BRIDGE Model of Transformational Learning through Supplementary Education

This full description outlines how the BRIDGE® Model is an example of a system thinking approach. System thinking has two components: system thinking and systemic thinking. System thinking is objective (tangible). This is the data the researcher observes such as the academic achievement gap (Reardon & Galindo, 2006). On the other hand, systemic thinking is subjective (intangible) as is the case with our taken-for-granted assumptions, or our mental models. Systemic thinking is a mode of thinking that keeps people in touch with the wholeness of our existence; that human thought is not capable of knowing the whole (Flood, 2006). A mixed methods approach in conjunction with transformational learning through organizational learning make of the BRIDGE® Model a sustainable and accountable intervention.

A current research paradigm looks at data and describes the findings, for example ECLS-K is the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Kindergarten Class of 1998-1999 and its data show clearly the academic achievement gap. Looking at data in that way is defined as doing research “on” people. On the other hand, in order to address the academic achievement gap, the BRIDGE® Model intervenes with a new paradigm. This research paradigm does research “with “ people; instead “on” them (Reason & Bradbury, 2010). In order to address system thinking, the BRIDGE® Model incorporates two methodological approaches with the intention of producing a set propositions regarding the introduction of collaborative action inquiry methods into an ongoing conversation about this action learning intervention while monitor the academic progress of the students.
This white paper is structured as follows: (1) Background Information about the BRIDGE® Model; (2) Introduction to the concept of Transformational Learning versus Transactional Learning; (3) The BRIDGE® Model paradigm, and (4) Conclusion.

(1) Background information about the BRIDGE® Model
Many initiatives are being advanced trying to close the academic achievement gap in the United States. The academic achievement gap is a national problem. Education reform has been pursued trying to address the academic achievement gap, but generally reforms aim at redressing some societal ills, such as poverty, gender or class-based inequities, or perceived ineffectiveness. Education reformers have suggested a whole range of strategies for improving our schools, from new curricula and tougher standards, to charter schools, vouchers and even complete privatization.
The academic achievement gap is one of the most discussed about issues in U.S. education (Ladson-Bilings, 2006). The term refers to the disparities in standardized test scores and GPA between Black and White, Latina/o and White, and recent immigrant and White students (Ladson-Bilings, 2006). There are many theories regarding the cause of the achievement gap, such as, “cultural deficit theories” that suggest that children of color were victims of pathological life styles that hinder their ability to benefiting from schooling (Bereiter & Engleman, 1966; Deutsch, 1963; Hess & Shipman, 1965). Social psychologist Claude Steele (1999) argues that “stereotype threat” contributes to the achievement gap. Multicultural education researchers such as, James Banks (2004), Geneva Gay (2004), and Carl Grant (2003), and curriculum theorist such as Michael Apple (1990), Catherine Cornbleth and Dexter Waugh (1995), and Thomas Popkewitz (1998) have focused on the nature of the curriculum and the school as source of the gap. And teacher educators such as Marilyn Cochran-Smith (2004) and Gloria Ladson-Billings (2006) have focused on the pedagogical practices of teachers as contributing to either the exacerbation or the narrowing of the gap.

However, the BRIDGE® Model of Transformational Learning is different from what the education reformers are doing because besides thinking system, it uses "organizational learning". Corporate America has spent a lot of money to understand organizations and through BRIDGE® we are using that research to make this intervention sustainable. The BRIDGE® model is an organizational learning intervention where we use human praxis to influence organizational change. The most important feature of this model is that it does not disrupt schools. This model does not blame teachers, students or parents. Instead, in order to address the closing of the academic achievement gap for Latino students, BRIDGE® looks at the necessary understanding of the dialectical nature of the relationship between institutions and human agency. Institutions do not merely constrain human agency; they are first and foremost the product of human agency (DiMaggio and Powell, 1991).
The BRIDGE® Model of Transformational Learning intervention has been implemented with successful outcomes in four different contexts: a) with college students, b) with high school students, c) with elementary school students and d) with the Kichwa indigenous community of Rio Blanco in the Amazon rainforest.

a) In 2000, the BRIDGE® Model was first implemented with Latino college students. The implementation was funded by Family Development Center with scholarships for higher education to 100 Latino college students. From these students, 70 graduated in 2008 and the other 30 students graduated in 2009 (Gordon & Vergara, 2009).

