转化学习理论及其对我国成人远程教育的启示

转化学习是成人对已有意义观点或参考框架进行改变的过程,成人只有不断地批判、反思和转化自己的世界观、人生观和价值观,建立新的世界观、人生观和价值观,才能获得解放和发展,才能适应现实生活的各种变化。转化学习理论深入探讨了成人心理意义结构、扭曲的意义观以及成人学习的类型。转化学习理论的产生和发展有其深厚的哲学、心理学和教育学的理论基础。     

转化学习理论与实践的意义探讨

转化学习是成人对存在问题的参照框架进行完全改变,使其更具包容性、区辩性、开放性、批判性及对变化在情感上的接受性,以更好地引导自己的行为。其实质是调整、修正原有不适应当前变化的世界观、人生观或价值观,或建立新的世界观、人生观或价值观,更合理地指引未来的生活,摆脱原有观念的束缚。其目标是使成人成为自主的思考者。国外对转化学习的理论研究至今已有三十多年的历史,同时,近年来国内外相关实践应用不断涌现,转化学习在成人教育领域彰显出重要的理论与实践意义。     

基于转化学习理论的成人教学研究

转化学习理论是成人学习者通过质疑、批判性反思原有的认知经验、世界观和人生观,学习新经验和适应新环境的成人学习理论。本文通过介绍转化学习理论以及其应用于成人教学的必要性,探究基于转化学习的成人教学策略,以促进我国成人教学发展。     

基于转化学习理论的成人高等教育发展策略探究

转化学习理论博采众长,形成了自己独特的理论体系。它对我国成人高等教育具有较强的适切性,有助于提高成人学生抓住机遇的能力、批判反思的能力、交流互动的能力和转化整合的能力。基于转化学习理论,成人高等教育发展应该采取以下策略:开展情境教学,培养成人学生的反思能力;扩大教育对象,加强弱势群体的转化教育;利用理性交谈,建立成人师生间的对话教学;明确教育目标,促进成人学生的整体发展。     

转化学习理论下的成人高等教育学习指导

兴起于上世纪80年代末的转化学习理论是继诺尔斯成人教育学理论和塔夫自我导向学习之后的有关成人学习的核心理论,受建构主义理论、解放教育思想等的影响,其理论关键词是“经验”“批判性反思”和“理性交谈”.阐述转化学习理论的基本内涵及其理论的发展,在此基础上提出对成人高等教育中的成人学习者的启发和指导.     

转化学习理论及其对成人教师专业发展的启示

转化学习理论对建构主义理论、哈贝马斯的社会学理论和弗莱雷的解放理论等进行消化和吸收,同时又以生活情境下丰富多彩的成人学习现象为现实基础,形成了较为系统和完善的理论体系。转化学习理论对成人教师的专业发展提供了重要的启示,即专业发展是持续不断的过程,营造专业发展氛围,增强专业发展意识,注重批判性反思,走进生活世界。     

麦基罗成人转化学习理论简述

转化学习理论是成人教育领域的最新进展,麦基罗是其重要代表人物之一。本文主要通过麦基罗有关成人转化学习理论的文章的研究,对其关于转化学习理论的主要观点加以概括论述,以期能够对我国当前的成人教育研究起到抛砖引玉的作用。     

美国服务学习理论的基本观点及启示

服务学习理论起源于美国,对美国高等教育改革影响很大。其理论主要包括经验学习的观点、认知结构的观点、社会认同发展的观点以及社会心理发展的观点,本文逐条分析了服务学习理论的各种观点。     

开发成人教育课程 实现转化学习

转化学习是成人学习理论新进展的重要方面,通过转化学习,成人能够认清并更正原有扭曲的意义观点,对于成人的持续发展意义重大。但在成人教育的实践中,由于成人存在一定的"自我中心主义",在一定程度上阻碍学习者对根深蒂固的信仰、观念、判断标准等方面进行批判性反思,实现转化学习并非易事,因此成人教育应重视开发转化学习的针对性课程,力求促使成人形成更具包容性、开放性的意义观点,以便更好地适应生活。     

