Transformative Learning Theory
Beliefs, assumptions, perceptions, and expectations play a significant role in the outcomes of transformative learning experiences. Miss Jennifer Thompson’s outcomes serve as compelling evidence of the transformative learning theory in action. According to Cranton (2016, p. 2), Mezirow defined transformative learning as the process when an individual questions their previously assimilated assumptions, values, and beliefs making them more open and better validated. As an assistant college professor at Beacon College, Miss Thompson has the responsibility of ensuring her students have an equal opportunity to succeed in her class using the best teaching strategies. Her journey from realizing the impacts of her beliefs, assumptions, and perception of her teaching methods highlights the role they play in transformative learning. This paper uses her transformative learning experience to show how beliefs, assumptions, perceptions and expectations were significant in the process.
Disorienting Dilemma
At the heart of the transformative learning theory is the disorienting dilemma. According to Shaik (2023), a disorienting dilemma can be caused by a major life crisis or change in someone’s life causing a personal transformation. Although Miss Thompson’s case did not involve a major life crisis, she underwent a major change that questioned her initial approach to teaching and its effectiveness. Before Beacon College introduced the initiative that would later become Miss Thompson’s disorienting event, she believed that using the traditional lecture-style presentation and textbook methodologies was in the best interest of her students. While this might have worked for some of her students, the transformative learning initiative in teaching methods, which marked the disorienting event, proved otherwise, especially to students from marginalized communities. Since learning occurs when one encounters an alternative perspective that calls previous behaviors into question (p. 19), Miss Thompson’s transformative learning experience began with the college’s initiative serving as a catalyst. She responded to the disorienting event by reconsidering and revising her belief and assumption that her teaching methods would work for all her students. Perspective transformation only occurred after the dilemma making her realize that her teaching methods were no longer relevant.
Critical Reflection and Self-Examination
After experiencing the disorienting dilemma, the next stages of Miss Thompson’s transformation were self-examination and critical assessment of her assumptions. Servage (2008) argues that transformative change can happen after a dramatic insight or after a long process of thought and self-scrutiny. Miss Thompson started to critically reflect on her assumptions about the effectiveness of her previous teaching methods. Like most people, Miss Thompson was firmly entrenched in familiar roles which led to a habit of mind, habitual expectations, and later making meaning based on these habits (p. 111). In her five years of experience, using lecture-style presentations had become a habit of mind and believed that it was right for her students based on the habit. It was only after the College take initiative to run a transformative program on teaching methods that Miss Thompson had to shake off her habits and encourage critical reflection. The reflective learning became transformative after she found out that her assumptions were inauthentic and had a harmful effect on some of her students. It is through critical reflection that one gets to expose their assumptions, beliefs, and perceptions and in the process cause a shift in their previous knowledge by questioning what they should believe (Berg et al., 2019). Critical reflection and self-evaluation led Miss Thompson to question everything she knew before leading her to later become free of constraints that would keep happening if she maintained her past habits of mind. This shows how central critical reflection is in the transformative learning process (p. 26). It became indispensable for Miss Thompson to fully understand the meaning of how her assumptions could be detrimental to her learners propelling her to a newfound awareness of the need to embrace new teaching methods that would serve diverse needs and different learning styles. This marked a significant turning point in her transformative learning journey toward pedagogical innovation proving that exposing one’s beliefs, assumptions, perceptions, and expectations is critical in the transformative learning process.
New Roles
When faced with a disorienting dilemma and critically reflecting and self-examining one’s beliefs, assumptions, perceptions, and expectations, one is forced to rethink their practice and create a transformative experience in the process. Since the traditional method proved to be ineffective for a group of marginalized students, she had to take up a new role as a differentiated instructor. This allowed her to let go of her traditional lecturing style and as a result a change in the way she saw herself. She had to take action to familiarize herself with being a differentiated instructor forcing her to enroll in a teaching strategy course on pedagogical approaches to meet the educational needs of all her learners.
Conclusion
Miss Thompson’s transformative learning experience put the transformative learning theory into action by showing the impact of beliefs, assumptions, perceptions, and expectations. Her journey is marked by questioning her previously acquired beliefs and expectations of the traditional lecture style presentation methodology to becoming a differentiated instructor shows the power of beliefs and assumptions in a transformative experience. Before the disorienting event of Beacon College starting a transformative initiative program for teaching methods, she had used the traditional method for five years and believed it would foster a love for the subject only for the event to show that it was negatively affecting students from marginalized communities. Through critical reflection and self-evaluation, she transformed her teaching strategies to serve her diverse student population. Her transformation is proof that if she had not considered revising her beliefs, assumptions, perceptions, and expectations about her teaching methods, the positive outcomes of her transformative learning process would never have been recognized.
Reference
Berg, C., Philipp, R., & Taff, S. D. (2019). Critical Thinking and Transformational Learning: Using Case Studies as Narrative Frameworks for Threshold Concepts. Journal of Occupational Therapy Education, 3 (3). https://doi.org/10.26681/jote.2019.030313
Cranton, P. (2016). Understanding and promoting transformative learning: A guide to theory and practice. Stylus Publishing, LLC.
Shaik, N. (2023). Transforming Teaching and Learning in Early Childhood Care and Education during COVID-19 in a Poor Community of the Cape Flats, South Africa. Early Childhood Education Journal, 51(5), 791–800. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10643-022-01329-y
Servage, L. (2008). Critical and Transformative Practices in Professional Learning Communities. Teacher Education Quarterly, 35(1), 63-77. https://go.openathens.net/redirector/purdueglobal.edu?url=https://www.proquest.com/scholarly-journals/critical-transformative-practices-professional/docview/222853317/se-2
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