b) In 2004, the BRIDGE® Model was implemented in Morris Hills High School to try to address the lack of academic success of Latino students. Their 2003 NJ Report card showed very low scores for their Latino students. However, after the intervention, by 2010 in their NJ Report Card, the same high school has the highest scores for Latinos in New Jersey (Gordon & Vergara, 2009).

c) In 2008, under the sponsorship of the Policy Evaluation and Research Center at the Educational Testing Service (ETS) the BRIDGE® Model was implemented with twenty Latino elementary school students. As a result, after a year, these students were able to read at their grade level. And in some cases, even increased their academic grade levels in reading and math. This is key, if we take in account that currently minority students are reading at kindergarten level in 4th grade (Reardon & Galindo, 2006).

d) In 2009, the model was implement with the Kichwa indigenous community of Rio Blanco in the Amazon rainforest. As a result, this community was able to build a road to connect their community with the world and to get rid of four mining companies from its territories without violence (Salazar, 1991).

This paper will describe the methodological approach of the BRIDGE® Model implementation used in these four different contexts.

(2) Introduction to the concept of Transformational Learning versus Transactional Learning

Freire’s theory pedagogy of the oppressed (1970) speaks about banking. Banking is the way of teaching as a lecture; this is when the professor is in front of the classroom doing Transactional Leaning. It is a transaction of information. Currently, in schools, colleges and most professional development trainings, transactional learning is used. On the other hand, transformational learning is when we are capable to “see” our behavior. When we are capable to observe our own behavior and act accordingly with conscientization (awareness), it is the first step to transformational learning.

This concept of conscientization, which is at the heart of Paulo Freire’s theory pedagogy of liberation (Freire, 1970) connotes both consciousness and conscience and thus captures the cognitive and normative processes that constitute this form of reflective knowledge. In our interactions, during the BRIDGE® implementation, we emphasized the learning process, such as single-loop learning, double-loop learning (Argyris and Schon, 1996) and the triple-loop learning (Torbert, 1991, 2004) with different focus on behavioral and cognitive change. Through our reflections we moved from the single-loop learning, to the double-loop and triple-loop learning of where we were addressing why and how to change our taken-for-granted assumptions in order to be effective in our learning. At the individual level, interpretation of the environment leads to the revision of individual knowledge structures (Walsh, 1995).

As we reflect, we better understand perceived changes in “agentic” behavior that happened with the BRIDGE® Model implementation. Bandura (1986) describes “agentic” behavior in his social cognition theory perspective that views people as self-organizing, proactive, self-reflecting and self-regulating, not just as reactive organisms shaped by environmental forces or driven by inner impulses, which is in opposition to the conception of humans as governed by external forces.

The targeted population in the first three implementations of the BRIDGE® Model lives in the United States. They are Latino immigrants who left their countries looking for opportunities for themselves and their children. Once in the United States, this population experiences a different environment and culture. Therefore, they enter in “a state of disjuncture” as Jarvis calls it (Jarvis, 2008). The BRIDGE® intervention facilitates families to learn about their “cultural shock” and how to monitor their children’s academic and social development. To make sure students achieve the higher expectations we are setting for them, we need to help their families understand the process they are going through as they learn how to better adapt to the American culture and expectations. This is not a simple, intuitive process. It requires thought, work, change, and most of all dedication fueled by a family’s goal – to achieve high academic success for their children.

For these Latino immigrant families coming to the United States becomes the “disorienting dilemma” (Mezirow, 2000) that precipitated the process of transformational learning. Transformational learning theory as presented by Mezirow (2000), is about making sense of our experiences; it is a meaning-making activity. Meaning making related to everyday learning can be distinguished from meaning making in transformative learning as follows: “Normally, when we learn something, we attribute an old meaning to a new experience…. In transformative learning, however, we interpret an old experience (or a new one) from a new set of expectations” (Mezirow, 1991, p. 11). This “new set of expectations” or meaning perspective is arrived at through critically reflecting on the assumptions, biases, beliefs, and other things that structure the old perspective or frame of reference. Mezirow (2000) defines a frame of reference as “the structure of assumptions and expectations through which we filter sense impressions…. It provides the context for making meaning” (p.16). My interest in this study is Mezirow’s recognition that “frames of reference often represent cultural paradigms (collectively held frames of reference)—learning that is unintentionally assimilated from the culture” (Mezirow, 2000, p. 16). It is these frames of reference that undergo transformation as we critically reflect on our underlying assumptions and “taken-for-granted beliefs” (Mezirow, 2000, p. 19). These assumptions may be psychological, sociolinguistic, moral-ethical, epistemic, aesthetic, or philosophical in nature.

