Transformative Learning in Practice E-Book

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Bildung
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 612

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2011

Beschreibung

The leading authorities in the field produced this comprehensive resource, which provides strategies and methods for fostering Transformative Learning (TL) practice in a wide variety of higher and adult education settings. The book answers relevant questions such as: What are effective practices for promoting TL in the classroom? What is it about TL that is most helpful in informing practice? How does the teaching setting shape the practice of TL? What are the successes, strengths, and outcomes of fostering TL? What are the risks and challenges when practicing TL in the classroom?

Leseprobe

Table of Contents

Title Page

Copyright Page

Dedication

PREFACE

ABOUT THIS BOOK

ORGANIZATION OF THE BOOK

Acknowledgments

REFERENCES

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

PART ONE - INTRODUCTION

CHAPTER ONE - Fostering Transformative Learning

CORE ELEMENTS

CONCLUSION

REFERENCES

CHAPTER TWO - Transformative Learning Theory

TRANSFORMATIVE LEARNING: ORIGINS AND DEVELOPMENT

INSTRUMENTAL AND COMMUNICATIVE LEARNING

EPISTEMIC ASSUMPTIONS

DYNAMICS: THE LEARNING PROCESS

APPLICATION: GRADUATE ADULT EDUCATION

PSYCHOLOGY AND TRANSFORMATIVE LEARNING

PROMISING DIRECTIONS FOR FUTURE DEVELOPMENT

REFERENCES

PART TWO - TRANSFORMATIVE LEARNING AS HIGHER EDUCATION

CHAPTER THREE - Creating Alternative Realities

POPULAR THEATER: EXPERIENTIAL AND TRANSFORMATIVE PROCESSES

RANDEE’S STORY: IMAGES OF OPPRESSION—LOOKING THROUGH A MIRROR

SHAUNA’S STORY: SPEAKING TRUTH TO POWER

REFLECTIONS

REFERENCES

CHAPTER FOUR - Constructive Teaching and Learning

THEORETICAL FRAMEWORKS

TRANSFORMATIVE LEARNING IN A SOCIAL ENVIRONMENT

DOING COLLABORATION

REFLECTIONS

REFERENCES

CHAPTER FIVE - Facilitating Transformative Learning

OUR CONTEXT

DESIGN AND PEDAGOGICAL CONSIDERATIONS

IMPLEMENTATION OF PEDAGOGICAL STRATEGIES TO FOSTER TRANSFORMATIVE LEARNING ONLINE

REFLECTIONS

REFERENCES

CHAPTER SIX - Fostering Transformative Learning in Leadership Development

CONCEPTUAL UNDERPINNINGS AND DISCONNECTS

TRANSFORMATIVE PRACTICES

REFLECTIONS

REFERENCES

CHAPTER SEVEN - Mentoring

THE PRINCIPLES OF MENTORING

FOUR EXAMPLES OF MENTORING

REFLECTIONS

REFERENCES

CHAPTER EIGHT - Transformative Approaches to Culturally Responsive Teaching

DEFINING CULTURAL IMAGINATION

ENGAGING CULTURAL IMAGINATION IN OUR PRACTICE

REFLECTIONS

REFERENCES

CHAPTER NINE - Promoting Dialogic Teaching Among Higher Education Faculty in ...

GUIDING LEARNERS TO ADOPT AND IMPLEMENT DIALOGIC TEACHING

REFLECTIONS

REFERENCES

CHAPTER TEN - Transformative Palliative Care Education

PALLIATIVE CARE

DESCRIPTION OF TRANSFORMATIVE PRACTICES

VALUE AND RESULTS OF EVALUATING THE EXPERIENCE

OTHER REFLECTIVE APPROACHES

REFLECTIONS

REFERENCES

PART THREE - TRANSFORMATIVE LEARNING AS WORKPLACE EDUCATION

CHAPTER ELEVEN - Engaging Critical Reflection in Corporate America

CRITICAL REFLECTION, CRITICAL THEORY, AND CAPITALISM

MODELING: THE BEGINNING OF TEACHING FOR CRITICAL REFLECTION

PEER LEARNING: THE CRUCIBLE FOR CRITICAL REFLECTION

REFLECTIONS

REFERENCES

CHAPTER TWELVE - Charting the Course

STORYTELLING: AN OPERATIONAL DEFINITION

MEZIROW’S SEVEN CONDITIONS AND THEIR STORYTELLING CONNECTIONS

IMPLEMENTING STORYTELLING

REFLECTIONS

REFERENCES

CHAPTER THIRTEEN - Coaching to Transform Perspective

A CASE OF COACHING

WHY TRANSFORMATIVE LEARNING?

