Laura Baecher, Hunter College-CUNY, New York City, New York, USA

If you are in the position of designing and offering professional development for teachers in your schools, regions, departments of education, or in colleges and conferences, you know how important it is to make those experiences dynamic and engaging for your audience. For those of us who hope to engage teachers in professional learning experiences that will be meaningful and impactful, we know from experience that there are a few things teachers will not enjoy:

• Being made to attend the professional development by a supervisor
• Listening passively to a topic that they are not interested in
• Feeling like the presenter does not have enthusiasm for the topic
• Having it delivered to them by someone who has little teaching experience
• Being made to sit through it on the last day of school when they want to go on vacation; and
• Participating in it but never seeing the presenter again and never getting any follow up to it.

And yet, we often find ourselves in situations much like these. To improve upon the professional development we create for teachers, research on teacher professional development can be a helpful guide. This research shows that to be effective, teacher professional development should:

• align with local initiatives and standards that teachers need to know about;
• meet teachers’ own professional goals;
• focus on the content and methods teachers use in their classrooms;
• be sustained over time;
• occur on-site in schools and/or in teachers’ own classrooms;
• provide numerous opportunities for active learning; and
• involve collective participation of peers and colleagues(Borko, 2004;Garet, Porter, Desimone, Birman & Yoon, 2001; Guskey, 2002).

These findings make a lot of sense when we think about how adults learn and grow in their professional skills and knowledge. But what more can help us when we are designing the activities we wish to offer teachers? What are the core ingredients behind a professional development session that is rich and interactive? There are many theories about how children and adults learn, and knowing more about how these theories can explain and predict the quality of the professional learning you might design. One theory that is seminal and encompasses so much of the important features of powerful adult learning is “transformative learning”, a term given by its author, Mezirow. Transformative learning theory (Mezirow, 1997, 1978) describes the mental components of how adults shift their thinking, which is different from how children learn. While children acquire new knowledge and begin to establish frames of reference given their circumstances and experiences, adults have already “acquired a coherent body of experience—associations, concepts, values, feelings, conditioned responses—frames of reference that define their life world…[Adults] have a strong tendency to reject ideas that fail to fit our preconceptions, labeling those ideas as unworthy of consideration—aberrations, nonsense, irrelevant, weird, or mistaken” (Mezirow, 1997, p. 5). When working with adult learners, Mezirow believes that transformative learning occurs when the learner becomes aware of these frames of reference, which are usually invisible to them, followed by critical reflection with others.

Dissonant Experience: Awareness of one’s frames of reference occurs through a dissonant experience that upsets our taken-for-granted frames of reference. For instance, this might occur when a teacher watches a video of practice and realizes that what they thought was taking place in the lesson is not what actually appears to be happening in the video.

Critical Reflection With Others: Learning is supported when the teacher is aware and then critically analyzes theirs and others’ frames of reference, examining beliefs and experiences from different perspectives, and engages in discussion to support or reject current frames of reference. The social interaction with peers is key to full development of critical reflection. For instance, the teacher might then discuss the video of practice with colleagues who notice other aspects the teacher missed, and supports the teacher’s thinking through question-asking and feedback.

Thus, transformative learning is based on identifying our frames of reference, seeing other points of view, and developing more critically reflective habits of mind through discourse with peers. It is much less about knowledge or content-acquisition and much more about processes that engender adults’ autonomous processes.

Methods associated with promoting transformative learning for adult participants include:

• Learning contracts
• Group projects
• Role-play
• Case studies
• Simulations
• Action research projects
• Critical incident study
• Concept mapping
• Life histories
• Study abroad or group travel experiences

These methods encourage critical reflection and experience in discourse. The focus is on discovering the context of ideas and the belief systems that shape the way we think about their sources, nature, and consequences, and on imagining alternative perspectives. In fostering

joyful and dynamic professional development with teachers, transformative learning theory can be a resource and a framework for success.

References

Borko, H. (2004). Professional development and teacher learning: Mapping the terrain. Educational researcher, 33(8), 3-15.

Garet, M. S., Porter, A. C., Desimone, L., Birman, B. F., & Yoon, K. S. (2001). What makes professional development effective? Results from a national sample of teachers. American educational research journal, 38(4), 915-945.

Guskey, T. R. (2002). Professional development and teacher change. Teachers and teaching, 8(3), 381-391.

Mezirow, J. (1997). Transformative learning: Theory to practice. New Directions for Adult and Continuing Education, 74, 5-12.

Mezirow, J. (1978). Perspective transformation. Adult Education, 28, 100-110.