BRIDGE® facilitates families to understand about their “cultural shock” which is a process they are going through but they are not aware of. BRIDGE® approaches these families by working from within their own culture. As part of their culture, we need to understand “Collectivism vs. Individualism” (Trumbull et al. 2001). Collectivism is the cultural values of many immigrant populations, such as, Latino, Indian, Asian, African and European. Individualism is the American way.

The program facilitates achievement of academic success for students by addressing “habitus”. BRIDGE®‘s unique approach includes the addressing of “habitus” as part of its delivery model for transformational learning. According to Bourdieu (1977), “habitus” is a system of internal models- habits of the mind, habitual ways of thinking. Habitus is developed in people everywhere as a function of the ways of which they live their lives and their status in the society. For ethnic minorities, disadvantaged immigrant populations and low income families, the “habitus” they develop naturally has limited utility as they function in the cultures that have gained hegemony. BRIDGE® seeks deliberately to broaden “habitus” of the populations that are targeted by providing acculturation experiences, educational services, and the cultivation of agency to compensate for the social isolation that has contributed to their limited “habitus.”

(3) The BRIDGE® intervention as a new paradigm
The BRIDGE® Model intervention is a different paradign research because involves research with the community participants, not “on” or “about” them. This form of inquiry is often summarily described as doing research with people, rather than on them (Heron 1996; Heron & Reason 1997; Reason 1996, Reason, 1988, Reason & Bradbury, 2010). Such posture requires acknowledgement that academic researchers are not outside the system, but rather are an elemental part of the composition of the system involved in the study (Stacey et al. 2000).

A dominant research paradigm is based in studies on the targeted populations. To change this paradigm, Argyris and Schon (1996) call us to recognize practitioners as inquirers and encourage the collaboration of researchers and practitioners. It is interesting how they point out that a researcher takes a position of a distance, as an impersonal agent. A researcher is a “spectator-manipulator”. On the other hand, a practitioner is an “agent-experient” because practitioners are within the problematic situation as concerned actors. The scholar who designed the model is a practitioner that became a researcher and through collaborative action inquiry she was able to merge both the researcher and the practitioner.

When working with families, we talk about how to facilitate them to develop a more "empowering view of their current reality". By this we meant to help them to seeing current reality that reinforced rather than undermined their sense of confidence in shaping the future. "This reality" is perceived by most people like the pressures they live by day after day, crises that must be reacted to, and limitations that must be accepted. Due to such ways of defining "reality", their dreams (visions) are like illusions or must better say delusions which are not an achievable end. How then can we create an intervention that could help people see reality as a medium for creating their visions rather than a source of limitation? The BRIDGE® Model intervention is addressing this issue by helping people to see their problems in terms of underlying systemic structures and mental models rather than just short-term events. Peter Senge (1990) questions if we are prisoners of the system or prisoners of our own thinking. This information can help in appreciating the forces shaping reality, and how we are part of those forces and can affect them. And the BRIDGE® intervention facilitates families to make that connection in order to change their paradigm.

The BRIDGE® Model methodological constructs

The BRIDGE® Model, as a program of investigation, is conducted using a mixed-method approach involving both quantitative and qualitative components. Taking into account the collectivistic cultural values of the Latino community, the BRIDGE® Model is “engaged research” looking at the process through which community participants construct and take the initial steps toward an actionable and empowering strategy for closing the academic achievement gap for their children.
Accordingly, the BRIDGE® Model incorporates these two methodological approaches with the intention of producing a set propositions regarding the introduction of collaborative action inquiry methods into an ongoing conversation about this strategy. In qualitative inquiry, phenomenological documentation and Participatory Action Research (PAR) are different approaches. However, in spite of their differences, these two approaches can be integrated to empower disenfranchised people. By combining these two approaches, due to their differences they complement each other and can become an effective tool to facilitate the ‘voice’ of people who otherwise would be silent; silent because of the language barrier, lack of knowledge of the system or/and afraid of their current social power structure. It is important for an oppressed group, which may be part of a culture of silence based on centuries of oppression, to find ways to tell and thus reclaim their own story (Salazar, 1991). Given the interest in producing useable knowledge in an unexplored area, phenomenological documentation and PAR are two obvious methodological choices. However, each approach by itself was not sufficient to accomplish our research goals.

