Adult and Continuing Education Administration Commons^™

Three Years In The Life Of A Peer Support Initiative For Graduate Students Studying Adult Learning And Leadership – An Action Research Project Implementing The “All Peer Connect Project”, Jeanne E. Bitterman, Yoshie Tomozumi Nakamura, Zachary Van Rossum, Sultana Mustafa

Adult Education Research Conference

The purpose of this action research study is to explore and understand the perceived impacts of a three year peer support initiative on graduate students‘ academic and professional experience and how this initiative can potentially contribute to the development of a community of practice among graduate students. The peer connect program, also referred to as ―Connect ALL‖ was started in the fall semester of 2009 in Adult Learning and Leadership (ALL), a non-cohort program at Teachers College, Columbia University. Under this initiative, each newly admitted student joining the master‘s or doctoral program is matched with a current student or an …

Confronting The Postmodern Malaise: Embracing Education As “Rhizome”, Susan Birden

Adult Education Research Conference

Jean-Francois Lyotard (1979) theorized that one of key differences between modern and postmodern thought is the understanding of ―metanarratives‖ (see pp. xxiii-xxv). These metanarratives are the grand narratives that legitimate thoughts and actions that are directed toward bringing to pass this overarching idea. Grand narratives attempt to organize and explain great masses of events and multiple schools of thought that otherwise may appear to be unrelated. Following that, Lyotard compared what he believed to be the metanarratives of the modern versus the postmodern eras and the effect of that difference on human beings in our time. In this paper I …

Black Lesbian Spirituality: Hearing Our Stories, Elana C. Betts

Adult Education Research Conference

This paper examines the intersection of race, gender, sexual orientation and spirituality, specifically Black lesbian spirituality. One of the difficulties in citing current research is the dearth of published research on the spirituality of women of color, who identify a sexual minority. There have been many studies and books written about spirituality, culture, gender and sexuality, however the study of Black lesbian spiritual identity remains largely untouched. The purpose of this study is to explore how spiritual development and the expression of spirituality is connected to the African American lesbian culture through narrative inquiry meets autoethnography. The findings indicate that …

Learning Through Participatory Video Research: Challenges And Possibilities For Individual Growth And Grassroots Based Social Action, Kyung-Hwa Yang

Adult Education Research Conference

This discussion is based on a participatory video research project carried out on the U.S. health care system with low-income adults in Chicago in 2011. I present the way in which the project was conducted and provoked learning among the participants. While the project offered them an opportunity for performative, communicative, and creative learning, a sense of collectivity and social action was not evident. I raise the question of how to bring about more meaningful social action through individual learning.

Past Meets Present: Margaret Mead As A Case Study Discussion Of Public Pedagogy And Public Scholarship, S.E. Martin, S.J. Bracken

Adult Education Research Conference

This roundtable aims to present and to create audience discussion of preliminary data categories from an ongoing historical project with implications for contemporary adult education practice. In this case, the researchers analyzed the work of Dr. Margaret Mead, a cultural anthropologist. Dr. Mead was outspoken about the need for all adults to become lifelong learners and of the corresponding responsibility of academics to freely discuss their work and thoughts in public forums in order to stimulate well-informed interest in community, family, and political issues. In fact, in additional to scholarly works, she wrote public essays, editorials, appeared in documentaries, and …

A Four-Part Model Of Informal Learning: Extending Schugurensky's Conceptual Model, Elizabeth E. Bennett

Adult Education Research Conference

Adults are learning all the time, especially in an era of knowledge work in which lifelong learning is integral to the economy (Bennett & Bell, 2010). Technology is offering unprecedented access to new information and to knowledge communities, and there is a great need for adults to learn informally to keep up with the fast pace of life. This paper examines informal learning and proposes an extension of Schugurensky‘s (2000) typology, which Merriam, Caffarella, & Baumgartner (2009) describe as occurring in natural settings with learner direction, even if the learner does not recognize learning is occurring. The extension adds another …

Adult Education For China‟S “Floating Population”:A Conceptual Framework To Guide Policy, Practice And Research, Yibing Liu, Thomas Valentine

