scholarly journals Writing Our Life: Adult Learning and Teaching Through Autobiography

Author(s):  
Irene Karpiak

This paper explores the use of autobiography as a tool for teaching and learning in continuing education. In a recent continuing education course on adult learning and development, students took on the project of writing five chapters of their life story. Subsequent interviews with the writers explored the process and effects of writing. The findings suggest that when adult learners undertake autobiographical writing in the context of adult education, they embark on a process of self-exploration and meaning making that, in turn, can promote the development of an enlarged view of themselves and the world around them. Based upon these findings, a proposition is made for the transformative power of putting pen to paper.

2019 ◽  
Vol 30 (4) ◽  
pp. 150-159
Author(s):  
Adam McClain

This article will examine specific films that portray events or phenomena of adult learning and development, and how adult learning and development can be explored by studying the lives of the fictional characters in film. It will demonstrate how the use of contemporary film by adult educators and adult learners can enhance insights about people, about life’s dilemmas, and about the growth and development in adulthood. To teach adults successfully, methods and techniques must be adapted to their skills and environments. Despite genre or popularity, film has the opportunity to tell a story and/or be a real-life recording. Film provides another strategy of telling stories to help adult educators and adult learners have further reflection, insights, emotional reactions, and enhance various life experiences and stages of development. Learners can use film to better understand narratives outside of their own and develop alternative interpretations, and film can also be used to observe social phenomena in a noninvasive way. The films discussed in the article were chosen by the author to draw the attention to examples of various aspects of adult learning and development.


Author(s):  
E. Paulette Isaac

Adults have different learning styles which can either enhance or deter their learning. In the conversation that follows, I discuss the utility of assessing adult learning and the diversity of learning styles. Adult education literature is replete with discussions on characteristics of adult learners and adult learning and development. But how do we actually know if adults gained the knowledge they set out to learn? We know that there are several factors that should be taken into consideration when facilitating adult learning, but as adult educators and practitioners of the field, it is equally important that we learn and/or know how to deploy various approaches in assessing adult learning. In this chapter are brief discussions on adult learning, learning styles, and learning assessments.


Author(s):  
Gregory C. Petty

Adults have different learning styles which can either enhance or deter their learning. In the conversation that follows, I discuss the utility of assessing adult learning and the diversity of learning styles. Adult education literature is replete with discussions on characteristics of adult learners and adult learning and development. But how do we actually know if adults gained the knowledge they set out to learn? We know that there are several factors that should be taken into consideration when facilitating adult learning, but as adult educators and practitioners of the field, it is equally important that we learn and/or know how to deploy various approaches in assessing adult learning. In this chapter are brief discussions on adult learning, learning styles, and learning assessments.


Author(s):  
Laily Yahya

The article review of ‘The Impact of Fun and Enjoyment on Adult Learning’ (Lucardie, 2014) opens doors to the kaleidoscope of fun and enjoyment amongst adult learners. The essence of this review is an informative snapshot on the critical issues of how fun and joy have impacted adult learning through a qualitative research drawing upon traditions of phenomenology. It aims to explore the affective experiences of fun and enjoyment. This article review attempts to highlight an insightful assessment of the ideas and the arguments that are being discussed by the author. The different interpretation of this concept draws out contrasting elements between learners and teachers’ beliefs. A twist to this review is a reflective stance procured to address central issues emerging in the article related to the Malaysian context. It is through the lens of the reader, Continuous Quality Improvement (CQI):4R is proposed. This refers to the process of continuously improving the quality of teaching and learning of an educational programme. This review concludes with the framing of CQI:4R to illustrate reflect, revisit, realign and reconstruct processes that could possibly navigate the architectural landscape of the Malaysian Teacher Education.


Author(s):  
Yin Cheong Cheng

This chapter introduces a new paradigm of learning and teaching that aims to develop students’ contextualized multiple intelligence (CMI) and create unlimited opportunity for students’ lifelong independent learning through a triplization process including individualization, localization, and globalization in teaching and learning. In particular, the chapter illustrates how students’ self-learning can be motivated, sustained, and highly enhanced in an individually, locally, and globally networked human and ICT environment. Different from the traditional emphasis on delivery of knowledge and skills in planned curriculum, the new paradigm pursues the extensive application of ICT and enhancement of teachers and students’ ICT literacy in building up a networked environment for students’ individualized, localized, and globalized learning and CMI development. It is hoped that students equipped with the necessary ICT literacy can become borderless learners with unlimited opportunities for learning and development in a networked environment.


Author(s):  
Sonya Bird

Abstract This paper describes the features that set adult Indigenous language learning apart from other types second language learning, examining in particular the role that unique teaching and learning contexts might play in the acquisition of pronunciation. As a case study, the pronunciation of SENĆOŦEN (Coast Salish) /t’/ is compared across four groups of speakers, including two groups of adult learners. Acoustic analysis shows that /t’/, described as a weak ejective in previous work, is now consistently realized as a strong ejective, especially among learners and teachers. These findings are discussed with reference to factors relevant to language learning and teaching in general, as well as to ones relevant to Indigenous language learning and teaching in particular.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document