Understanding and Promoting Transformative Learning

Bol

The third edition of Patricia Cranton’s Understanding and Promoting Transformative Learning brings a wealth of new insight from the tremendous growth in the field during the decade since the previous edition. The third edition of Patricia Cranton’s Understanding and Promoting Transformative Learning brings a wealth of new insight from the tremendous growth in the field during the decade since the previous edition. As in the previous editions, the book helps adult educators understand what transformative learning is, distinguish it from other forms of learning, and foster it in their practice. The first part of the book is dedicated to clarifying transformative learning theory and relating it to other theoretical frameworks. The author examines transformative learning from the learner’s perspective, and discusses individual differences in how learners go through the process. In the second half of the book, the focus is squarely on strategies for promoting transformative learning in a wide variety of adult and higher education contexts. Practitioners will be able to take ideas from the text and apply them directly in their teaching.Since 1975, transformative learning has become a core theoretical perspective in adult and higher education, and research has proliferated. In the past decade, adult education and especially transformative learning grew into a noticeably larger field. The numbers of undergraduate and graduate programs in adult education have increased and continue to increase as more and more individuals are seeking the expertise, skills, and training necessary to work with adult learners in higher education, business, industry, government, health professions, non-profit organizations, and community development. In addition, the number of programs in higher education (both undergraduate and graduate) that include courses in transformative learning has grown dramatically. These academic audiences use the book to further their understanding of transformative learning theory and practice.Drawing on the latest research as well as the author’s own teaching experience in both online and face-to-face courses, this new edition will be a vital resource for members of the transformative learning community, as well as those encountering the topic for the first time.

Bol Partner

In the second edition of her landmark book, Understanding and Promoting Transformative Learning, Patricia Cranton helps translate theory to practice and guides readers through the many and varied new developments in transformative learning that have emerged in the decade since publication of the first edition. As in the first edition, the book explains the transformative learning theory, describes the process from the learner's perspective, explores individual differences in transformative learning, presents strategies for fostering transformative learning, and discusses how adult educators themselves are transformative learners. The second edition of this important book draws on the most recent scholarship in adult education and contains information about new theoretical developments including the role of imagination and spirituality in transformation, the importance of affect in the process, the idea of connected knowing, contributions from critical theory, and a holistic model of transformative learning.