Transform Me – A transformational learning toolkit for adult educators

Back in the 60’s and 70’s the only way to contact your family or friends was to make a call from your landline or a public phone. Alternatively, you could also write a letter and wait for days or weeks before hearing back from your loved ones. With technology evolving so fast, letters became emails, and phones transformed into smartphones. Communication changed a lot, becoming immediate, and multidimensional with video, chats, and social media.

The whole society went through a major change, and individuals had to adapt to a new way of doing and experiencing communication, developing new skills and new perspectives and perceptions of the world, and possibly of themselves.

In Mezirow’s words, this is a great example of what he defines as “Transformational Learning”.

Every individual has their way of looking at and interpreting reality, namely a complex system of beliefs and understanding resulting from cultural background, personal history, experiences, and other relevant factors.

For this reason, as Mezirow argues, we struggle with learning anything that doesn’t align with our meaning structure. Nonetheless, at the same time, we feel the need to make sense of our experiences. So, when an experience doesn’t match our system of beliefs, we feel compelled to reevaluate how we understand the world. That’s when transformational learning happens.

In other words, transformational learning is the process that starts with a disorienting dilemma that challenges our worldview, and results in shifting to a new perspective with new knowledge, skills, and actions.

A defining condition of being human is that we have to understand the meaning of our experience. For some, any uncritically assimilated explanation by an authority figure will suffice. But in contemporary societies we must learn to make our own interpretations rather than act on the purposes, beliefs, judgments, and feelings of others. Facilitating such understandings is the cardinal goal of adult education. Transformative learning develops autonomous thinking.”

Mezirow, 1997.

When working on his adult learning model, Mezirow pointed out the importance of “autonomous thinking” in lifelong learning as the key competence adults need to reflect critically on themselves and change their attitudes, skills, and behavior.

Becoming transformational learners means being able to negotiate and act in line with personal purposes, values, and feelings, developing the ability to re-projecting and re-designing oneself, beyond limiting beliefs and assumptions. Being transformational learners is the foundation of being aware social actors and contributing actively to society and the community at any age.

That’s why adult educators should embrace the essential task of educating adult students as transformational learners, both through major life events and in less radical daily transformative experiences.

In december, EduVita educators took part in the Transform Me training course in Bratislava, where they explored the transformational learning approach and how to implement it in adult education with the trainer Ingrid Schostokova.

Here, you will find a practical toolkit with transformational learning tools and activities our educators brought back from Bratislava. Useful insights and inspirations to help your adult students become transformational learners.

Every transformation starts with courage, and that’s where training began.The first activity is about self-reflecting on courage, which is essential to stepping out of the comfort zone and embracing transformations.

With the “Stairs to courage”, learners can make a self-evaluation to understand the “starting point” in their transformational journey and acknowledge the transformations they already went through.

During the activity, everybody took different steps, although most people placed themselves on stairs 6, 7, and 8, sharing they had overcome many obstacles in their lives and reached a point in which they were courageous enough to face anything. I placed myself on step number 2, because I thought I still had a long way to go before I could call myself courageous. However, Inge the trainer made me reflect on the obstacles I faced my self and on how it’s easy to underestimate and undermine ourselves and our confidence. She convinced me to move to a higher step. This activity was really useful to me because it gave me a boost of confidence and made me realize that I am courageous.  This activity can help older people acknowledge the bravery they have in everyday life.

Activity n.2 is a group brainstorming activity, where learners co-construct a common concept of courage in relation with transformations. 

During the brainstorming, learners contribute with their experiences to define the skills needed for transformations.

Having the chance to participate in the TransforMe training was such an extraordinary experience for me! I could explore various useful toolkits of adult education and met talented educators and adult learners from different countries. As a student from a different culture, which mainly focuses on formal teaching methods and is heavily theory-oriented, I was impressed by the transformational learning approach. Using various activities such as group discussion can be very useful in engaging adult students and help them develop multiple means of learning. 

In activity n.3, learners work in small groups to discuss and plan actions to take to develop the skills of transformational learners.

The discussion should be about the key-concepts identified in the previous brainstorming activity.

“Transformational learning is an effective approach for seniors since it can help them think about the experiences they have had in their lives and how it affected them over time, shaping them into who they are today. It is also impressive to see how it can serve as an example for other people, who may one day have to deal with similar situations. It really can make you reflect on how many things can be life changing. Connecting and comparing personal experiences with others is a crucial phase of the transformational learning process. Therefore, the group discussion activity is a very useful tool: it allows students to exchange ideas, observe different points of views, challenge their beliefs, and change their ideas towards a cooperative result.”

Following Mezirow’s Theory of Transformational Learning, the learning process develops through multiple phases, including:

1. A “disorienting dilemma” that questions the learner’s worldview
2. Self-examining and evaluation to connect past experiences to the recent dilemma.
3. Developing a new action plan, after modifying past beliefs
4. Gaining knowledge or skills to complete that plan
5. Trying the new action plan, exploring new roles and renegotiating relationships
6. Building confidence and skills in those new roles and relationships and reintegrating into life with new perspectives

Using storytelling, learners can self-observe and reflect critically on their transformational stories, focusing on each phase of the process.

1. Crafting the story – learners choose a transformational experience from their life, and write their story following these inputs:

• Self introduction
• What caused your transformation? What was your dilemma?
• How did you transform?
• The “Me” before the transformation
• What’s changed? What are your new roles and actions?
• How I think – Before and Now
• What knowledge and skills did you acquire?
• Share some insights and results from your Transformation

2. Sharing the story – Create a safe and relaxed environment. Form a stories circle and ask learners to share their transformational experiences. It can be orally o with a digital support like a presentation. This is a very powerful moment: any emotion and personal expression is welcomed. 

3. Exchanging experiences – At the end of each story, open-up for questions and feedback from the group. Exchanging ideas and mutual support will help learners have new perspectives on their life experiences and acknowledge their transformational skills.

4. Reflection – To conclude the activity ask participants to reflect on the experience of shared storytelling and let them share their emotions and thoughts.

“I always love using storytelling in adult education because it creates new spaces for adult learners’ memories and emotions, while giving their experiences new perspectives. And this activity was deeply inspiring! Learners could share their transformational stories in a multigenerational safe space and learn from personal and others’ transformations. They could find new values to their experiences and reflect critically on their new skills. Personally, I found the activity life-changing! On a personal level, I had the opportunity to step out of my comfort zone and share a story that is not always so easy to talk about, and learn from my own experience. Professionally, I explored a tool that can bring insights into adult education and empower students as transformational learners.”