国外成人转化学习理论研究的回顾与展望

成人转化学习理论作为一种新型的成人学习理论,最早由美国成人教育家麦基罗提出。这种理论从它诞生之日起便受到了广大成人教育者的广泛关注,并取得了相对丰硕的研究成果。本文主要回顾国外成人教育学者对这一问题的理论研究成果,并在此基础上,对已有的研究成果进行评述,以期能够把握未来成人转化学习理论发展的趋向。     

A beautiful metaphor: transformative learning theory

This article presents a critique of both transformative learning theory and critical comments on it to date. It argues that transformative learning theory remains substantively the same as its initial exposition, in spite of a raft of problematic contentions voiced against it. The theory is argued here to be conceptually problematic, except at the level of a conceptual metaphor, which latter renders its many inconsistencies inconsequential and which explains, not just its continued popularity among educational practitioners, but also it’s largely being ignored as a subject worthy of serious critique.     

Existential being as transformative learning

In some ways, ‘a culture of the modern consulting room’ may be seen as having been initiated by Freud and followers. Here, social hierarchy, unconscious motivation and the authority of analyst may all be seen as manifestations of professional practice. With the contributions of Heidegger, Kierkegaard, May, Adler, Rogers and others of the existential and humanistic schools, it is argued that ‘transformative learning’ serves as a vehicle to ‘being’. It is not that the classroom becomes a consulting room. Rather, it is suggested that the change and transformation of ‘self’ and ‘being’ (‘Dasein’) are accompaniments of deep, relational learning. As such, they rightly occupy the activities of both classroom and consulting room. Far from being an abstract or irrelevant notion, the ‘existential classroom’ diverges radically from any lack of focus or neglect of ‘subjectivity’. Neither is it a ‘place apart’, as Freud would have it. The learning relationship itself furnishes a model of conviction for all who see; an expression of trust, symbol for community, and the way to Kierkegaard’s notion of self‐defining freedom.     

Moral development,transformative learning,and the dialogical self

Attempts to find positive new directions for moral education now face a number of well‐recognized challenges, including those relating to the rise of commodification and the virtualization of experience. It is argued that there is now a need for innovative approaches that move beyond the traditional frameworks of critical thinking and ethical reasoning, and that encourage the development of moral dispositions and personal conscience. One crucial limitation of traditional approaches lies in their reliance on a monological interpretation of self‐reflection that emphasizes objective impressions of the self. It is proposed that only a dialogical model of self‐reflection that recognizes the presence of competing self‐impressions is fully consistent with the kinds of authentic self‐reflection and critical questioning that are required for the develc pment of moral conscience. The emerging dialogical model of the self is also compatible with an approach to moral conduct grounded in the idea of an ‘ethics without ethics’ in which dispositions to act for the good of the community become the focal goals. It is argued that the dialogical model of the self supports a dynamic view of selfhood and identity through which the subject is encouraged to recognize its own complexity and vulnerability, rather than external principles, as the basis for moral responsibility and action. In practical terms, the dialogical model supports the idea of engaging students in activities in which they are encouraged to monitor their own thoughts, feelings, and actions, rather than in activities which perpetuate objective, monological modes of self‐thematization.     

International education: the transformative potential of experiential learning

Academic outcomes of post-16 education can be understood in terms of their value for gaining access to university and, at a time when global educational mobility is growing, internationally recognised university entrance qualifications may be considered a form of personal capital. However, narrowly measured outcomes may not reflect the breadth of the school experience nor the extent to which this breadth contributes to the development of the young person. One curriculum which aims to prepare students in ways that extend beyond the academic is the International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme, which incorporates an experiential element at its core. Creativity, Activity, Service attaches a transformative purpose to education, where students’ experiences in each of the three strands can support personal learning that is not confined to subject areas of an academic curriculum. This paper describes the evolution of CAS in the academically rigorous Diploma Programme and presents the findings from a review of literature which contribute towards developing an understanding of the transformative potential of this component.     

