Talkin' 'bout my cerebration.

In an effort to enable the steep learning curve of the staff I have recruited to be part of this project, I threw together this quick summary of transformative learning and how the theory might translate into action within the Physical Education cohort in 2010.  Preparation goes well.  The teaching team has thus far redesigned the course overview, established a group within Diigo for bookmarking and cataloguing resources and slowly developed the team site on One Portal.

The next challenge for the staff involved is to perform a performance review and plan for development.  I have created a template to streamline the process across my staff, beginning with a trial for the two transformative learners.

Transformational theory of Learning as applied to the Qld Senior Physical Education syllabus.

Description:

Summarised from the;

• Wikipedia article on 25 November 2009  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transformative_learning
• Transformative Learning Theory webspace on 25 November 2009  http://transformativelearningtheory.com/index.html

Transformative Learning is a theory of learning that goes beyond just content knowledge acquisition.   It is a process where learners learn to think for themselves, developing freedom from unquestioning acceptance of what they have to come to perceive through life experience.  Freedom is experienced through active engagement and questioning of how we know what we know. (Learning as Transformation, by Jack Mezirow & Associates, 2000, published by Jossey Bass, San Francisco)

Transformative Learning Theory, as originally described by Mezirow (1991, 2000), explores a learning process where learners become critically aware of their own implicit assumptions and expectations of the learning experience.  Merriam and Caffarella (1999) further codify Transformative Learning into three phases, including critical reflection, reflective discourse, and action. Mezirow (2000) suggests that Transformative Learning often involves deep, powerful emotions or beliefs and is evidenced in action.

Implementation of the Transformative Learning Theory considers;

• the teacher’s role in establishing an environment that builds trust and care and facilitates the development of sensitive relationships among learners. The goal is to create a community of individuals who are “united in a shared experience of trying to make meaning of their life experience”. The teacher also serves as a role model by demonstrating a willingness to learn and change.
• the role of participants for creating the learning environment.
• the role of the rational and the affective. Teachers need to consider how they can help students use feelings and emotions both in critical reflection and as a means of reflection.

Watkins and Marsick (1993) suggest that learning networks can become the medium for moving new knowledge through the learning organization and that such collaborative structures and processes enhance the organization’s ability to learn because they enable critical conversations and challenging of assumptions and norms.

Yorks and Marsick (2000) suggest two strategies that can produce transformative learning for individuals, groups and/or organizations: action learning and collaborative inquiry. Both strategies are concerned with learning around significant issues and can be directly applied to learning within Physical Education.   A critical assessable criteria calls for solutions to problems.  These solutions can be found through collaborative inquiry (drawing on the inquiry process as a framework for learning) and action learning.  Integration of physical performance and academic learning allows the opportunity to develop and test hypotheses based on the targeted concepts.  Action learning is a process involving a team or group working collaboratively on a project or problem-solving task.   It involves the participants not only in the joint analysis, evaluation and reflection of the task, but also in reflecting on the process of how they worked, and taking personal and group learning from that process.

How will this look?

Learning to think for themselves:

• selecting evidence and resources
• determining suitability of resources for learning and validity of evidence
• think about personal learning habits and preferences.  Understanding data that predicts learning styles and preferences.
• problem solving strategies
• contributing to information streams
• understanding thinking processes, in particular the difference between lower order and higher order thinking.

Freedom from unquestioning acceptance:

• questioning norms (eg. Power in learning relationships, learning norms)
• Determining assumptions and preconceptions from knowledge and learning
• Use of tools to enhance learning
• Response to feedback – seek further info themselves
• Compare personal performance with assessment criteria
• Choosing learning activities (in and out of lesson time)
• Personal accountability for learning and achievement, and the reporting of such.

Teacher as a model learner:

• public reflections
• Engaging in critical conversations about teaching and pedagogy
• Learning from students, acknowledging and publicising such learning.
• Personal accountability for learning and achievement, and the reporting of such.

Use of feelings and emotions

• differentiating choices influenced by pleasure from those influenced by learning.
• identifying influences on learning, and management of those influences.

Collaborative inquiry:

• contribution to information streams
• collaboration on learning
• providing assistance to enable learning of others

Reflection:

• individual learning journal – reflect on learning choices, influences on such choices and extent of learning
• data from surveys and achievement
• teacher reflection (blog)

How will it be measured?

• Achievement data (PE and across other subject choices)
• Teacher surveys
• Teacher performance data (eg. movement on SCPDF)
• Student surveys
• Student reflective blogs
• Student surveys
• Student reflection on achievement
• Student reflection on contribution to information streams
• Teacher reflections (blog?) – could be in LP project room.
• My blog
• Surveys of critical friends
• Action / performance plans after reflection (teachers re. curriculum, teachers re. practice, students re. practice)

Skills:

• Teaching student research, including identifying valid sources for referencing vs. appropriate sources for instruction and content.
• Contribution to information streams (blogging, commenting, social book marking, resource wikis)
• Attribution of sources
• Choices in capture, storage, annotation and conversion of information.

Systems to be established:

1. One Portal Team Site
2. Learning Place project room
3. BlackBoard virtual classroom
4. Teacher accounts in Diigo, Delicious, iCyte
5. Wordpress install on MIS space

There is still a considerable amount of work to do to be adequately prepared for the implementation of this project, however progress can be seen.

Teacher toolkit

Now that I have my staff selected, I believe my time is best spent exposing them to the software that will enable transformative learning.  My first focus will be on software that enables sharing of information.  In this initial phase I will install software that utilises data stored on the local hard drive.  This is purposeful so that I can facilitate use of the team site for the project to share files.

The software I will install tomorrow is;

1. Mozilla Firefox
2. Zotero add-on for Firefox
3. X-mind
4. FoxIt PDF Reader (including FoxIt toolbar)

FireFox is essential for the functionality of the add-ons, particularly on the Windows powered laptops provided to teachers in our organisation.  Zotero is a notebook and research tool.  We will build notebooks and share them out to the learners.  FoxIt toolbar allows the markup and annotation of PDF files.  Simply choose “Save As” when finished and all markups and annotations are saved as part of the file.  X-mind is a concept mapping program, within which we will build learning maps for the units we implement.  Each of these programs are cross platform.  I’m aware there are platform specific programs that may perform these functions more effectively however I want a solution that can be modelled in class and implemented on any platform.

Tomorrow I will install these items on my staff’s laptops.  I will then provide them with the Smart Classrooms Professional Development Framework file (PDF).  They will be tasked with opening it within FireFox and using the markup tools to identify the indicators they believe they are currently demonstrating.  As well as providing them exposure to PDF markup and file sharing via One Portal, this will also provide base data to map performance improvement upon.

Its been reassuring that both staff have been showing real interest in this and a desire to learn.