GETTING READY TO BEGIN

THE COACHING SESSIONS COMMENCE

TOOLS IN THE COACHING

PREPARING FOR THE TRANSFER

REACTION TO PERSPECTIVE SHIFTS

REFLECTIONS

REFERENCES

CHAPTER FOURTEEN - The Transformative Potential of Action Learning Conversations

ACTION LEARNING CONVERSATIONS

APPLYING ALC AS A HEURISTIC

REFLECTIONS

REFERENCES

CHAPTER FIFTEEN - Transformative Learning in Adult Basic Education

TWO CONTEXTS

STRATEGIES

REFLECTIONS

REFERENCES

CHAPTER SIXTEEN - From Tradesperson to Teacher

PARTICIPATORY PLANNING

ACTIVITIES FOR CRITICAL SELF-REFLECTION

ARTS-BASED ACTIVITIES

SELF-EVALUATION AND SELF-GRADING

REFLECTIONS

REFERENCES

PART FOUR - TRANSFORMATIVE LEARNING AS COMMUNITY AND SOCIAL CHANGE

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN - Fostering a Learning Sanctuary for Transformation in ...

RECONCEPTUALIZING TRANSFORMATIVE LEARNING

CREATING A RESPONSIVE PRACTICE OF TRANSFORMATIVE LEARNING

FOSTERING SANCTUARY IN ADULT SUSTAINABILITY EDUCATION

THE TEACHING AND LEARNING PROCESS

ADULT EDUCATION AS SANCTUARY

REFLECTIONS

REFERENCES

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN - Popular Education, Women’s Work, and Transforming Lives in Bolivia

TRANSFORMATIONAL LEARNING

THE OJM AND THE LEGAL PROMOTER’S COURSE

THE LEGAL PROMOTER’S COURSE IN COCHABAMBA, BOLIVIA

REFLECTIONS

REFERENCES

CHAPTER NINETEEN - Promoting Personal Empowerment with Women in East Harlem ...

PROGRAM GOALS AND ACTIVITIES

OPPORTUNITIES FOR PERSONAL TRANSFORMATION

WRITING ABOUT ONE’S LIFE THROUGH JOURNALING

CONNECTING JOURNALING AND TRANSFORMATIVE LEARNING

CHALLENGES WITH JOURNALING AND COACHING

REFLECTIONS

REFERENCES

CHAPTER TWENTY - Breaking Out of the Egg

THE SETTING

UNDERSTANDING FEMALE GENITAL CUTTING

ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF THE PROGRAM

THE PLEDGE OF MALICOUNDA-BAMBARA

THE CONSEQUENCES

TRANSFORMATION OF A METHODOLOGY

REFLECTIONS

REFERENCES

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE - Farmer Field Schools

THE FFS APPROACH

TRANSFORMATIVE OUTCOMES OF FFS

THE REFLECTIVE LEARNING PROCESS IN FFS

CONTEXTUAL CONSIDERATIONS

REFLECTIONS

REFERENCES

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO - Collaborative Inquiry in Action

COLLABORATIVE INQUIRY AND TRANSFORMATIVE LEARNING

THE PROCESS OF COLLABORATIVE INQUIRY

FACILITATION OF COLLABORATIVE INQUIRY

CHALLENGES AND CAVEATS IN PRACTICING COLLABORATIVE INQUIRY

REFLECTIONS

REFERENCES

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE - Challenging Racism in Self and Others

WHITE SUPREMACIST CONSCIOUSNESS AS A MEANING PERSPECTIVE

CI AS A PRACTICE THAT FOSTERS TRANSFORMATIVE LEARNING

TRANSFORMING OUR CONSCIOUSNESS ABOUT WHITENESS AND TAKING ACTION

SYNERGISM OF ACTION AND REFLECTION, EXTENDED EPISTEMOLOGY, AND GROUP LEARNING

REFLECTIONS

REFERENCES

PART FIVE - REFLECTIONS

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR - Looking Forward by Looking Back

TRANSFORMATIVE LEARNING AS PURPOSEFUL AND HEURISTIC PROCESS

TRANSFORMATIVE LEARNING AS CONFRONTING POWER AND ENGAGING DIFFERENCE

TRANSFORMATIVE LEARNING AS AN IMAGINATIVE PROCESS

TRANSFORMATIVE LEARNING AS LEADING LEARNERS TO THE EDGE

TRANSFORMATIVE LEARNING AS FOSTERING REFLECTION

TRANSFORMATIVE LEARNING AS MODELING

CONCLUSION

REFERENCES

INDEX

Copyright © 2009 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Mezirow, Jack, 1923-

Transformative learning in practice : insights from community, workplace, and higher education / Jack Mezirow, Edward W. Taylor, and Associates.—1 st ed.

p. cm.