Action research and transformative learning in teaching development

The article reports on an action research project, informed by transformative learning theory. Transformative learning involves individuals gaining an awareness of their current habits of mind, and resulting points of views accompanied by a critique of their assumptions and premises, an assessment of alternative views, a decision to negate an old perspective or view in favour of a new one, or to make a synthesis of old and new, resulting in more justified beliefs to guide action. The action research was designed to change the perspectives and practices of higher education teachers from a teacher-centred to a learning-centred dialogic approach. The research demonstrated that a transformation in teaching perspective could be achieved through action research that involved inquiring and interactive teaching. However, implementing the new perspective required additional sustained support. The research also confirmed that action research is a viable means of exploring transformative learning in educational settings.     

Principal transformative learning through mentoring aspiring administrators

Few researchers have explicitly examined the benefits to practicing principals engaged in mentoring aspiring principals. Through the lens of transformative learning, the purpose of our study was to examine the professional learning of practicing principals engaged as mentors with aspiring principals in a leadership preparation program. Two questions guided our study. First, how does engaging in the mentoring process lead to professional learning? Second, how does that learning manifest itself in principal practice? Findings suggested principal mentor/protégé and mentor/mentor interactions prompted mentors to question their own experiences and practices, problematizing some of these practices. Principals then generated solutions, which lead to changes in core beliefs and assumptions and finally changes in practices, reflective of transformative learning.     

Innovating science teaching with a transformative learning model

Abstract

This exploratory study aimed to describe the impact of the ‘Science in Family project’, as a transformative learning model for science teachers trying to improve student’s attitudes toward STEM subjects. This study took place in a public elementary school in Monterrey, Mexico, which has been developing this project for more than thirteen years with students from 4th, 5th and 6th grade. We used participant observation and interviews with four families whose children are students of this elementary school, and with one family whose sons were students of this school some years ago. Results showed that there is a relationship between positive attitudes towards science in students who were exposed to transformative learning models of teaching. Two of the participants took steps to follow science related careers. This study helps to illuminate the extent to which teacher education models influence students’ attitudes and how positive attitudes to science are influenced by the use of learning by doing projects.     

Africa and international policy making for lifelong learning: textual revelations

This paper discusses the relationship between international agendas for lifelong learning and financial aid for low income countries, especially those on the African continent. It argues that there are subtle differences in terminology written by policymakers respectively in Europe and South Africa for lifelong learning but that international development agendas reinscribe lifelong learning for countries in receipt of development aid. Taking a postcolonial perspective the paper provides a textual analysis of case examples from policy documents in two African countries to demonstrate how international aid priorities negatively affect government choices and policies for lifelong learning, in spite of more regional analyses of the role of education and lifelong learning for the continent's development needs. It argues that the inclusion of indigenous worldviews from the south have potential to enhance a global agenda for the social purpose element of lifelong learning.     

Lifelong learning from natural disasters: transformative group-based learning at Philippine universities

This study explores reflective experience during transformative, group-based learning among university leaders following a natural disaster such as a typhoon in two Philippine universities. Natural disasters are recurrent phenomena in many parts of the world, but the literature largely ignores their impact on lifelong human learning, for instance regarding preparing the university setting for future natural disasters. The study used interviews and document analysis, drawing on a body of interrelated works in transformative learning theory, critical educational theory and conceptions about group processes and reflective practice to understand university leaders’ lifelong learning from natural disasters as experiential, transformative, reflective and group oriented. The findings document that university leaders’ reflective, transformative learning depends on individuals’ experience of natural disasters as disorienting dilemmas, and that reflection is facilitated by decisive group dynamics rather than only personal reflection. Facilitating a learning space for transformative, reflective learning in university settings might assist university leaders to enhance disaster risk preparedness, for instance through local policy change.