Additonal experiences in Transformational Learning

I found the abstract of the article, “Living and Learning with HIV/AIDS: Transformational tales continued” and thought it would make a great addition to this blog.  I thought this article was an interesting take on transformational learning in that it was centered around people dealing with a life-changing sickness.  The article focuses on a study of eleven AIDS patients and the effect the reality of being diagnosed with HIV had on the psychological, emotional (human condition), and linguistic as well as biographical learning of these individuals (Baumgartner Abstract, 2002). 

There were meaning scheme changes (2002) for all participants over the life of the study, especially regarding their change in empathy for the human condition by the third year.  The article emphasizes the importance of living and continuing to learn even with a fatal prognosis, but also focuses on the way their personal relationships changed and evolved.

To quote James, (great blog, James), “Transformational learning changes or modifies an individual’s embedded perspectives, assumptions and prejudices.”  How the AIDS patients changed after their diagnosis was very similar with the way the cancer patient changed or transformed their relationships, prioritizing their lives and educating themselves on the disease.  Thought it was an interesting scenario that I had never considered.

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Baumgartner, L. (2002). Living and learning with HIV/AIDS: Transformational tales

continued. Adult Education Quarterly. 53(1).

Resources for Transformational/Transformative Learning

The League for Innovation in the Community College and The University of Central Oklahoma serve as two wonderful resources for those interested in learning more about the concept of transformational learning.

Transformational Learning Connections is a website hosted by the League for Innovation in the Community College.  It serves as a gateway for exploring a host of topics in the form of best practices from technical and community colleges, discussion forums, and links to other related online sites.  I was drawn to a particular article on the site describing MEtaMorph, which is a career exploration curriculum being used at an Ohio community college. The goal of the program is to help 9th graders discover essential career information, develop higher-level thinking skills, and begin to make real life connections.

UCO Transformative Learning Guide can be found on the University of Central Oklahoma's Center for Excellence in Transformative Teaching and Learning website.  The Guide provides an abundant number of articles related to transformative learning.  I enjoyed looking at this site and found it provided a variety of information related to our readings in this course, and others we have taken in the MACCA program.    

Anchored Instruction: The Experiential Learning Trend in Community College Instruction

A recent article by Adam Davidson in The New York Times Magazine entitled “Skills Don’t Pay the Bills,” explores the wage versus skills gap in advanced manufacturing. Machines have replaced more manufacturing jobs than outsourcing, and now machines can do the jobs of anywhere from 10 to 100 workers. But running these machines requires considerable skill including “a basic understanding of metallurgy, physics, chemistry, pneumatics, electrical wiring and computer code" (Davidson, 2012). . Politicians are claiming there are thousands of manufacturing jobs waiting to be filled, and there are not enough workers to fill them. However, according to Davidson’s research, wages for these positions are in the $10 per hour range, less than the wage earned by a new shift manager at McDonalds. If there is a shortage of skilled workers, the law of supply and demand would mean the wage should be driven higher. 

So what exactly is going on here? Are we, as educators, missing information to best prepare our students for the workforce? At least some educational institutions may think we are. An article in The Hechinger Report indicates some colleges are investing in “artificial-intelligence spiders” that sift through thousands of online job postings to determine employer needs long before federal bureau of labor reports are released. Educational institutions are becoming increasingly involved in economic recovery and are paying more and more attention to workforce readiness. For example, Northeastern University has adopted an “experiential learning” approach which requires students to work for as many as 18 months in a “real world” work setting while in training. The success of this program has been noticed. Over 50% of these students are hired full time by the participating company, more than 90% are either employed or in graduate school within nine months after graduation, and as a result, applications to the university have increased by 46% over the last five years (Marcus, 2013).

Perhaps we, as aspiring community college administrators, need to stay abreast of recent trends, especially if we want our community colleges to thrive economically. Apprenticeship is no longer just for the workplace. Experiential and cooperative learning just may be the answer to closing the skills gap, the wage gap, and ultimately improving the economic outlook.

Resources:

Davidson, A., (Nov. 20, 2012), Skills don’t pay the bills. The New York Times Magazine. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/25/magazine/skills-dont-pay-the-bills.html

Marcus, J., (Feb. 19, 2013) Colleges take new approach to anticipating—and meeting—workforce needs. The Hechinger Report. Retrieved from http://hechingerreport.org/content/colleges-take-new-approach-to-anticipating-and-meeting-workforce-needs_11005/

Northeastern University: Experiential Learning. Retrieved from http://www.northeastern.edu/experiential-learning/

Transformational Learning - Food for Thought

Transformational learning changes or modifies an individual’s embedded perspectives, assumptions and prejudices.  Individuals traverse a process of experience, inner reflection and questioning of ideals and positive development throughout the learning process.

Merriam, Caffarella, & Baumgartner ( 2006) provide an example of transformational learning involving a professional lawyer with material ambitions. This lawyer is diagnosed with cancer. After the diagnoses, i.e. the experience, she discusses her situation with her family and deeply considers her needs of material versus relationships, i.e. critical reflection. She ultimately reforms her priorities and experiences inner change in her desires, i.e. development.

