Telling the story of transformational learning

A long time ago I was given a shirt. It said, “You can’t scare me. I teach middle school.” The premise, clearly was middle school students are a difficult audience to work with. While this premise may be true, my last ten years as a mathematics instructional coach (technically I’m the Senior Math Coordinator…but I provide coaching services to the districts in Merced County) have shown me that teaching adults is every bit as challenging (and rewarding) as teaching students in middle school.

While teaching adolescents and adults may both be challenging, they require wildly different teaching/coaching strategies. Children learn via the application of pedagogical principles. Adults, in contrast, require their learning experiences to be grounded in andragogy. Briefly, the four principles of coaching adults:

1. Adults are self-directed and need to provide voice and choice in what they are learning.
2. Adults come with prior experience that must be considered and honored throughout the training.
3. Adults need to know that what they are learning is immediately relevant to their work.
4. Adults learn through active engagement and discussion…particularly filtering the discussion through their lens of prior experience.

Principle 2, in which existing experience is valued, leads us directly to the topic of this blog post which is Mezirow’s transformative learning theory and how the MCOE Math Team uses our understanding of transformative learning in our day-to-day work.

What is transformative learning?

Transformative learning is a theory of adult education that emphasizes deep, structural shifts in thoughts, feelings, and behaviors of the adult learner. It involves the adult questioning and critically reflecting on their beliefs, assumptions, and perspectives that ultimately lead to a significant change. This often brings up feelings of guilt, shame, or embarrassment when teachers are confronted with the realization that some of their beliefs and assumptions are not accurate.

Transformative learning is a theory of adult education that is about more than just picking up new facts; it’s about the process in which adults begin rethinking what they already know. New information being shared in a professional learning setting that causes adults to question their old ideas and see the world in a totally different way. Instead of just memorizing things or doing things to be compliant, the adult is learning to find deeper meaning in what they know and do. This kind of learning changes how teachers see things and helps them think more openly and freely—so they can truly understand the new information instead of just going along with it.

Jack Mezirow’s ten steps of transformative learning outline the process through which a teacher experiences a deep change in their perspective leading them to meaningful change in practice. These ten phases are challenging to memorize, so I will focus on the four groups the ten phases are arranged in that make it easy to understand the story of transformational change.

The four stages of transformative learning

Here is a brief description of each stage along with the teacher-directed steps and the coaching moves that go along with the stage:

Disorientation

As mentioned earlier, adults come with prior experience that must be considered and honored throughout the training. The prior experience forms the basis for the adults firmly-held beliefs and assumptions. The process of transformative learning begins when the adult experiences an “aha” moment where the learner finds that what they thought or believed in the past may not be accurate. They examine their beliefs and critically assess their assumptions and accept that some of their past assumptions were wrong.

Reorientation

Now that the teacher understands that their past assumptions and beliefs may have been wrong, they acknowledge that they are dissatisfied with the gap that exists between the status quo of the prior assumptions and whatever brighter future may exist that has yet to be discovered by the adult. The adult is now able to begin planning a course of action be exploring new options, different beliefs, and more appropriate assumptions.

Application

Now the adult learner is ready to create a plan built on the foundation of their newly-held beliefs and assumptions for during the Reorientation stage. The adult creates a plan for implementing these new beliefs, engages in purpose-filled professional learning, and experiments with these new beliefs and assumptions. During this stage the adult seeks outside support to apply the new skills and strategies.

Integration

Finally, we acclimate to our new selves and emerge with our fresh beliefs and assumptions that are firmly integrated into our new role. This occurs as the teacher gains competence and confidence with their new belief as new teaching strategies become a regular part of the teacher’s practice.

In a nutshell…if you want teachers to be active participants in improving mathematics instruction and mathematics learning, then we need to move away from misguided math PD grounded in pedagogy and instead seek opportunities for transformational learning grounded in the principles of andragogy.

A teacher’s  journey through transformational learning is easy to tell, but it takes ongoing and sustained support for the journey to actually happen.

These phases help illustrate how transformative learning can guide teachers to critically reflect on and improve their instructional practices, ultimately leading to better student outcomes.

What transformational learning means to school districts

It is unrealistic to expect teachers to complete this transformational journey while isolated in their own classroom. School districts that really want to see the kinds of changes necessary to ensure that all students are empowered by the opportunities math can afford, need to provide ongoing and sustained coaching that allows teachers to progress through the journey of transformational learning.

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