This pre-conference, held in conjunction with the 49th annual Adult Education Research Conference at the University of Missouri-St. Louis in June, 2008, brought together graduate students and adult education researchers and practitioners from a variety of academic and workplace settings to discuss issues related to sexual minorities in…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to measure the effectiveness and practical utility of an organizational learning intervention for an organization that was not progressive, was not specifically chartered as a learning organization, and was situated in an urban, culturally diverse, and under-privileged community. Design/methodology/approach:…

New ways to learn at work draw upon workers' previous experiences, link concepts and practices, and encourage reflection and the transfer of knowledge from one situation to another. Action, situated, and incidental learning are three current approaches. Action learning is a systematic process through which individuals learn by doing. It has been…

A stress management program was developed for the adult degree completion program admissions team at Warner Southern College, a four-year private liberal arts college. A relatively recent stress-inducing change was caused by an administrative decision to expand the program offerings from five sites to seven, using current staff. Derived from the…

Kilby Laboratory School is affiliated with the University of North Alabama, under the direction of the Dean of the School of Education. The school includes a preschool and K-6 program. This paper describes how teachers and staff developed the school's improvement plan, with a focus on the staff retreat held in 1994 to outline the mission…

This practicum project used organized professional development to increase involvement of teachers at a preK-8 school in the school's reform process. All members of the school community actively participated in planning, data collecting, and sharing of pertinent reform information. The 3-month staff development intervention consisted of three…

Throughout 1993-94, a team of adult education practitioners and state staff from the Kentucky Department for Adult Education and Literacy developed a staff development system for adult educators in the state. Input was gathered from the staff development advisory committee, from student and teacher focus groups, and through other public and…

The purpose of this study was to estimate the validity of the Competence subscale of the Teacher Staff Development Survey (TSDS) as a measure of the teacher efficiency construct. Results from regular education elementary school teachers (N=296) revealed a subscale structure of the TSDS that differed from the subscale structure originally designed…

This study surveyed how respite care services functioned for Swedish families who have children with disabilities and compared the results with a previous study made 6 years earlier. The study was based on a questionnaire completed by 245 of Sweden's municipalities. The study examined the quantity and quality of the services and respondents' views…

One of the most important responsibilities of community college academic leaders is to encourage and provide resources for professional development. A Teaching-Learning Center (TLC) can be a crucial resource for achieving that goal. Trends in faculty and student demographics, the expansion of technology, changes in college governance, and declines…

Capturing what has been learned over the past several years about the characteristics of effective Even Start Family Literacy programs, this book offers a guide for self-review by programs for the purpose of staff development and program improvement. The book also provides a focus for designing local program evaluations, serves as an outline of…

To foster the recognition of adult education as a field of study and practice, Syracuse University made a conscious commitment to mold adult education into the very essence of the university. This effort was called mainstreaming. The following changes facilitated adult education in universities: the articulation of elementary, secondary, and…

This handbook outlines 10 steps in developing a training plan for Head Start. The introduction defines training and lists the benefits of a training plan. The bulk of the handbook consists of a detailed description of the 10 steps for development of a training plan, including each step's purpose, directions to accompany work sheets, and questions…

This self-study book concentrates on enabling trainers to talk and think in a business-related way, use business concepts and terminology, and translate training and development ideas into a business setting. Each part contains activities to enable users to study their training and development function and organization and consider how to use the…

Intended to help individuals become better educators, this book can serve as a reference for teaching fundamentals and challenge experienced teachers to expand their repertoire of skills in working with their various audiences. The presentation techniques delineated in the book have proved successful in the classroom, at conferences, and in…