She has become transformed as an individual. This change is not a surface change but a sea change in her thoughts, priorities and actions. Before this learning experience, her major driving force was material gain and superficial relationships.

A strong emotional experience instigates the learning process. In this case, an individual does not seek change or learning. It is imposed on her by circumstances.  It is the process through which the individual travels which initiates and solidifies these changes.  

Does this hold true for other individuals? Of course not; everyone is different.

Other individuals may take the news about cancer and break down and give up. This is a professional and assumed successful lawyer; she is used to fighting for what she wants.

Would this example hold true for all professional lawyers? I believe there would be those who would decide to get all they can out of life while they can. Others may focus on gaining as much wealth as possible and passing it down to other generations.

My point is – and this criticism appeared in or text – that the theories on transformational learning focus on specific individual contexts. The theories are based on critical analysis and do not take into account such events as emotional enlightenment.

I understand transformational learning as a concept and appreciate its power. There are criticisms which give me pause. The outcome of transformational learning produces a change in "what" we know and not how "much" we know. This is a very reasonable statement and has teeth. However, the surrounding factors which determine or lead specifically to this are more varied than addressed by Transformational Learning.

MOOCs

Massive open online courses, or MOOCs, as they are so endearingly called, are courses which allow large-scale participation in online courses that do not typically award college credit for the students who take them.  It's so relevant to self-directed learning because the students who sign up for them (and there are TONS of students who sign up), aren't paying for the course, aren't getting any sort of credit or credential for them, they just want to know what's going on in the subject.  If that isn't self-directed, I don't know what is.  Here are a few resources that will help you learn more about MOOCs:

Wikipedia Definition
New England Journal of Higher Education
Irrational Exuberance - Washington Post

I found the following article while searching through the Community College Review:

Structured packs for independent learning: a comparison of learning outcome and acceptability with conventional teaching.

This was an extremely interesting article on the push for 3^rd year interns at a British Hospital to study and learn independently without the help of a tutor or mentor.  The primary reason for this decision was based on the fact that acquiring tutors takes time and money.  The interesting part to me was the conclusion that the study found no significant difference in learning between self-directed community study and study with a tutor.  Students were furnished with a structured study pack to help them learn on their own in the study.

Reference:

Graham, H., Seabrook, M., Woodfield, S. (1999). Structured packs for independent learning: a comparison of learning outcome and acceptability with conventional teaching. Medical Education, Volume 33(8), p. 579-584.

Google It

Self-directed learning occurs on a daily basis and is so prevalent in our lives that we rarely recognize it. Think about it, when did you last conduct a Google search that started with “How do I…”;  I’m guessing you did a search like this today.  As adult learners in a digital age, we seek and find new information almost every day and sometimes multiple times a day.  We learn new things like: a new word or maybe that’s a new ‘text” form of a word, a new cooking technique (thank you Food Network), or a new technical skill like how to correctly format an APA style paper.

In Learning in Adulthood, Merriam, Caffarella and Baumgartner (2007) refer to self-directed learning as a method of learning that empowers the individual learner to take an active role in the learning experience from start to finish, from initiation through to evaluation. As adult learners we don’t often think of the above listed “learning opportunities” as real learning because that’s something that only occurs in a formal setting, right?  How do we as college administrators help students to bridge the gap between their daily self-directed learning and the type of learning that occurs in a formal or informal program?  How does success in one area translate to the other? Does it translate?  What role does access to resources, individual personal goals, and cultural and social support play in the success of the self-directed student?

When I stop and think about all the things I’ve learned in the last year…well, it’s amazing to really stop and think about it!  I find myself feeling something akin to empowerment and a certain amount of “oh yeah – I can learn new things!”  My empowered, capable feeling easily transfers over into formal self-directed learning; I hope it does for all of you as well …we are, after all, enrolled in an online (a.k.a. self-directed) Master’s degree program! So the real question is how do we empower self-directed learners to see their own hidden ability for success?  Maybe we should Google it!

For all of you “How do I…” web sleuths:

Ask a Librarian	Online reference service from the Library of Congress.	www.loc.gov/rr/askalib
Answerbag	Community-driven question and answer site.	www.answerbag.com
AllExperts	Web's oldest question and answer site. Operated by About.com.	www.allexperts.com
Askville	Log in with your Amazon.com account to ask or answer questions.	askville.amazon.com
Answers.com	Semantic Q&A search by Answers.com.	www.answers.com
eHow	Database of how-to articles and videos.	www.ehow.com
Minti	Answers and advice articles for parents.	www.minti.com
WikiAnswers	Wiki-based Q&A service from Answers.com.	wiki.answers.com
wikiHow	Collaborative, wiki-based how-to manuals.	www.wikihow.com
Yahoo! Answers	Web's leading community-powered question and answer site.	answers.yahoo.com

Courtesy of:  http://www.refseek.com/directory/answers.html