In the contemporary society, adult learning has mainly on its efficacy in transforming individuals. This transformation focuses on changing their psychological perceptions, enabling them review their beliefs and subsequently offering them a platform upon which they can use the acquired knowledge to make decisions (Merriam, 2008). Thus, transformation learning, from a descriptive point of view focuses on enabling the adult learner to shift from the dependency stage and adopt a mode of making decisions whereby they do not rely on the beliefs, purposes or feelings of others but their own interpretation of events and ideas.
Learning experience
A learning strategy is always an effective strategy upon which a theory can be argued. This is because it offers empirical evidence at both ends of the learning process so that it can be used to make comparison sand subsequently to evaluate the worthiness of an adult learning process. At the beginning of adult learning classes, it is always hard to balance between class-work, family matters, job, and social life. This is more so, when you have to listen to the experiences of others who have undergone the same program. The task is sometimes overwhelming, and it requires that some important affiliations be shed down to cater for the highly prioritized matters such as adult learning program and job. In my case, family matters and friends were to be sacrificed to some levels in order to allow me enough time to handle my studies and take care of my job.
As expected, there were levels of discomfort within my family, and this led to a strained relationship within the family. To make matters worse, I had decided to spend less time with my friends. With a strained relationship clinging upon me, together with the widening distance with close friends, I felt the pressure building within me. I had to focus on the most important aspects of life. I thought I had to prioritize my affairs in a different way. After several sessions within my adult learning program, I felt more equipped to handle the situation. I had earlier on depended on advice from close friends on how to manage my affairs. Most of them advised that I had to sacrifice some of my time in some engagements, however, none of them told me how I would compensate for the time I sacrificed.
Upon attending several sessions within my adult learning program, I learnt that scheduling personal issues comes not with advice from friends but personal experiences. This is because, all people are diverse in their own way, and thus, one single model cannot be effective for all of us. The learning process equipped me with a sense of ownership and independence in decision-making. I decided to go back and speak to my family, and together we discussed all that could be done to suit my new engagements, as well as the family. This strategy worked out so well. I had the entire time I needed with my family; I had all the time for my friends and enough time for my studies. The pressure on my shoulders was shed off.
Transformative learning
Transformative learning is a learning process that involves changing the way the learner thinks about the world, the ‘self’, and the environment with the outcome being a change of perspective on how the world and ‘self’ relate (Merriam, 2008). It places into consideration the individuals the sole reason of learning while ensuring that the learning process is beneficial on practical environment and not just a theoretical understanding. Transformative learning offers a critical understanding of the need for reflective thinking on a personal platform and the ability to use the reflection in decision making. A step by step approach through which the instructor can help the adult learner to put into practice the effectiveness of adult learning is a step by step process.
Creating a supporting environment for transformative learning
This means that the instructor should be a leader within the class. They should do this through showing a sense of care, sincerity, trustworthiness, empathetic as well as being authentic in all discussions and information they relay (Merriam, 2008).
Feedback and autonomy
Communication plays a very important role on adult education. The instructor is tasked with providing the student with effective feedback so that they can at all times be able to evaluate their performance as well as develop the skills for independent decision making (Merriam, 2008).
Familiarizing with the students
The educator should take personal initiative to familiarize with the adult students, know their personal lifestyles, and identify the most appropriate methods of learning that suits each of them. This ensures that the students, who in any case are people engaged in other pressing issues such as family matters and jobs do not feel overburdened by the methods used in learning (Merriam, 2008). This will offer he students a chance to share their personal experiences and suggest the method they think best suits them.
The experience I had at the begging of my adult education program is a clear testimony of how proper application of the steps above would work well for a student. The instructor played a key role in enabling me to sort out the family and social issues that were exerting pressure on me. The instructors feedback on how I would manage my time in class and family and job is the platform upon which I realized that my role as a family member, students and worker. I had to shed off the tag of friends’ advice and focus on my own situation. The issue of autonomy in decision making as a critical step of the transformative learning came into play (Merriam, 2008).
Self-directed learning
Self-directed method is another form of adult learning methods. This is a learning process where individuals take personal initiative to plan, carry out, evaluate, and review their personal experiences without the help of others (Cranton, 2002). This is quite different from the transformative learning that considers feedback and the learning environment as a critical aspect of learning. In this case, self-directed learning focuses on the total autonomy through review of personal experience. It is expected that an individual can avoid any past mistakes or errors and omissions to drive to the most satisfying situation. In this method of learning, the learner is in a position to make decisions regarding the methods, resources, and content and evaluation techniques to be applied. It imparts the essence of total autonomy, thus developing individual from reliance on others to independent thinkers who can effectively solve real life problems (Cranton, 2002).
While the instructor in this case takes a back role in decision making, they still form a critical component of the learning process as they help the students set out the goals and objectives as well as reviewing the evaluation criteria at different times of the learning process. In the experience described above, the self-directed learning method would still have been applicable as it enables someone to reflect on their own experience and develop mechanisms that are effective on their personal situations, in the learning experience described earlier; time management was a major issue. A self-directed learning process would have demand that the learner identifies the priorities and rank them in order of importance (Cranton, 2002). A decision would then be made depending on this ranking.
While the transformative approach offers a more concrete strategy, the self-directed method would still help the learner arrive in a similar decision. However, the complexity of the self-directed method in terms of creating a sense of autonomy and reducing the need for feedback would have exerted more pressure on the learner. The transformative approach seeks to avoid more pressure or burden to the learner in decision making by offering a step by step approach to the issue (Merriam, 2008).
References
Merriam, S. B. (2008), Adult learning theory for the twenty-first century. New Directions for Adult and Continuing Education, 2008: 93–98. doi: 10.1002/ace.309
Cranton, P. (Spring 2002). Teaching for transformation. In Ross-Gordon (Ed.), Contemporary viewpoints on teaching adults effectively. New Directions for Adult and Continuing Education, (93) 63-71. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
