While doctoral leadership programs have widely adopted Improvement Science (IS) as a signature pedagogy, few studies have examined how to best equip doctoral students with the knowledge and research skills they need to utilize IS in practice. More specifically, research is needed to determine the most effective and meaningful pedagogy for…

In this article, we present a case study review of an educational, semi-collaborative role-playing game designed to provide participants the opportunity to practice soft skills identified by industry leaders as vital to one's success in the business sector. We discuss the successes of using theatre techniques as a gymnasium for social emotional…

Enrollment in graduate programs continues to rise at a steady pace in the United States with a 9% increase over the past 10 years, a pace that is expected to continue through 2026. Among these students, 56% are "adult learners" between the ages of 25 through 39 years. With this in mind, instructors need to be mindful of the unique needs…

Leadership scholar-practitioners seldom need to be sold on the benefits of working together. Rather leadership educators want to know how to teach adult leadership scholar-practitioners how to work together across differences. The aim of this paper is to guide leadership development practitioners on how to nurture leadership that can address the…

Many students return to graduate programs as experts in their prior fields. "Returners," as they are commonly termed, have undergraduate degrees and have worked five or more years before returning for a graduate degree. While there is a significant body of literature on graduate students in general, there is less research on students…

An obvious goal of adult learners is to find their own voice, to be heard in rational discourse with their peers, and to gain control over the day-to-day decisions that affect their lives. This chapter asks how doctoral students can be partners with faculty in charting the direction of their academic pursuits.

This essay provides a profile of an interdisciplinary master's program whose curriculum supports current and future adult educators seeking employment opportunities in higher education, adult literacy education, adult English language instruction, writing centers, and secondary education. A faculty administrator and five former graduate students…

This paper highlights the design and development process that two academic business librarians employed to create an online toolkit of eLearning supports for business students. After receiving funding from their institution's internal teaching innovation fund, they hired and worked with two eLearning design companies to produce the toolkit. The…

As an increased number of international students join College and University classrooms across the United States, their transition and acclimation to campuses has received attention over the past few years, particularly, in the areas of preparation and acculturation. This topic is important because faculty mentors can play a pivotal role in the…

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…

This paper examines the challenge of teaching statistical research methods in three master's degree programs at a private university based in Washington, DC. We, as three professors teaching at this university, discuss the way we employ innovative approaches to deal with this challenge. We ground our discussion within the theoretical framework of…

In this reflective essay, a teacher educator describes her own transformation that occurred as a result of studying adult learning theory along with a group of doctoral students. In examining her habits of course design, she realized that her practices had departed from her ideals and that her course planning was guided as much by pragmatic…

The professional development, mentoring, and induction of faculty of color are critical, given that they prepare education leaders and workers across educational contexts. In this article, we juxtapose the unique experiences of faculty of color with a critical review of impostor syndrome and other psychosocial stress disorders, as these phenomena…

Although academic librarians have been teaching information literacy online for years, the increasing number of nontraditional students learning online has motivated many librarians to develop Web-based tools that help students independently learn to identify, access, evaluate, and use information resources in the online environment. Adult…

The majority of graduate part-time programs are fueled by adult learners seeking to enhance their human capital and advance professional careers. In contrast, degree-granting programs seek to impart knowledge and advance learning in a particular discipline. At this intersection lies the individual student's motivation to satisfy their personal…