Living in an international family can be a challenge, particularly once children are there. Language, culture, a sense of belonging – how are these transmitted in a family with a mix of heritages?

With the international family project, we want to collect and reflect upon stories from the everyday life in an international family. We’d like to highlight the opportunities and the challenges that come with a multicultural life, many of which we believe are common and independent of country of origin or country of residence.

We collect the stories in a booklet and in a podcast. Through the interviews, we invite to self-reflection and induce transformative learning in our audience. The booklet also includes a guided self-study component, to further the learning outcome.

https://vimeo.com/357787969/56de1fb4c0

Purpose

The project’s purpose is to provide convincing knowledge about an innovative learning approach that transforms learners perspective on the fundamentals of life and their roles. It compiles theories and practices about “transformative learning” into a competence framework, a training program, a book and a blended learning course in an online learning environment. This project draws upon resources from transformative learning theory by Mezirow, constructive-developmental approach (such as in Robert Kegan), and other approaches which will be explored with qualitative research and experts interviews.

Objectives

Main objectives are

• to provide access to deeply engaging and participative learning methodologies
• to strengthen the network of practitioners
• provide a shared language within the transformative learning approach

Beneficiaries

Main beneficiaries of our projects are

• adult education trainers who have a deep curiosity and passion to innovate in their learning environments towards a more transformative education, e.g.: the teaching of meta-skills, more self-directed learning, approaches that can make the students take increased responsibility for their own learning and self-construction of meaning.
• Teachers who wish to innovate in such areas but lack the training opportunities are our primary target.

Activities and Methods

The transformative quality of adult education will in several ways shape the future. To the existing critical challenges of climate change, sustainable development, increasing migration, precarity of employment and of food regimes, has been added the abrupt need to face the COVID-19 pandemic and, not least, to discover ways to build a more resilient society in its aftermath.

These challenges cannot be met through marginal change; in order to survive and thrive, broad swathes of the population need to be engaged in the search for viable transnational transformative solutions. Increasingly, this engagement is understood to encompass online learning opportunities. However, the present upsurge of different, uncoordinated initiatives regarding online education seems to be of little relevance to Transformative Learning since the emphasis is on a transfer of existing knowledge. This is indeed the ‘traditional’ sphere of MOOCs and other online educational initiatives. What is lacking, or is just beginning to emerge, is an appreciation of the skills and competences needed to design and deliver an online programme for Transformative Learning.

Online delivery is particularly challenging in a transformative context because so much hinges on personal qualities that have traditionally been conveyed face-to-face.

In the networks represented by the partner organizations of this project, there is innovative experimentation with these questions, based on different models or theories and building on different face-to-face skill sets. This project aims to synthesize this experimentation in order to further explore the boundaries of the possible. What are the opportunities and limitations for Transformative Learning online?

We invite you to join our project!
Both partner networks as well as non-partner networks around the globe are invited to participate as:

1. source of input about existing practices
2. participant in one or more experiments
3. recipient, user and potential disseminator of the results

Our findings will be collated and published as Guidelines for program design and Support for effective delivery of programs. Talk to Annika or Marilyn for more info.

This project follows the EU Erasmus+ funded project “Building capacity for transformative learning”, which ended in September 2020. Its focus was on enabling adult educators to bring a transformative edge to their offline programs, providing TL to their learners. One of the outcomes is the book A Transformative Edge – Knowledge, Inspiration and Experiences for educators of adults with more than 40 contributing practitioners experienced in Transformative Learning.

Experimenters library
A searchable collection of experimenter’s reference materials is available on this page.

What is Transformative learning?

Transformative learning involves experiencing a deep shift in our thinking, feelings, and actions – a shift in our understanding of ourselves and our relationships with others and the natural world.

It can also involve shifts in our understanding of power, class, race and gender, body awareness, our visions of how we live our lives, and our sense of possibilities for social justice and peace and personal joy.

In the context of socio-ecological transition or deep adaptation, transformative learning is particularly focused on approaches to learning that generate transformative outcomes in both the inner and outer world, through both individual and collective transformations.

 

What Is Blended Learning?

Blended learning is considered a combination of traditional face-to-face modes of instruction with online modes of learning, drawing on technology-mediated instruction, where all participants in the learning process are separated by distance some of the time.  (Skrypnyk et al, 2015, p. 62)

If you want to explore deeper on Blended Transformative Learning, we invite you to explore the BLAST guide. You can download a copy of the guide here.

 

Communities of Practice (CoP)

“CoPs enable people doing related work or facing similar challenges to share their knowledge and solutions and as a result achieve the greatest good for the greatest number.”

The BLAST CoP guide specifically addresses:

• how to create blended learning environments that combine virtual and face to face interaction

• how to build equitable, diverse and inclusive CoPs

• how to support transformative learning to take place

Please read and download the BLAST CoP Guide here. For further information read the CoP wiki page

Davie Philip of Cultivate (Ireland) briefly describes the BLAST Community of Practice Guide. He describes what it covers and how it will be useful to many people involved in community-led sustainability and climate action. It will help to deepen their knowledge of how to create change through collective learning and innovation, and sharing of good and emerging practice in a variety of fields.

 

Competency Framework

This guide is particularly for Trainers and Community Catalysts that are aiming to help initiate, catalyse or strengthen transition processes in communities, within organisations or networks, or at a system level – especially where they will be using both transformative learning methodologies and blended learning methods. This includes adult educators, facilitators, coaches and similar professionals, as well as change-makers, activists and civically engaged citizens interested in transformative adult learning opportunities. The framework is also intended to be useful for other stakeholders, such as funders and policy makers who are seeking to support those that more directly catalyse, expand or accelerate transition processes.

The framework is presented in a format that distinguishes the competences needed for:

• Participants in Learning & Action

• Trainers & Catalysts

• Hosting – Organisations, Venues and Networks

Find more detail in our Competencies wiki section and dive deeper into the Trainers’ Competencies Table and the full on BLAST Competency Framework.

 

Justice, equity, diversity and inclusion: as a regenerative living system

Justice, Equity, diversity and inclusion (JEDI) is a context specific developmental process. Therefore this ‘methodology’ uses the metaphor of ‘key ingredients’ necessary for enriching and deepening the JEDI experience of your group or project so that it is a regenerative living system. The goal here is to help groups and organisations take steps for inclusion to become the norm and for diversity to thrive; for top down or tokenistic solutions to be replaced with a willingness to learn and grow together towards a shared vision for an open, inclusive and compassionate culture.

Definitions

Justice: Dismantling barriers to resources and opportunities in society so that all individuals and communities can live a full and meaningful life.

Equity: Allocating resources to ensure everyone has access to the same opportunities. Equity recognizes that advantages and barriers – the ‘isms’ exist.

Diversity: All the differences between us are based on whether we experience advantages or encounter barriers to opportunities.

Inclusion: Fostering a sense of belonging by centering, valuing and amplifying the voices, perspectives and styles of those who experience more barriers on their identities.

Please explore the complete BLAST JEDI Pathway tool here

Further resources

We invite you also to explore the Toolkit of Shared Tools and methods established by the BLAST project, to be used in conjunction with the content above.

And listen to our series of interviews of Personal Practitioner Journeys in Transformative Learning. In them we hear personal journeys of working in the fields of personal and social-ecological  transformation. Our interviewees describe how their experiences, expertise and learning-facilitation roles in these fields have evolved and deepened over time.