Professional Development As Transformative Learning

Professional Development as Transformative Learning draws on recent scholarship in adult education to provide practical ideas for adult educators on how to stimulate and support their own development as educators and better understand the process of professional development as adult learning. Building on the work of Mezirow, Brookfield, and other contemporary theorists, Patricia Cranton creates a practical, personal approach to educator development - one that is self-directed, reflective, and transformative. Throughout the book, Cranton offers examples of her strategies in action, showing how adult educators in a variety of settings can use these techniques to improve their skills and practice.

Motivation is foundational to learning This book’s bold new vision for professional learning emphasizes the importance of intrinsic motivation and respect for cultural diversity. Knowing that culture and motivation are inseparable influences on learning, Margery B. Ginsberg provides practical steps for teaching and learning that are grounded in the reality of students' lives. The program’s processes include: Shadowing students to help sharpen teachers’ understanding of student motivation. Conducting home visits to better connect with students’ lives and families Collaborating with other teachers to design lessons Analyzing data in collaboration with students, families, and community members

Covering key issues in transformational learning (TL) theory, this book shows how to help adult educators understand what TL is and how to foster it in their practice. It incorporates theoretical developments, such as the role of imagination and spirituality in transformation, and the author's own attempts to develop a model of TL.

Emerging from an education world that sees professional learning as a tool to positively shape teaching practice in order to improve student learning, Transformational Professional Learning elucidates professional learning that is transformational for teachers, school leaders, and schools. Written from the unique ‘pracademic’ perspective of an author who is herself a practising teacher, school leader, and researcher, this book articulates the why and the what of professional learning. It acts as a bridge between research and practice by weaving scholarly literature together with the lived experience of the author and with the voices of those working in schools. It covers topics from conferences, coaching, and collaboration, to teacher standards and leadership of professional learning. This book questions the ways in which professional learning is often wielded in educational settings and shows where teachers, school leaders, system leaders, and researchers can best invest their time and resources in order to support and develop the individuals, teams, and cultures in schools. It will be of great interest to teachers, leaders within schools, staff responsible for professional learning in school contexts, professional learning consultants, professional learning providers, and education researchers.

The leading authorities in the field produced this comprehensive resource, which provides strategies and methods for fostering Transformative Learning (TL) practice in a wide variety of higher and adult education settings. The book answers relevant questions such as: What are effective practices for promoting TL in the classroom? What is it about TL that is most helpful in informing practice? How does the teaching setting shape the practice of TL? What are the successes, strengths, and outcomes of fostering TL? What are the risks and challenges when practicing TL in the classroom?

The third edition of Patricia Cranton’s Understanding and Promoting Transformative Learning brings a wealth of new insight from the tremendous growth in the field during the decade since the previous edition. As in the previous editions, the book helps adult educators understand what transformative learning is, distinguish it from other forms of learning, and foster it in their practice. The first part of the book is dedicated to clarifying transformative learning theory and relating it to other theoretical frameworks. The author examines transformative learning from the learner’s perspective, and discusses individual differences in how learners go through the process. In the second half of the book, the focus is squarely on strategies for promoting transformative learning in a wide variety of adult and higher education contexts. Practitioners will be able to take ideas from the text and apply them directly in their teaching.Since 1975, transformative learning has become a core theoretical perspective in adult and higher education, and research has proliferated. In the past decade, adult education and especially transformative learning grew into a noticeably larger field. The numbers of undergraduate and graduate programs in adult education have increased and continue to increase as more and more individuals are seeking the expertise, skills, and training necessary to work with adult learners in higher education, business, industry, government, health professions, non-profit organizations, and community development. In addition, the number of programs in higher education (both undergraduate and graduate) that include courses in transformative learning has grown dramatically. These academic audiences use the book to further their understanding of transformative learning theory and practice.Drawing on the latest research as well as the author’s own teaching experience in both online and face-to-face courses, this new edition will be a vital resource for members of the transformative learning community, as well as those encountering the topic for the first time.

Transformative Education for the Second Renaissance follows educator John PW Hudson through a personal and professional journey that led him to respond to what he sees as underlying fissures in the bedrock of educational practice. At the height of his career, he was seconded by the Richmond (BC Canada) school district to teach a demonstration class in the Nanashan Xian Middle School in Shenzhen, China, at the request of the school, and philanthropists Joe and Margaret Li, initiators of the project and sponsors. His assignment was to demonstrate and explain Western teaching methods to educators and other interested parties including university students and their professors from various parts of China, local and national education officials, teachers at the Nanshan Xian middle school (where he lived and taught for two years), and civic officials as well. Most days a television camera was in the room, and several adults sitting watching. Throughout his career, Hudson was intensely interested in how children learn, how and why they thrive or fail, educational philosophy, and how educational infrastructures and practices impact learners and professionals alike. After teaching Music, English and business education for twenty years at the junior high school level, Hudson turned his sights to the elementary level and taught intermediate classroom for the last thirteen years before going to China. All of these experiences left him with lingering questions which came into sharp focus in China, where traditional practices are entrenched. Primarily, Transformative Education for the Second Renaissance explores history, philosophy, research, politics and real human stories to encapsulate the driving forces of education that need adjustment, particularly assessment. Hudson describes the transition from analog to digital as the Second Renaissance, and how findings in brain research characterize how our understanding of learning has changed in modern practice from transmissive to transformative. Not a traditional academic treatise, Hudson’s book reads more like a coffee shop discussion, but the reasoning and conclusions will resonate with experienced educators. Hudson’s goal is to kick-start discussion about the changes he proposes, and frame a narrative to move education into our rapidly changing educational landscape. This is not a book on methods; it is a foundational work that Hudson hopes will lead to lively discussion and critical debate.

The Handbook of Transformative Learning The leading resource for the field, this handbook provides a comprehensive and critical review of more than three decades of theory development, research, and practice in transformative learning. The starting place for understanding and fostering transformative learning, as well as diving deeper, the volume distinguishes transformative learning from other forms of learning, explores future perspectives, and is designed for scholars, students, and practitioners. PRAISE FOR THE HANDBOOK OF TRANSFORMATIVE LEARNING "This book will be of inestimable value to students and scholars of learning irrespective of whether or not their emphasis is on transformative learning. It should find its way to the reference bookshelves of every academic library focusing on education, teaching, learning, or the care professions." —PETER JARVIS, professor of continuing education, University of Surrey "Can there be a coherent theory of transformative learning? Perhaps. This handbook goes a long way to answering this question by offering a kaleidoscope of perspectives, including non-Western, that consider the meaning and practice of transformative learning." —SHAUNA BUTTERWICK, associate professor, University of British Columbia "This handbook will be valuable and accessible to both scholars and practitioners who are new to the study of adult education and transformative learning and to more seasoned scholars who seek a sophisticated analysis of the state of transformative learning thirty years after Mezirow first shared his version of a then-fledgling theory of adult learning." —JOVITA ROSS-GORDON, professor and program coordinator, MA in Adult Education, Texas State University