Adult learners are taking advantage of the availability and convenience of online education. Mature learners in online higher education classrooms bring a wealth of experience filtered through cultural, generational, and socioeconomical differences. The purpose of this research was to explore community building in an online graduate course by…

In this paper I reflect on epiphany moments in teaching and learning and the ways in which writing such moments can serve both to refresh and revitalise what Palmer calls the inner landscape of the educator, while also offering opportunities to enliven pedagogy. I use the notion of the liminal disposition to position such writing as an agentic act…

Stories matter, and the stories we tell ourselves matter most. Truth has many layers and narrative helps us makes senses of our multilayered reality. We live a personal narrative that is grounded in our past experience, but embodied in our present. As such, it filters what we see and how we interpret events. Attachment theorists tell us our early…

Writing instruction in the United States now routinely takes place in networked environments. For adult learners in open admissions institutions, the literacy demands of the academic sphere and the public nature of the acts of writing in networked environments can create alienating experiences. This study examined the possibilities that the genre…

In Alex Haley's "Autobiography of Malcolm X" (1965), Haley recounts the life of an historical personage of enduring controversy. Whether one reveres or reviles Malcolm, "X", Little, his is a fascinating story of lifelong learning. Rather than conforming to one theory, Malcolm's learning is well explained by certain theorists at certain times in…

This article examines the potential of personal storytelling as a pedagogical method. When incorporated into the educational experience, autobiographical stories serve as a primary and fruitful link between lived experience and curricular content, a connection integral to adult learning. These stories enable learners to identify congruencies and…

Autobiography has generally been recognized for its literary and artistic aspects, and as a result has been largely overlooked as an instructional method in adult and continuing education. This paper argues for a wider use of autobiography in adult and continuing education programs, proposing that autobiography actually encompasses not only the…

Recent discoveries about brain function explain how best practices in adult learning may lead to adult learners' developmental growth.

This collection explores the range of uses of autobiography from the 19th century to the present and from Africa, the United States, Middle East, France, New Zealand, and Britain. The chapters draw on a number of approaches, including historical and literary methods. They are frequently about the retrieval and reclamation of previously hidden or…

This nine-chapter book, written in Europe by a French-speaking Swiss educator, explores the rationale for using educational biography approaches in adult education and presents examples that illustrate various uses of these life history activities. Chapter 1 provides an introduction and overview of educational biography, and Chapter 2 describes…

Increasingly, adult educators are using narrative and stories for many reasons, including their deep appeal, satisfaction, and cultural transcendence. As a fundamental structure of human meaning making narrative is a valuable classroom tool in that it can enable students to understand life events, personal actions, and solidify identity formation.…