Qualitative component
The BRIDGE® Model uses two methodological constructs: A) Phenomenological documentation, and
B) Participatory Action Research (PAR) through Collaborative Inquiry (CI). This engaged research is done by applying the seven stages of an interview investigation (Kvale, 2009) and utilizing a coding paradigm involving conditions, context, action/interactional strategies and consequences.

A) Phenomenological documentation
Phenomenological documentation is a type of research highly emergent. Kasl and Yorks (2010) state that the epistemic participatory principle posits that meaningful knowledge generation can grow only from the knowledge-maker’s personal experience; this principle derives from the phenomenological assertion that one can best understand human experience by being inside that experience. Heron and Reason (1997, 2008) describe how an extended epistemology transforms felt experience into practical new knowledge that grounds action. Phenomenology is a philosophical movement originating in the 20th century. This movement has the primary objective as the directed investigation and description of phenomena as consciously experienced, without theories about their causal explanation and as a free as possible from unexamined preconceptions and presuppositions. Edmund Husserl is the founder of Phenomenology, a method for the description and analysis of consciousness. This method reflects an effort to resolve the opposition between Empiricism, which stresses observation, and Rationalism, which stresses reason and theory.

B) Participatory Action Research (PAR) through Collaborative Inquiry (CI)
Bray, Lee, Smith & Yorks (2000) define CI as a process consisting of repeated episodes of reflection and action through which a group of peers arrives to answer a question of importance to them. PAR is a form of inquiry that is often summarily described as doing research with people, rather than on them (Heron 1996; Heron & Reason 1997; Reason 1996, 1988; Reason & Bradbury, 2010). Such posture requires acknowledgement that academic researchers are not outside the system, but rather are an elemental part of the composition of the system involved in the study (Stacey et al. 2000). Therefore, their intentions, decisions, contributions to conversations, and actions are among the many factors influencing the outcomes that emerge from the activities and interventions in the study. Action researchers typically pursue problems that are more complex than those of conventional social science (Greenwood & Levin, 1998). The co-creation of an inquiry process for addressing these problems is an additional component in the system, adding to its diversity with the researchers learning along with others from working with the system, not working on it.

Quantitative component
BRIDGE® uses, as one of its assessment tools, the Wide Range Assessment Test (WRAT4-PMV) as a quantitative method. This assessment tool enables us to monitor academic performance using brief, repeated tests that are parallel to the multiple demands of schooling and are psychometrically sound. As part of the model to include mixed methods approach, this feasibility study is to implement BRIDGE® as a proactive approach by making sure students keep reading at their grade level under the monitoring of their parents. We cannot wait until these students get to 5th grade and lose their academic gains. Monitoring and assessment activities, a key dimension of the BRIDGE® model, are measuring progress against quantitative objectives (enrollment in regular courses and students’ grades) and benchmarks.

4) Conclusion
Knowledge provides power, when the “colonized” person realizes about the “mental models” that guide his/her behavior, this person can find his/her own power within and exercise an agentic behavior. The problem is when the person is so comfortable that he/she is not willing to see his/her mental models. As, Gaventa and Cornwall (2006) state, we need to understand both the ‘pedagogy of the oppressed’ (Freire, 1970) and the ‘pedagogy of the oppressor’ and the relation between both (p.77).

In order to deal with the mental demands of modern life, adult thinking needs to continue to evolve through higher level of consciousness. Orlando Fals Borda (2006) describes the painful duty as researchers to decolonize ourselves, to discover the reactionary traits and ideas implanted in our minds and behaviors mostly by the learning process.
It is critical that the educational needs of minority students are met. The BRIDGE® program partners the parents of immigrants and financially disadvantaged students with the local school district, with the ultimate goal of increasing the rate of academic success for the student. The BRIDGE® model with a system thinking approach is addressing objective data measured by qualitative and quantitative research methods, and subjective data addressed by transformational and organizational learning techniques. These mixed methods approach in conjunction with transformational learning through organizational learning make of the BRIDGE® model a sustainable and accountable intervention.

