Adult Education - A creative process !?

Adult learning – a creative
process?!
Hróbjartur Árnason.
University of Iceland
hrobjartur@hi.is
ESREA 2019
Belgrad 19-22 September

The Problem
• The general discourse on learning is [still]
seems dominated by the “transmission-
model’s” vocabulary
• Discourse influences practice
• Probably too many learning events are
organized with “transmission-model”!
• Do not take into account current knowledge
about learning or realities of modern adult life
• We are thus probably cheating the learners
Hróbjartur Árnason | hrobjartur@hi.is | 2019 2

The solution?
Modern theories on learning depict learning
as something learners DO, not something
that happens to them.
They even use words that can be
synonymous with creating: “Build, Construct,
Interprete…”
Can a discourse which depicts adult
learning as a creative process help change
the practice of adult education?

Learning is something learners do
Arguments
• From theory
• Learning is a creative process (So – it seems to me – say all the
theories)
• From research and experience
1. Learners intuitively USE learning events for creative purposes:
• E.g. Dealing with change and crisis (Research on participation)
2. Learning, the result of adult’s creative engagement with ideas
• E.g. each learner takes different learnings from the same event
3. Learning motivation:
"Adults learn in order to deal with present needs“
• E.g. Malcolm Knowles, Andragogy and many others
4. Adult learning often connected to work and solutions to work
problems where the solutions are not known and through learning
they create new solutions (c.f. Expansive learning: Y. Engeström)

Some rights reserved by paulhami
Joseph needed a
lawnmower, fortunately for
him his,son Martin had an
an old one in the cellar
which needed fixing. Now
Joseph is learning to repare
the lawnmower on
Youtube. He finds it rather
easy, because as a teenager
he used to fix things with
his father, so he has a
foundation to build on

Some rights reserved by xlordashx
Paul has been working as a
carpenter, most of his skills
he has learned on-the-job.
Now he wants to „get his
papers“. So through a
process of “validation of
prior learning” he will
have to measure what he
has learned through
practice with what they
teach in school…
And back at school he will
need to both assimilate
and accommodate new
information with his
experience

Some rights reserved by xlordashx
Jack and Jill are getting married. Their ideas
about married life, come from home, self
images, role models, e.t.c they have
unconsciously absorbed and maybe
consciously edited… But they are surely in for
an interesting learning expedition, learning to
find their own way…

These teachers work at a school where they
need to implement the new national agenda
on learning AND to create a local agenda
which is based on the national one. They
need to learn the content from the new
agenda and create their adoption of it

“Transformative Learning”
Knud Illeris (2016) bundles together under this heading
what might be labelled a “highest form” of learning,
where learning has a transformative effect on the
learners life.
• Peter Alheit – transitional learning (Alheit, 2009)
• Jack Mezirow – “Transformative Learning”(Mezirow, 1991)
• Yrje Engeström – “Extpansive learning” (Engeström, 1987)
I also like to take
• Etienne Wenger – “Communities of practice” (Wenger,
1998)

Three examples
of learning
theories
Yrjö Engeström:
Expansive Learning
Etienne Wenger:
Communities of practice
Jack Mezirow:
Transformative learning

Learning – a few definitions
• Learning is a process of construing and appropriating a new
or revised interpretation of the meaning of an experience as
a guide to awareness, feeling, and action. (Mezirow, 1991)
• The concept of community of practice … is a perspective
that locates learning, not in the head or outside it, but in the
relationship between the person and the world, … the social
and the individual constitute each other…. Meaningful
learning in social contexts requires both participation and
reification to be in interplay. (Wenger 2010)
• [E]xpansive learning is a historically new type of learning
which emerges as practitioners struggle through develop-
mental transformations in their activity systems, moving
across collective zones of proximal development. (Engeström, 1999)

Jack Mezirow:
Transformative
Learning

Transformative learning:
Transformative learning theory describes a
learning process which can take place
intentionally or unintentionally, consciously or
unconsciously, and involves a reassessment of
frames of mind an adult has acquired through
life. Transformative learning thus is a form of
learning, which is part of an adult’s life, and
builds on psychological and practical
prerequisites, which belong to adult stages of
development.

Transformative process:
• critical reflection
• a reassessment of habits of mind
• an active inquiry into new possibilities
• lead to a decision to change perspectives or
• attain new points of view and forge new habits
≠ transmission and reception!

What is Creativity?

Creativity: Three definitions
• “The creative work is a novel work that is accepted as
tenable or useful or satisfying by a group in some point
in time.” (Stein, 1953)
• “Creativity is any act, idea, or product that changes an
existing domain, or that transforms an existing domain
into a new one. …. It is important to remember,
however, that a domain cannot be changed without the
explicit or implicit consent of a field responsible for it.”
(Csikszentmihalyi, 2009)
• “Creativity is the generation of a product that is judged
to be novel and also to be appropriate, useful, or
valuable by a suitably knowledgeable social group.”
(Sawyer, 2012)

Creativity:
Three waves of theorizing

Wave 1 Creative individuals

Wave 2: Creative process

Wave 3: Group creativity

Vlad Petre Glǎveanu
Sociocultural theory
/ Cultural Psycology
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi: Systems Theory
Keith Sawyer:
Sociocltural
wave

Creative…
• Be "at home“ in a domain / be knowledgeable
• Allow prior knowledge to meet new inputs.
This can lead to new interesting connections
• Create – or develop new / useful / meaningful
solutions / approaches [with other people]
• Develop
• Evaluate

What does this mean
• After ignoring 100 of years of educational theorists
suggesgting that learning is about the learner’s own
work
1. Learning events should thus be organized to help the
learners deal creatively with the learning content and
their current or future situations
2. Learning events should enable people to deal with new
unforeseen global situations
• What could help?
• Stop talking about delivering and acquiring, and start
talking about creating

Hróbjartur Árnason
School of Education
University of Iceland
hrobjartur@hi.is

Adult Education - A creative process !?

Recommended

Recommended

More Related Content

Similar to Adult Education - A creative process !?

Similar to Adult Education - A creative process !? (20)

More from Hróbjartur Árnason

More from Hróbjartur Árnason (20)

Recently uploaded

Recently uploaded (20)

Adult Education - A creative process !?