The Critical Friend is a powerful concept partly due to the inherent tension between a challenging critic and a trusting friend. Originally utilized in the PreK-12 sector in both England and the United States, the application of Critical Friends has expanded across a range of contexts. This article further adds to the Critical Friend literature…

This reflection considers the importance of and responsibility to graduate research supervision through an examination of a published dissertation that has had significant influence on the country's current immigration debate. The author exhorts both graduate students and adult education faculty to insist on clearly stated theoretical and…

Happenstance learning theory posits that unexpected events can have lasting positive impacts on individual learning and development. In this reflection, a U.S. doctoral student shares how an unexpected opportunity occurred to participate in a cultural immersion experience in Ghana, West Africa. Along with learning outcomes that resulted,…

Ability to communicate using spoken language occurs naturally in children earlier than they learn how to use written language. Throughout persons' lives, their ability to use spoken language is being continuously maintained and further developed. As a result, spoken language has greater capacities to form and organize thoughts than those of…

After attending the 21st Annual Adult Education Research Conference (AERC) African Diaspora Pre-Conference, the authors present their reflections on the significance of the pre-conference.

This article describes the experiences of two graduate faculty members from Indiana University who facilitated two workshops sponsored by Ball State University at Highlander Research and Education Center, one in May of 2013, and another in May of 2014. We describe the history of Participation Training, the program we used to plan and conduct…

To help graduate students with academic writing, a college of education at a large university implemented a new service, Writing Support Circles. Based on the results of the first series of this service, we changed its design. The purpose of this article is to share how changes in the design affected these adult learners' writing self-efficacy and…

Attending a professional conference is an effective way to explore and advance knowledge, skills, and careers. For graduate students, attending a conference is an effective way to explore academic fields and new professions. However, attending a professional conference requires precious resources--time and money--so the decision to attend, or not,…

In this reflection, the author proposes that doctoral education is currently undergoing paradigm devolution. Her perspective is that of a doctoral student, specifically a full-time graduate student working towards a Ph.D. in adult education. This fall semester marks her last of coursework, and she finds herself searching to make meaning of the…

Most students come to their graduate programs with academic writing skills insufficient to excel in their studies. A lack of academic writing skills among graduate students has been a problem in a college of education at a large southeastern public research university where the project described in this article was implemented. To address this…

Being an international English as a Second Language (ESL) graduate student from China studying in the U.S., the author has undergone various types of transformation. Taking her first online course is one poignant example in which multiple layers of transformation occurred. In hopes of easing the transformation of other international ESL students…

It is long evident that college campuses have been evolving considerably. Adult learners play a key and welcome role, challenging assumptions about formal learning and its delivery, with institutions themselves re-assessing long-held beliefs and procedures, protocols and hierarchies, participation and roles of both student and faculty alike, and…

For those aiming to enter the professoriate, graduate school is the initiation into the culture of academia. The doctoral program experience can be described as a socialization process that emphasizes the acquisition of knowledge about one's academic field or discipline, exposure to various research methodologies, and induction in academic…

In this article, the author compares the functions of a graduate adult education program and a greenhouse. A graduate adult education program is a place where, like in a greenhouse, exciting new hybrids can be developed--working with people outside the school of education, in different disciplines and beyond the university's walls, sharing what…

Adult students in higher education comprise a sizeable and expanding group of college and university students. While Sissel, Hansman, and Kasworm (2001) note the dearth of scholarship on adult learners in higher education, this same group of scholars and some of their colleagues have certainly produced a solid foundation of scholarly work on the…