For over 25 years, my lecture driven teaching strategies that included passive learning outcomes has prevailed in my K12 and higher education teaching. The requirement to help doctoral students identify and understand their epistemology, ontology and worldview within a research methods class created a dilemma regarding the appropriateness of passive learning for these topics. Using autoethnography, this paper documents my journey in addressing the dilemma. The data include the previous research methods course syllabi, my notes from previous research methods classes, and research method student reflections from the past three years. This paper provides the context as the introduction followed by a literature review that includes adult learning theories such as andragogy (Knowles, 1988) and experiential learning theory (ELT) (Kolb, 1984). Also included is a review of transformative learning (Mezirow, 1995). Aggregating the three theories into a map organized by my desired student behaviors provided a structure that will guide me in my transition to incorporate more ELT (Kolb, 1984) strategies that will create opportunities for transformational learning. During the analyses, I realized that the resolution of my dilemma regarding passive and active learning was an example of a transformative learning experience. [The page range (178-186) on the URL is incorrect. The correct page range is p178-185.]