To: Diane Keyes, Member of Team BEAD
From: Emily Leung, Member of Team BEAD
Date: September 26, 2019
Subject: Assignment 1.3: Peer Review of the Definitions of Transformative Learning
(Link to Diane’s definition)
Thank you for the opportunity to review the first draft of your definition assignment. Transformation learning is something I had never considered before, so it was interesting learning about that through your definitions. Overall speaking, you did a great job explaining the term at different levels and from different perspectives. I would nonetheless like to offer some comments and suggestions to perfect your definitions:
Purpose: The introduction clearly states the purpose of this assignment and the situation in which the definitions would be used. Your choice of language is easy-to-understand, which makes it easy for a non-expert like me to grasp the idea of transformative learning on my first reading.
Organization: The expansion methods are effective in providing the information needed to understand the term. Instead of Negation, however, I think that section would be more appropriately classified as Contrast, as it shows the differences between the new information (banking style learning) and the information related to your term. If you do change it to Contrast, I would suggest you expand a bit more on how transformative learning differs from rote learning (as described in the second quote by McWhinney and Markos). The concluding sentence of the paragraph seems to only compare the two learning styles in terms of the teachers’ involvement, which is related to the first quote.
Overall speaking, great use of topic sentence!
Sentence structure: I suggest changing the second sentence of the Operation Principles section to “Through hearing the lived experiences and perspectives of others, members meet the limits of their own understanding as they encounter information that challenges or disconfirms their concepts of self, other, or world.” It sounds a bit redundant using ‘through” twice in a sentence.
Instead of repeating ‘Relationships provide the container for learning’ in the first point in the Required Condition section, maybe consider detailing why that is the case, since you have explained that in the preceding section already.
Research: After reading the three definitions, I found myself wondering, what is the benefit of transformative learning? As you mentioned ‘profound experience’ in the sentence definition, I was expecting to see an elaboration on what the profound experience is and to whom. I think it would be great to add that information from the references you already have. Furthermore, you mentioned a preliminary research conducted in September 2018 in the parenthetical definition. What is that about? Is it written by one of the researchers you mentioned in the history of transformative learning?
Punctuation: I suggest using semicolons to separate items in the list under the Required Conditions section because one or more items contain a comma. Also, for the sentence ‘Three types of transformative group work can be identified based on their developmental outcomes including: …’, the colon seems to be unnecessary.
Visuals: The connection between the visual and the definition is a bit unclear. While you have stressed the significance of critical reflection throughout the definitions, there is little mention of the three other elements. I think the connection can be made more explicit by explaining Mezirow’s view on transformative learning with the terms in the diagram.
I hope my recommendations are helpful as you complete the final version of this exercise. Please let me know if you have any questions.
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