The BRIDGE® Model facilitates of transformational learning in all participants through PAR and CI to observe their mental models and shift their paradigms. The BRIDGE® model is an organizational learning intervention where we use human praxis to influence organizational change. The most important feature of this model is that it does not disrupt schools. This model does not blame teachers, students or parents. Instead, in order to address the closing of the academic achievement gap for Latino students, BRIDGE® looks at the necessary understanding of the dialectical nature of the relationship between institutions and human agency (Yorks, 2005). Institutions do not merely constrain human agency; they are first and foremost the product of human agency (DiMaggio and Powell, 1991).
References for this white paper are at the link:
https://docs.google.com/a/tc.columbia.edu/viewer?a=v&pid=sites&srcid=dGM...
Mariana Vergara can be reached at mariana.vergara@tc.columbia.edu or 973-945-8986

Problem

The lack of “empathy” is a symptom; we need to address the root, which is in our mental models. The BRIDGE® Model is addressing this issue by helping people to see their problems in terms of underlying systemic structures and mental models rather than just short-term events. Senge (1990) questions if we are prisoners of the system or prisoners of our own thinking. This information can help in appreciating the forces shaping reality, and how we are part of those forces and we can affect them. The BRIDGE® Model facilitates participants to make that connection in order to change their paradigm.

Solution

The BRIDGE® Model is “engaged research” looking at the process through which community participants construct and take the initial steps toward an actionable and empowering strategy to address the lack of empathy. Given the interest in producing useable knowledge in an unexplored area, we are using the following methodological construct: a) phenomenological documentation, and b) Participatory Action Research (PAR) through Collaborative Inquiry (CI). a) Phenomenological documentation Phenomenological documentation is a type of research highly emergent. Kasl and Yorks (2010) state that the epistemic participatory principle posits that meaningful knowledge generation can grow only from the knowledge-maker’s personal experience; this principle derives from the phenomenological assertion that one can best understand human experience by being inside that experience. Heron and Reason (1997, 2008) describe how an extended epistemology transforms felt experience into practical new knowledge that grounds action. b) Participatory Action Research (PAR) through Collaborative Inquiry (CI) Bray, Lee, Smith & Yorks (2000) define CI as a process consisting of repeated episodes of reflection and action through which a group of peers arrives to answer a question of importance to them. PAR is a form of inquiry that is often summarily described as doing research with people, rather than on them (Heron 1996; Heron & Reason 1997; Reason 1996, 1988; Reason & Bradbury, 2010). Therefore, their intentions, decisions, contributions to conversations, and actions are among the many factors influencing the outcomes that emerge from the activities and interventions in the study. Action researchers typically pursue problems that are more complex than those of conventional social science (Greenwood & Levin, 1998). The co-creation of an inquiry process for addressing these problems is an additional component in the system, adding to its diversity with the researchers learning along with others from working with the system, not working on it. Through this process of action and reflection we move to different levels of conciousnes until we are capable to see our mental models, and threrefore we can address the lack of empathy in our behavior.

Exemple

A current example that is happening at a normal kindergarten class: The teacher is teaching in the classroom, and Tommy is drawing. Maria goes next to Tommy and grabs one of the crayons. Tommy begins to cry because Maria is using one of his crayons. The teacher approaches the children. Maria is expecting the teacher to tell Tommy that he has to share. Instead, the teacher tells Maria to do not grab Tommy’s crayons. Maria is confused … Then, the teacher gives Maria a brand new box of crayons. And, the teacher tells Maria that those are “her” crayons… Maria might feel that something is wrong… she does not understand why at home she has to share and here at school Tommy does not have to share… and that upsets her… The teacher does not know it, but she is teaching her American cultural values; American values, such as, property values and individualism. The teacher does not show “empathy” to Maria expectations about sharing. This lack of “empathy” is not intentional. The teacher does not see her behavior… This feeling in Maria might produce a tantrum or she might be mean to someone else. But, Maria is only 5 years old. What happen when this type of situation happens with an older child? They might be mean to others, showing the lack of “empathy”. This is the symptom we are trying to address… Through the methodological construct of the BRIDGE Model, participants will be able to see their mental models and address this lack of empathy. In the Amazon, we applied this methodological construct with the indigenous Kichwa community of Rio Blanco. Their mental model, due to over 500 hundred years of oppression, they did not believe they could do something about a mining company in their property. After the implementation of the model, as a result, by 2010 this community was able to build a road to connect their community with the world and to get rid of four mining companies from its territories without violence.

Marché

Other peers and competitors will have primary activities that will use transactional learning. The staff person will “tell” participants what they should do… The BRIDGE® Model of Transformational Learning does not tell people what to do. Instead, the model facilitates participants to find their own answer by using its methodological construct that provide the space for participants to exercise cycles of reflection and action. The BRIDGE® Model is facilitating transformational learning, and changing the paradigm of the participants. Once, a person “sees” his/her paradigm, that person can address the lack of “empathy” in his/her behavior.