Includes index.

ISBN 978-0-470-25790-6 (cloth)

1. Transformative learning—Cross-cultural studies. I. Taylor, Edward W. II. Title.

LC1100.M49 2010 370.11′5—dc22

2009021652

HB Printing

The Jossey-Bass Higher Education Series

PREFACE

In the past decade, interest has been growing in the field of adult education and higher education about the practice of transformative learning: an approach to teaching based on promoting change, where educators challenge learners to critically question and assess the integrity of their deeply held assumptions about how they relate to the world around them.

Transformative learning has become the dominant teaching paradigm discussed within the field of adult education. It has interested scholars and educators to such an extent that it is no longer just an adult education teaching construct. Rather, it is becoming a standard of practice in a variety of disciplines and educational settings: higher education, professional education, organizational development, international education, and community education. For example, transformative learning guides instruction in a first-year sociology course at a Canadian university, where it provides a framework for facilitating critical refection in the workplace; it is used to promote female empowerment in Senegal for those who are fighting the practice of female genital cutting; it provides guidance in promoting community among online learners; and it guides the instruction for medical students in palliative care. These settings, as well as many others, begin to shed light on the broad reach that transformative learning offers higher and adult education as a viable and responsive practice.

Research about transformative learning also continues to grow exponentially, to the point that a national conference, held every couple of years, is devoted to this topic. Published research continues to grow as well. A recent review of this research shows that much of the focus is on fostering transformative learning. In other words, it is about understanding, identifying, and making sense of transformative learning as a practice in the classroom and other settings. Nevertheless, despite its growing presence as an area of research and a means of practice in a variety of settings, there is still much we do not know about the practice of transformative learning.

Many questions remain unanswered or inadequately understood. How are educators conceptualizing the purpose and practice of fostering transformative learning? What are effective practices for promoting transformative learning in formal and informal settings? What is it about transformative learning that is most helpful in informing practice? How does the teaching setting shape the practice of transformative learning? What are the successes, strengths, and outcomes of fostering transformative learning? What are the risks, challenges, and caveats when practicing it?

These questions and others form the foundation of this book, which seeks to bring to life the practice of transformative learning and its application within varied educational settings. The chapters in this book, written by a cadre of talented scholars and practitioners from a variety of adult and higher education contexts, reveal an in-depth and personal perspective about the everyday practice of fostering transformative learning within unique educational settings.

The contributors represent a diverse and experienced group of scholarpractitioners who are actively engaged in the work of transformative learning in a variety of national and international settings, among them higher education, corporations, and communities. Readers will be able to glean from these chapters strategies, methods, and caveats from experienced educators who deeply believe in the practice of transformative learning and who respect its challenges and appreciate its rewards.

ABOUT THIS BOOK

Compiling this book required a process of sorting through a variety of resources in an effort to identify individuals who could provide an informative chapter on the practice of transformative learning. The central source for this book was the conference proceedings of seven International Transformative Learning Conferences conducted from l998 to 2007, along with a review of published journal articles on fostering transformative learning (Taylor, 2000, 2007). Seven collaboratively planned conferences were held from 1998 and 2007: three were conducted in New York, and the others in California, Ontario, Michigan, and New Mexico. Each produced a comprehensive publication of peer-selected papers, accepted for presentation at the conference and included in conference proceedings.

These proceedings provided an invaluable resource ensuring diverse perspectives of fostering transformative learning. The breadth of application of transformative learning in each conference is reflected, for example, in the Proceedings of the Sixth Conference in Michigan, which contained thirty-two presentations, including addressing applications of transformative learning in education, organizations, religion, diversity, spirituality, gender, critical humility, transformation theory, disability, race, conflict resolution, research, popular education, community development, cross-cultural learning, autobiography, diversity, health, online education creativity, faculty development, films, democratic citizenship, and art. In addition to the proceedings, published research studies about fostering transformative learning were reviewed as well.

As book editors, we went through all the conference proceedings and published literature reviews relevant to fostering transformative learning. Our goal was to identify a host of contributors who provide a diverse approach to practice transformative learning within a variety of settings.