Adult Education Research Conference

Since the 1980s, the demand for workers in the China‘s industrial cities, coupled with the extreme poverty of rural villages, has resulted in a massive migrant population comprised of adult workers from the countryside who move to industrial cities seeking work while maintaining strong ties to the villages in which they have permanent residence permits. Approximately 200 million Nong-ming-gong (rural migrant workers) now constitute the largest mass migration in human history. These migrant workers have provided China with an indispensable resource for city construction and economic prosperity. However, the cost to the migrant workers themselves has been extreme, as geographic …

Lower Income African American Women And Hiv/Aids: The Effect Of Contexts On Identity Incorporation, Lisa Baumgartner

Adult Education Research Conference

The purpose of this study was to explore how contexts affect the incorporation of the HIV/AIDS identity into the self for lower income African American women. Eleven in-depth interviews were conducted. Situational factors predisposed women to contracting HIV/AIDS and delayed the turning point from their initial emotional reaction. Support from family and friends helped the integration process whereas stigma delayed integration. Race and class negatively affected some women‘s experience of living with HIV/AIDS. These findings have implications for health educators.

Rocky Road: East Asian International Students‟ Experience Of Adaptation To Critical Thinking Way Of Learning At U.S. Universities, Hyun Jung Lee

Adult Education Research Conference

This roundtable seeks to understand how Confucius-influenced East Asian international students learn to adapt to and participate in the countervailing Western pedagogy that fosters independent critical thinking and reflection and how these Asian students reconcile these seeming polarities as they engage in their doctoral studies at U.S. universities.

Who Were The Women? In-Depth Analysis Of Four Additional Early Women Adult Educators, Susan Imel, Gretchen T. Bersch

Adult Education Research Conference

In the early years of the field of adult education in the United States, women were prominent contributors to the growth of the field, particularly to the literature base. Previous publications provide some explanation for why women moved from the center to the margins as contributors to the field‘s literature base after the early period, but no extended analysis of the early women contributors has been conducted. This research project is designed to address that gap. The initial phase of the project, reported during a 2008 AERC Roundtable, examined the roles of women in developing the literature base from 1926-1941, …

Factors That Predict Involvement In Online Instruction; A Comparison Of Full-Time And Part-Time Community College Faculty, Duane Akroyd, Susan Bracken, Bess Patton, Melissa Jackowski

Adult Education Research Conference

Community college faculty represent more than one-third of all faculty within postsecondary education institutions and educate nearly half of all first-time college students (Cohen & Brawer, 2008; Gahn & Twombly, 2001; Huber, 1998; Jaeger & Eagan, 2009). Increasingly, two-year institutions are employing more part-time faculty. From 1988 to 1993, the percentage of part-time faculty at public two-year institutions rose from 52% to 62% (U.S. Department of Education, 1997). According to Outcalt (2002), part-time faculty now account for nearly 65% of all community college faculty. Although the use of part-time faculty is increasing in two-year institutions, part-time community college faculty are …

Who Are We Becoming? A Critical, Communicative, Reflective, Transformative, Timely Inquiry Into The Coming-To-Be Of Adult Education In The Early 21st Century, Aliki Nicolaides, Dominique T. Chlup, Robin Redmon Wright, Joellen E. Coryell, Dianne Ramdeholl, Thomas D. Cox

Adult Education Research Conference

The perspectives included in this collaborative document reflect the authors‘ initial inquiry to explore who are we becoming as adult educators. We present five unique points of view that our role as adult educators holds potential to help adults seek ways into their own deep inquiries of what are true, beautiful, and just ways of life. Our inquiries give expression to how might we create conditions for truth, beauty, and justice to emerge in our communities, in the systems that we work in, that govern us and that make way for our individual collective humanity? The time is ripe to …

Graduate Students And Teaching: Are We Preparing Future Adult Education Professors To Teach?, Catherine A. Cherrstrom, Dominique T. Chiup

Adult Education Research Conference

What do we know about how graduate students are being prepared to teach? The purpose of this roundtable is to present findings from a research study and a model for graduate student professional development related to teaching. We also seek participant contributions and feedback.

