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Foundations of Adult Education. A Quick Overview. Defining an Adult & Adult Education. People should be considered as adults when they perform adult roles and are essentially responsible for their own life.
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Foundations of Adult Education A Quick Overview
Defining an Adult & Adult Education • People should be considered as adults when they perform adult roles and are essentially responsible for their own life. • Adult status implies a person who is largely responsible for their own survival and success. • Adult education is different from other levels of education because of: • The voluntary nature of the learning • The commitment to growth • The deliberate structuring of activities.
Adding Value • Adult education involves taking a current condition, analyzing it, and developing a strategy for adding value to what already exists. • The intent is to make it better in some way. • This applies to working with people, programs, legislation, delivery systems, social service agencies, and others to promote individual and societal well-being.
Goals of Adult Education • Preparing people for the future • Social change • Empowerment of Individuals • Lifelong Learning • To Provide Education to all who want and need it. Serve minorities, handicapped, older adults, and more… • Provides second-chance education • Reducing cycles of poverty and socio-economic disadvantage
Citizenship, ESL, Literacy, GED, High School Diploma, Family Literacy, Workforce Literacy and more and more and more… • Helping people reach their maximum potential
Purposes of Adult Education • Provide access and incentives to reach the greater population • Opens doors which provide people with opportunity and hope • Allow people to become independent • Makes people more marketable in the work force • Brings a different type of learning to the education market • Provides a better forum for adult learning • Prepares people to use technology effectively • More
Challenges for Adult Education • Limited and declining funding • How to increase participation and retention particularly among those who are most in need • Keeping pace with technology • Teaching methods, assessment, accountability • Sustainability
The Handbook (2000) What does it Say? • For 70 years, seven prior Handbooks of Adult and Continuing Education were a reference on • Best Practices, programs and institutions in the field. • Previous Handbooks attempted to describe everything we knew at the time about adult education theory & practice. • The 2000 edition does NOT attempt to catalog everything we know about the field. • It uses a “critically reflective approach” to combine the results of formal investigation with the wisdom of practical experience.
In the 2000 Handbook over 60 adult educators share their diverse perspectives in a single volume. They share selective perspectives not a comprehensive perspective. • They say this is a “time for adult educators to reconsider the nature of their work & its place in society.” • They view adult education as a social practice of prudent and practical action. “In 2000 and beyond One size does not fit all.”
The Crisis in Professional Knowledge • According to the 2000 Handbook: • There are deep crevasses between how we think professionals carry out their work and what working conditions are really like. • We need a skeptical reassessment of adult education. • We live in a society where things change so rapidly that we cannot rely on old solutions to solve new problems.
Adult education must offer Hope for those who need it the most. • We must encourage more inclusive, collaborative, and democratic forms of adult education. • However, there are no fixed templates, no pat answers, no right way to model, no guarantees or sure fire results. • The context within which adults are asked to learn becomes an essential component.
Linking the Learner to the Context • There are two dimensions to the contextual approach to learning: • The Interactive Dimension (Authentic, real-life situations. • The Structural Dimension (Social and cultural factors including race, class, gender, ethnicity, power, and oppression). • The last 10 years have seen a major growth in interest in learning from experience. • Adult education is a vehicle for self-development and change.
There is a definite shift from a top down to a “bottom-up action-learning/action planning approach to learning.” • The promise of prior learning assessment has only modestly been realized. • Challenge Exams, Interview, Portfolios to validate what adults already know. • We must help adults find and use their own voices not rely only on voices of unknown experts.
Andragogy: Present & Future • Andragogy (Knowles) is a strategy for teaching adults where: • The teacher acts as a facilitator and provider of resources. • Students are self-motivated and have many experiences that contribute to learning. • The classroom is interactive • Learning is student directed • Andragogy does not work well for students who do not have the confidence to be self-directing.
Adult Education vs. Higher Education • Higher Education policies and procedures do not easily align with adult learning theory and practices. • Higher Education continues to recognize adult learners in relation to policies, mission, research, programming, and evaluation. • Both scholars and practitioners must question the assumptions upon which the mission of higher education is based.
A Classic Book on Adult Education • Axford, Roger W. (1980) Adult education: the open door to lifelong learning. Indiana, PA: The A. G. Halldin Publishing Company. ISBN: 0-935648-01-1. • Some definitions of Adult Education • Why Adult Education? Social Change Self Improvement, Citizenship, Literacy, Continuing Education for Women, Training and Re-Training, Community Education. • Aging • The Background of the Adult Education Movement
Some Adult Education Pioneers • Who is an Adult Educator? • Understanding the Adult Learner • A Philosophy for Adult Education • An “Ideal” Adult Education Teacher • The Extension-Outreach Function • Programming in Adult Education • Promoting the Adult Education Program • Funding Adult Education • Counseling Adult Learners • Evaluating Adult Education Programs • Research in Adult Education • Evaluative Criteria for Adult Education Programs • Conducting a Needs Assessment