ORGANIZATION OF THE BOOK

The chapters are organized into five parts. Part One consists of two chapters that set the context for the book by providing an introduction to the practice of fostering transformative learning and to the theory of transformative learning. The next three parts, the heart of the book, contain twenty-two chapters that provide insight into the practice of fostering transformative learning in various settings: in higher education (nine chapters), workplace education (six chapters), and community and social change education (seven chapters). The one chapter in Part Five serves as a reflective analysis of all the chapters, identifying what they reveal as a whole about the practice of transformative learning.

The emphasis of reflection on practice is central to the entire book. Teaching is often a tacit and unreflective activity, with educators rarely writing up their ideas of practice for others to read. In response to this concern and in keeping with the idea of promoting a reflexive practice, we asked the contributors to look back and discuss what new insights and challenges they learned from this experience that would better inform interested practitioners about fostering transformative learning.

In addition, each contributor was asked to develop his or her chapter with an instrumental emphasis and less theoretical analysis concerning transformative learning. The intent was to provide practical and concrete instructional guidance to interested practitioners. We hope that the readers of this book will find new insights into practice and gain a greater appreciation of the challenges associated with fostering transformative learning regardless of the setting. We also hope readers will explore and take risks in their classrooms and informal educational settings, always pushing the limits of what is known about transformative education.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

A book of such breadth and depth does not come together without the hard work of dedicated individuals. We thank the contributors to this book particularly for their creative and thoughtful insights into fostering transformative learning, their promptness in submitting their chapters and turning around revisions in a timely manner, and their patience with our editorial comments. Furthermore, we acknowledge the invaluable contribution by Jodi Jarecke, a graduate assistant at Penn State University in Harrisburg. She spent many, many hours overseeing the administration of the book, editing, and providing insightful comments about the individual chapters. It was our good fortune to have her as part of the editorial team and as a contributor to the final chapter of the book.

September 2009

Jack Mezirow Edward W. Taylor

REFERENCES

Taylor, E. W. (2000). Fostering Mezirow’s transformative learning theory in the adult education classroom: A critical review. Canadian Journal of the Study of Adult Education, 14, 1-28.

Taylor, E. W. (2007). An update of transformative learning theory: A critical review of the empirical research (1999-2005). International Journal of Lifelong Education, 26, 173-191.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Lucia Alcántara is a seasoned consultant with expertise in organizational capacity building and development. Her career spans over ten years of working with executives and work groups in private and public corporations. She has cofacilitated several cooperative inquiry projects and is completing doctoral research on knowledge creation from inquiry groups at Columbia University’s Teachers College. The results of her research have been published in international conference journals for the Association for Human Resources Development and the Academy of Management’s Research Methods Division. As an educational facilitator she has taught management and multicultural relations at Cornell University and Russell Sage College, respectively. Alcántara holds a bachelor’s degree from the Maxwell School at Syracuse University and a master’s in public administration from Baruch College.

Stephen Brookfield is Distinguished University Professor at the University of St. Thomas in Minneapolis-St. Paul, Minnesota. Since beginning his teaching career in 1970, he has worked in England, Canada, Australia, and the United States, teaching in a variety of college settings, including ten years as a professor of higher and adult education at Columbia University in New York. He has written ten books on adult learning, teaching, critical thinking, discussion methods, and critical theory, four of which have won the Cyril O. Houle World Award for Literature in Adult Education (in 1986, 1989, 1996, and 2005). He also won the 1986 Imogene Okes Award for Outstanding Research in Adult Education. His work has been translated into German, Finnish, and Chinese. In 1991, he was awarded an honorary doctor of letters degree from the University System of New Hampshire for his contributions to understanding adult learning. In 2001, he received the Leadership Award from the Association for Continuing Higher Education for “extraordinary contributions to the general field of continuing education on a national and international level.” He currently serves on the editorial boards of educational journals in Britain, Canada, and Australia, as well as in the United States. During 2002, he was a visiting professor at Harvard University. In 2003, he was awarded an honorary doctor of letters degree from Concordia University (St. Paul).

Shauna Butterwick is associate professor of adult education in the Department of Educational Studies at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada. She teaches foundations of adult education, community-based adult education, and feminist theory in the diploma and graduate adult education programs, as well as teaching in the educational leadership and policy doctoral program. Much of her research focuses on women’s learning, including learning in social movements, as well as women’s educational experiences in welfare programs and life skills training. Her scholarship also focuses on the policy context of adult education programs. She has experience with community-based, participatory research and a strong interest in the value and contribution of arts-based teaching and research. Among her publications is “Embodied Metaphors: Telling Feminist Coalition Stories Through Popular Theatre,” (2005).