Describes a study that investigated the relationship between instructional design and powerful learning. Highlights include key features of instructional design; the nature of powerful learning experiences; a survey of instructional design experts; interviews with adult learners; instructional strategies suggested by powerful learning factors; and…

In this article, I describe the personal challenges encountered in making the transition from a long career in management to teaching. Through this experience, I came to construct my own meaning of student centeredness, learning to examine many of my assumptions about teaching and students. Drawing from my experience and the literature on adult…

Narrating stories of life experience has helped educators motivate adult learners with diverse goals. Working with culturally diverse learners in their community contexts, including adults who have been unable to advance their development and learning, educators have observed them become more able to learn and succeed in their varied pursuits as…

This chapter discusses how to draw on hip hop as a culturally relevant tool for teaching educators and adult learners to read the word, the world, and the media.

Through personal experience, an adult educator came to the conclusion that adults come to a course labeled "Teaching Adults" primarily to learn about themselves, their own self-development, and their own process of learning. Only secondarily do they come to learn the ways and means of communicating knowledge and ideas to others. In the first…

In teaching adult education classes today the need is no longer for a method of teaching but a method of learning. Classroom procedures should center on the adult student rather than revolve around the teacher. (DS)

Traditionally, students of ancient languages have been taught to translate rather than read. The four most popular current approaches to language instruction--the grammar-translation method, the direct-reading or inductive approach, the audiolingual method, and the structural approach--all have inherent deficiencies that are magnified when applied…

The principles of participatory learning are reviewed in a self-examination. Once the reader has selected his answer to a question about teaching/learning, the author indicates which answer is the correct one, and why. Parallels are drawn between learning to play bridge and other types of learning situations. (AJ)

A research study analyzed the nature of one teaching modality, programmed instruction, as it relates to the teaching and training of older people, concluding that it is a viable mode for the transmission of information to older as well as younger learners. (ABM)

The author argues against the assumption that models of educational research that appear "scientific" must be correct. To illustrate this, he points out that teaching and learning in adult education are obviously related activites, yet, because of adherence to the "scientific," they are rarely related to each other in research. (CH)

Focuses on the adult education needs of those with hearing impairments. Describes the psychological implications of deafness, outlines the educational development of the hearing-impaired person, identifies the professionalization of the hearing impaired, and suggests present and future adult education issues for this population. (CT)

Five priorities on the national agenda are detailed: language competency among adults, the need for a common metric for language skills, determination of the most effective language teaching method, more integrated language instruction, and critical examination of the practice of teaching European languages to the neglect of other languages. (AMH)

Using the Los Angeles Community College (LACC) District as a model, looks at the profile of its student population and finds the most outstanding change to occur is the greater number of mature adults enrolled in the college. Discusses a recent LACC workshop entitled "Effective Strategies for Teaching Older Adults." (SED)

Three relatively simple conceptual frameworks are suggested to help trainers diagnose optimum learning situations. At their present stage of development, the models are theories that have not been empirically tested. The models are titled the Integral Learner, Understanding versus Application, and the Diagnostic Cube. (CT)

An important issue for adult education teachers is the capability of the instructor to choose appropriate methodology to suit both the student and situation. A review of research dealing with adult learners is presented along with implications for adult preparation programs. (DF)