Transformative learning

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Transcript of Transformative learning

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After completing this lesson students should be able to:1. Define the term “Transformative Learning.”

2. Identify the theorists or proponents of the Transformative Learning Theory.

3. Distinguish between the types of Transformative Learning.

4. Outline the foundations of the Transformative Learning theory.

Aims and Objectives

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QUICK QUESTION…?Have you ever  undergone a major change in your understanding of a topic, world view, comfort zone or through a particular learning experience/activities?

Then you are embarking on Transformational Learning!

ActivityUsing your personal experiences can you give an example of Transformative Learning that you have experienced.

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The Transformational Learning Theory originally developed by Jack Mezirow is described as being…

“Constructivist, an orientation which holds that the way learners interpret and reinterpret their sense experience is, central to making meaning and hence learning”

(Mezirow, 1991). 

Proponents of Transformative Learning

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Transformative Learning is … “… The process of using a prior interpretation to construe

a new or revised interpretation of the meaning of one’s experience in order to guide future action" (Mezirow, 1996: 162)

“… a deep, structural shift in basic premises of thought, feelings and actions.”

(Transformative Learning Centre, 2004)

Definitions of ‘Transformative Learning’

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“… is the expansion of consciousness through the transformation of basic worldview and specific capacities of the self”

(Elias, 1997)

“… this idea of a fundamental change in perspective or frame of reference”

(King, 2002)

“… the idea of people changing the way they interpret their experiences and their interactions with the world”

(Cranton, n.d.)

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The Transformative Learning Theory has two (2) basic kinds of learning:

1. Instrumental Learning

2. Communicative learning

Types of Transformative Learning

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This focuses on learning through task-oriented problem solving and determination of cause and effect relationships.

In instrumental learning, a response is associated with a stimulus that follows it — the instrumental response is associated with the reward after they have been paired repeatedly

Instrumental Learning

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For example, Thorndike performed research (summarized in Thorndike, 1911) on the ability of cats to learn to escape from “puzzle boxes” (see Figure 1). Cats placed within a puzzle box had to learn to do one or more of the following things in order to escape: push a lever, pull on a wire loop, pull on a string, turn a “button,” lift a latch, or push aside a door. In some experiments, the cat had to perform two or three of these actions sequentially before the door would open. In still other conditions, the door opened only after the cats licked or scratched themselves. Cats were rewarded for these behaviors by food, which was placed outside the box. In addition, because cats typically do not like being confined in small enclosures (as many cat-lovers already know), Thorndike’s subjects also experienced a reward simply by escaping from the tight confines of the box.

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Not all learning involves ‘learning to do’. Of even greater significance to most adult learning is understanding themeaning of what others communicate, concerning values, ideals, feelings, moral decisions, and such concepts as freedom, justice, love, labour, autonomy, commitment and democracy.Communicative learning focuses on achieving coherence rather than on exercising more effective control over thecause-effect relationship to improve performance, as in instrumental learning.

Communicative Learning

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The problem-solving process involved in instrumental learning is the ‘hypothetico-deductive’ approach. In communicative learning, the approach is one in which the learner attempts to understand what is meant by another through speech, writing, drama, art, or dance.

Communicative learning is less a matter of testing hypotheses than of searching, often intuitively, for themes and metaphors by which to fitthe unfamiliar into a meaning perspective, so that an interpretation in context becomes possible.

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Pillars of Transformative LearningInstrumenta

l (Cause/Effe

ct) and

Communicative (Feelings)

Learning involves change to meaning structures

(perspectives and Schemes)

Change to meaning structure occurs through reflection about content, process and premises.

Learning can involve: refining/elaborating meaning schemes, learning new schemes, transforming schemes, or transforming perspectives.

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Stages of Transformative Learning

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Although adults may developmentally acquire the capabilities to become critically self-reflective and exercise reflective judgment, the task of adult education is to help the learner realize these capabilities by developing the skills, insights, and dispositions essential for their practice.

Learners must acquire the skills, sensitivities, and understandings essential to become critically reflective of assumptions and to participate more fully and freely in critical-dialectical discourse.

Assessment of Transformative Learning

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Educators must foster the learner’s skills, habit of mind, disposition, and will to become a more active and rational learner. This involves becoming more critically reflective of assumptions supporting one’s own beliefs and those of others and more discriminating, open, and disposed to transformative learning.

Creating the conditions for and the skills of effective adult reasoning and the disposition for transformative learning—including critical reflection and dialectical discourse.

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Criticisms of Transformative Learning

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Experiential learning is any learning that supports students in applying their knowledge and conceptual understanding to real-world problems or situations where the instructor directs and facilitates learning. The classroom, laboratory, or studio can serve as a setting for experiential learning through embedded activities such as case and problem-based studies, guided inquiry, simulations, experiments, or art projects

(Wurdinger & Carlson, 2010)

Transformative Learning Vs Experiential Learning

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Now Do You Understand Transformational Learning?

We Got It!