The role of reflective dialogue in transormational reflective learning

Abstract

Learning is a socially constructed process created by and with learners through their interactions with their experience and their environment. Many of the factors in learning are hidden – even learners themselves may not be aware of them. The affective domain, one of the three classical domains of learning, provides a potential key to these hidden factors in learning, and when included in a reflective dialogue with another, may access some of these hidden or unknown factors, which have the potential for transformation through double-loop learning. Some of the aspects of learning which are likely to be revealed to the learner through the gateway of affect are as follows: Power issues, the prevailing discourse, autonomy, connectedness, relationship, habitus, dispositions and emotion itself as a driver. My theory does not claim that this list is exhaustive. The impact of transformational learning is likely to extend to the organisation through the double hermeneutic effect. This is an issue currently under discussion in the literature. My theory proposes that it is in the double hermeneutic effect that dialogue may play its part, so that reflective dialogues between learners in organisations have the potential to influence the organisation itself. The publications offer my original contribution to the reflective learning field ie practical and usable methods in the form of reflective dialogue at three levels and in five dimensions