Hello, my name is Eva, and today, I want to reflect on three dimensions of learning that are essential when it comes to transformative learning. In adult education, these three dimensions, as described by educational scientists such as Edward Taylor and Knud Illeris, are the cognitive, emotional, and social dimensions. In this article, I want to examine how these three dimensions inform the context of adult learning. Let’s explore!
The challenge of concentration
According to Professor Edward Taylor, adult education must integrate a disruptive dilemma or challenging knowledge. This approach encourages learners to engage with new ideas, while challenging their existing practices and expanding their thinking. The aim is to introduce novel ideas into pre-existing conceptions, starting from what the learners know and broadening their knowledge horizon. The ability of adult learners to bridge their old knowledge to new perspectives is a cognitive process that depends on several variables: Concentration, a willingness to engage with new ideas, and time to reflect and adjust their old perspectives to the new knowledge.
For educators, the task is to create a learning environment which enhances learners’ opportunities to generate new knowledge (through the bridging of old and new). But the learning environment should also be mindful of the challenges facing adult learners as they commence on a course: A lack of concentration after a hard day’s work (or concentrating on the workload of the following day) is a common cognitive challenge for adult learners, and course design should acknowledge this with a focus on involvement and engagement, rather than leaving it up to the individual learner to find their own methods of staying attentive.
Being authentic
Learners’ cognitive challenges may also stem from how a subject is being presented. Adult learners may view the educators’ presentation as too complex or too simplistic compared to ‘how every day really looks like.’ Transformative learning is rarely achieved if learners perceive too great a distance between their own practical experiences and the theoretical ideas being taught – in such a situation, educators must visualise the path between old and new knowledge – a path which weaves its way through the emotional dimension.
The emotional dimension calls our beliefs and values to action on an individual, group, or organisational level. While the cognitive dimension may be the what of it all (knowledge, skills, etc.) the emotional dimension is the how and why of transformative learning: How does the new knowledge impact learners’ current understanding of a subject – and why is it meaningful? The emotional dimension underpins learners’ integration of new knowledge into existing skill sets (adult learners change their actions when they can encode meaning to new knowledge) and affords them more choices in decision-making. So, transformative learning depends on educators allowing learners to compare, contrast, and align their own emotional stands to new perspectives – logic weighs, emotions sways.
At the core of transformative learning is communication in all its forms and outlets: The spoken words from educator to learner are only one part of the equation; learners exchange and generate valuable knowledge amongst themselves, and learners are continually ‘translating’ what they are being taught to what they know (e.g. “that’s just like…”). Translation, in this context, connects what we hear to what we remember – and those memories may well be attached to a visual memory. I recently delivered a course on communicative de-escalation, and the discussion happened to steer toward how to handle non-verbal cues. A learner remembered a scene from the film ‘Inception’ and related this to the learner’s own experiences in observing non-verbal cues. It was a great example of how an impactful story interweaves the emotional and cognitive dimensions. Educational storytelling is an effective tool in the educator’s repertoire when translating theoretical ideas into an everyday work context.
Working together
According to educators such as Jean Lavé, people do their best learning as they interact with other people. It highlights the importance of the social dimension in positive learning outcome.
The social dimension is closely aligned with the space (virtual or physical) in which learning takes place. Course design which underpins transformative learning should incorporate sufficient time for learners to intermingle during breaks or in group work. The mix of formal and informal exchange of ideas supports transformative learning, as well as a focus on group work structured around applying knowledge to applicable solutions. The social dimension interconnects the before, during, and after of an educational course: As learners discuss their concerns before a course, pose questions during the course, and examine answers after the course, their social interaction will further generate new knowledge.
Transformative learning is a call to action
As I have laid out in this article, designing a course for adult learners, which underpins transformative learning, should ideally be based on three dimensions essential to learning, these being:
· The cognitive dimension: Getting to know something new
· The emotional dimension: Reflecting on the consequences of the new knowledge
· The social dimension: Interacting with others based of new knowledge
A course design which seeks to encourage transformative learning must consider the cognitive, emotional, and social dimensions of learning – all three are essential if the goal is to deliver knowledge to adult learners in order for them to apply what they have learned to what they think and do in their professional or personal lives.
Thank you for reading!
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