transformation and Emancipation

2013 ◽  
pp. 134-147
Author(s):  
Victor X. Wang ◽  
Patricia Cranton
Keyword(s):  
Adult Education ◽  
Adult Learners ◽  
Transformative Learning ◽  
Transformational Learning ◽  
Individual Characteristics ◽  
Adult Educators ◽  
Philosophical Perspective ◽  
Teaching Philosophies ◽  
Diverse Individual

This chapter argues that adult educators need to adapt their philosophy and their teaching roles to foster adult learners’ transformative learning, and it proposes a model that illustrates this process. The most common purposes of adult education are represented by five underlying philosophies as fully discussed by Elias and Merriam. Adult learners possess different needs, interests, and experiences. As teachers modify their roles and methods in response to their students’ diverse individual characteristics, they must also adapt their underlying philosophical perspective so that philosophy, roles, and methods are congruent. The authors maintain that in this context, the role of adult educators as facilitators of transformational learning should be examined and their prevalent humanistic and progressive philosophies critically questioned.

Adapting Adult Educators' Teaching Philosophies to Foster Adult Learners' Transformation and Emancipation

2014 ◽  
pp. 1238-1251
Author(s):  
Victor X. Wang ◽  
Patricia Cranton
Keyword(s):  
Adult Education ◽  
Adult Learners ◽  
Transformative Learning ◽  
Transformational Learning ◽  
Individual Characteristics ◽  
Adult Educators ◽  
Philosophical Perspective ◽  
Teaching Philosophies ◽  
Diverse Individual

This chapter argues that adult educators need to adapt their philosophy and their teaching roles to foster adult learners' transformative learning, and it proposes a model that illustrates this process. The most common purposes of adult education are represented by five underlying philosophies as fully discussed by Elias and Merriam. Adult learners possess different needs, interests, and experiences. As teachers modify their roles and methods in response to their students' diverse individual characteristics, they must also adapt their underlying philosophical perspective so that philosophy, roles, and methods are congruent. The authors maintain that in this context, the role of adult educators as facilitators of transformational learning should be examined and their prevalent humanistic and progressive philosophies critically questioned.

On Disruption and Construction, Reflection and Reorganization in Psychotherapist Development: A Taxonomy of Transformative Learning Outcomes

2019 ◽  
pp. 154134461986406 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. Edward Watkins
Keyword(s):  
Transformative Learning ◽  
Learning Outcomes ◽  
Learning Theory ◽  
Learning Process ◽  
Therapist Development ◽  
Transformative Learning Theory ◽  
Specific Question

The beginning period of psychotherapist development has been conceptually and empirically identified as the most difficult and potentially problematic. The budding therapist is struggling to define a therapist identity, settle into the role of being a “helper,” and come to grips with being a helper who can “heal.” That struggle, I contend, is at its core a transformative learning process that involves developing a guiding vision of oneself as therapist, where the shift from becoming to being is made reality. In what follows, I examine transformative learning theory as a framework for enhancing our understanding about the beginning period of therapist development. The specific question that I consider is: What transformative learning outcomes occur for the beginning psychotherapist in the process of developing a therapist identity? I draw on and analogize from Hoggan’s typology of transformative learning outcomes in providing an answer to that question.

scholarly journals Role of Transformative Learning Interventions in Developing Conducive Environment for Female Adult Learners in Higher Education

2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 491-500
Author(s):  
Muhammad Shabbir ◽  
Sajid Masood ◽  
Ghazal Khalid Siddiqui
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Adult Learners ◽  
Transformative Learning ◽  
Adult Students ◽  
Educational Achievement ◽  
Real Life ◽  
Female Adult ◽  
Learning Interventions ◽  
Conducive Environment

The increasing number of female adult learners required a need for a deeper and more additional background related consideration on the effects contributing toward educational achievement for the learners who return to study. The aim of this study is to define the role of Transformative Interventions in developing Conducive Learning Environment for female adult learners in higher education with the consideration on hindrances faced, as they re-engage and continuing their post-compulsory educational passage. Qualitative approach with explanatory case study design has been employed to conduct this study. Semi-structured open-ended interviews conducted for 16 purposefully selected female participants. Two private and two public universities were selected from which adult working students and experienced of having transformative learning interventions during their course. Moreover, the experiences and responses highlighted the needs, hindrances and expectations of the adult students in higher education. They identified reflective activities including article review and reflective writing, faculty support, seminars, educational conferences, presentations, projects on real life issues, discussion and introducing demanding courses are the important transformative learning interventions for developing Conducive environment for adults. The major factor responsible for developing Conducive environment was experiences and exposure by the adult learner and providing opportunities through the Andragogy and expertise. Notes on interviews and reflection journals were utilized to triangulate data to support these methods. Data analysis and results of the study indicated that participants experienced transformative learning interventions through both educational and non-educational related activities held in university by Higher Education.

scholarly journals Learning to Be: Emerging Discourse in Awakening Transformation in Education

in education ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 99-114
Author(s):  
Vanessa V. Tse ◽  
David F. Monk
Keyword(s):  
Social Justice ◽  
Transformative Learning ◽  
Learning Theory ◽  
Critical Discourse ◽  
Habits Of Mind ◽  
Transformative Learning Theory ◽  
The World ◽  
Personal Accountability ◽  
The One

This paper explores the disconnection between knowledge of social and environmental injustices and actions to right them. Through our discussion, we consider possible reasons for this disconnection, whether a lack of knowledge, personal accountability and responsibility, or a fear of being swallowed up in the depths of the suffering in the world. We then critically reflect on our role and the role of education to broach this gap. We adopt O’Sullivan’s (2002) transformative learning theory as a guide and suggest that disruptive dialogues, like the one that has guided this paper, can challenge habits of mind, shift perspectives, and lead to action for a better, more equitable world. Ultimately, we conclude that such conversations are organic and ever changing and are integral to education.Keywords: Social justice; critical discourse; transformation 

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