Darkness Visible: A Consideration Of Alternative Directions And Outcomes Of Transformative Learning Theory, Teaching And Practice, Dana Naughton, Fred M. Schied

Adult Education Research Conference

Transformative learning theory has enjoyed a thirty-plus year history as a dominant adult learning theory. It has been the subject of innumerable articles and books as well as meriting its own journal, conference and graduate degrees. Yet, the fertile nature of this theory to produce such a wide swath of scholarship is deceiving and, indeed, surprisingly limited in its reach. The major goal of this symposium is to challenge current discourse of transformative learning theory, teaching and practice which seems almost wholly tethered to scholarship on outcomes that result in individual healing or attainment of more enlightened states; or collective …

The Role Of Assessment And Accountability In Higher Education Doctoral Programs: A Presidential Perspective, Sydney Freeman Jr., Frances K. Kochan

Sydney Freeman Jr., PhD, CFD

The accountability movement in higher education is gaining momentum in the United States

and around the world. In recent years, there has been growing pressure on higher education

institutions to demonstrate their value through various accountability measures, with a strong focus upon

the assessment of student progress and success. In the U.S., this pressure has come from

state and federal government , accrediting agencies, parents, and the general public. Additionally, the

changing environment within the teaching and learning process is impacting the manner in which students

will be assessed and the purposes of this assessment . Thus, there is a …

Road Scholar Service-Learning Corps: Reflection And Reciprocity In Rajasthan, India, Lezlie R. Weber

Capstone Collection

Road Scholar (RS) is the name for the programs developed and offered by Elderhostel, Inc., the not-for-profit leader in lifelong learning since 1975. RS inspires adults to learn, discover and travel (Road Scholar, 2012). Currently, RS is in the process of launching five new service-learning programs over the next two years. Road Scholar runs five different programs yearly to India; of the current programs offered there is no service-learning component throughout any of the programs. The specific location in India was chosen due to the need for an additional English teacher at the public school. There are a growing number …

Perceptions Of College Readiness And Social Capital Of Ged Completers In Entry-Level College Courses, Donalyn L. Lott

University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Abstract

Examining the efficacy of literacy improvement, general education development (GED) completion, and GED completers’ perceptions of college readiness and social capital was the purpose of this study. The participant sample (n=321), derived from the target population (N=1050), consisted of former participants of Adult Literacy Education (ALE)/GED programs in the Greater New Orleans area (GNO), who have earned the GED credential, and, are currently enrolled in entry-level courses at two community colleges in Southeast Louisiana; specifically, in Orleans and St. Bernard parishes. The study was framed by the social capital theoretical perspective.

The study used quantitative methodology, with …

Adult Student Retention: Important To Your Institution’S Bottom Line, Andree Robinson-Neal

Andree Robinson-Neal

This article is in response to EvoLLLution's May Panel discussion entitled "Adult student retention: Why devote special resources to this group?" and focuses on the value that adult students add to higher education institutions.

The Invisible Woman And The Silent University, Elizabeth Robinson Cole

Dissertations

Anna Eliot Ticknor (1823 – 1896) founded the first correspondence school in the United States, the Society to Encourage Studies at Home. In the fall of 1873 an educational movement was quietly initiated from her home in Boston, Massachusetts. A politically and socially sophisticated leader, she recognized the need that women felt for continuing education and understood how to offer the opportunity within the parameters afforded women of nineteenth century America. With a carefully chosen group of women and one man, Ticknor built a learning society that extended advanced educational opportunities to all women regardless of financial ability, educational background, …

A Holy Curiosity: Transformative Self-Directed Learning To Breakthrough New Knowledge In The Case Of Einstein, Deanna Lynn Vogt

Dissertations

The case of Einstein’s discovery of the relativity theory, explored with grounded theory methodology, illustrates a type of self-directed learning characterized by personal and non-personal, or technical, transformative learning, the result of which is iconic original, breakthrough learning. This dissertation explores three aspects of adult learning which are novel in adult education.

First, this study of breakthrough process, for which there is only one apparent precedent in adult education, considers how an individual goes about a self-directed learning project that revolutionizes a field. In this regard, the concept of original learning, as opposed to transmitted learning, presents itself as a …