STEPS TOWARDS TRANSFORMATIVE LEARNING

1. STEPS TOWARDS TRANSFORMATIVE LEARNING Presented by: Shanu Misser

2. Transformative Learning Transformative learning involves experiencing a deep structural shift in the basic premises of thought, feeling and action. It is a shift of consciousness that dramatically and permanently alters our being in the world. Such a shift involves our understanding of ourselves and our self-locations; our relationships with other humans and the natural world; our understanding of the relations of power in interlocking structures of class, race and gender; our body awareness; our visions of alternative approaches to living; and our sense of the possibilities for social justice and peace and personal joy. (O’ Sullivan, 2002: 11)

4. Climate Change FET –Mpumalanga - Elukwatini • Teacher Johannah – Completed a Secondary Teacher Diploma – Elijah Mango College of Education. • Works at Litjelembube Secondary School – Live in Elukwatini – speaks English, Afrikaans and Siswati. • Most valuable aspect of the course for her – working with climate change content knowledge as it related to her subject and the wider discourse. • Felt that the readings on the course and the research aspect of the assessment task helped her to expand her thinking and help her understand what she did not know because she did not know what she did not know.

6. Johanna Achievements • An increased level of confidence in working with climate change and environmental content. • During workshop sessions – she willingly adopts a mentoring role – supports teachers and is one of the lead teachers in the province supporting environmental education. • She has initiated projects in her school linked to: • water conservation, • energy conservation and • waste management. • From the curriculum she initiated projects related to the content and thereafter developed contextualized formal assessment tasks that demonstrate the thread from content – assessment - project

7. Mr Ngwenya Mpumalanga (Life Sciences – Biodiversity) • Lives in Kabokweni (Mpumalanga) – Teachers at Guduza Senior Secondary. • Completed a Senior Teacher Diploma at EC Mango College and an ACE in Educational Management. • His diagnostic analysis revealed that learners are struggling with higher order response questions: • answering questions requiring comprehension, • application and • synthesis type questions. • Mr Ngwenya also highlighted his own personal developmental needs in terms of setting and developing higher order questions • He found the critical analysis of two different types of field work tasks linked to the biodiversity content extremely valuable . • His participation in doing both tasks and working in a group of life sciences colleagues from his area provided additional understanding and exposure to content on biodiversity.

9. Mr. Ngwenya’s Achievements • Working as a group of teachers in the same area they redesigned the field work tasks for their own contexts and undertook two levels of fieldwork. • They engaged with SANBI in the Lowveld and took learners on an excursion to do part of the study biodiversity fieldwork. • They conducted an additional field work task on their own school grounds. • Together with the other participants of the training – he adopted a mentoring role in supporting and encouraging other teachers in their school and area around the biodiversity content. • One of the main achievement was the vast increase in personal confidence to conduct fieldwork.

11. Gauteng Life Sciences Curriculum Advisors (Biodiversity) • Grizelda Van Wyk – Works in Sedibeng East District – Gauteng. She obtained her masters degree in 2012 from UJ. • Grizelda valued interacting with current trends in the field of biodiversity, the resources that were provided and the readings that supported the exemplars. • Of particular interest to her was the different types of methodologies used in teaching biodiversity: • Reading, • using case studies, • participatory methods together with dialogue

13. Grizelda’s Achievements • Used the Fundisa framework to support her workshops with teachers and the PLG’s. • Used the concept of the self-sustaining ecosystem as a way of working with models to support the teaching of complex issues. • Engaged teachers in developing their own self-sustaining ecosystem and thereafter engaged them in a dialogue using their CAPS documents to explore concepts in Life Sciences that could be taught by using the models they has constructed.

15. Transformative Learning • What does the teacher value from the professional development courses they attend? • What new possibilities can they see for their own practice?. • How does the teacher use their capabilities when the opportunities arise to do so? Transformative learning is a process and cannot be achieved overnight. But its like stepping on stones across a pond to get to the other side. One step at a time. Starting the journey!!