Educational brokering: New services for adult learners

This paper describes a fast-growing variety of programs that directly enable adult learners to pursue educational and career plans within their communities. Educational brokering serves an intermediary role between individual clients and the vast array of educational resources in a region. This paper considers the missions of brokering—advisement, assessment, and advocacy—its organizational arrangements, and the sources of its support and development. Specific successes and impacts of brokering are presented, as is the importance of the brokering idea to several larger public policy issues. Efforts currently underway to expand brokering activities on a national level are also discussed.Dr. Heffernan is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Higher/Postsecondary Education at Syracuse University and is Coordinator of Research and Editor of theBulletin of the National Center for Educational Brokering. He has been assisted in the preparation of this article by Francis U. Macy and Donn F. Vickers, Director and Associate Director, respectively, of the National Center for Educational Brokering, 405 Oak Street, Syracuse, New York 13203.     

Counseling and advisory service for adult learners: An Open University perspective

The nature of counselling and advisory services which the Open University offers its students and applicants is dictated by the fact that its students are learning at a distance, are adults, and are not engaged in full-time study. In addition, a policy of open entry means that while some students come from a background of higher education, others have few or no previous qualifications. These factors require the University to try to provide an individual service to its applicants and students whenever possible. In pursuit of this aim students are allocated to Tutor-Counsellors, part-time staff who are locally based and who have a continuing responsibility for the progress of individual students from their initial registration until graduation. These Tutor-Counsellors play a considerable part in determining the extent, nature, and timing of the resources with which the university can support an individual student. Tuition for higher level specialist courses is normally provided by tutors at a greater distance, with the Tutor-Counsellors continuing to provide local generalist support. The Open University has set up a regional infra-structure of full-time academic and administrative staff for the support, briefing, supervision, and organization of this local network of part-time staff.     

Strategy instruction in writing for adult literacy learners

This study investigated the effectiveness of cognitive strategy instruction in writing with adult literacy learners. Three middle-aged African-American adults participating in adult education with the goal of passing the GED received tutoring in a strategy for planning, writing, and revising persuasive essays along with self-regulation strategies. The study used a multiple-baseline design across participants with multiple probes. All the adults made consistent gains from baseline to posttest in the quality and organization of their essays. Mean gains in overall quality from baseline to posttest for the three students were 2.7, 1.9, and 1.7 on a 7-point scale. Percentage of non-overlapping data (PND) was 100% for text structure organization and 89% for quality. The results demonstrate that strategy instruction, which has had positive effects with school-age students, has potential for adult literacy learners as well.     

成人学习者的学习心理及基本特性

远程教育的学习者主要以职业成人为主,虽然识记等学习能力有衰弱迹象,但由于元认知能力以及丰富的生活经验,使他们仍具有较强的学习能力。成人学习者在学习过程中表现出功利学习、自我导向学习、经验学习等特征。     

Toward constructivism for adult learners in online learning environments

Since online learning has a different setting from the conventional classroom, online educators need to use some special techniques and perceptions to lead to success. Moreover, adults have special needs and requirements as learners compared with children and adolescents, thus online educators should know how adults can learn best because of their special characteristics. Philosophical and methodological shifts also affect instruction. Many researchers have suggested that constructivism should be applied in distance education. Thus, this paper attempts to examine the impact of constructivism in online learning environments when focusing on adult learners. The author develops the connection between constructivism and adult learning theory. In addition, the paper proposes instructional guidelines using the constructivist approach in online learning for adults.     

Mature adult learners and the need to know

Sterns and Mitchell (in H. L. Sterns, et al., Gerontology in higher education: Developing Institutional and Community Strength. Belmont, Calif.: Wadsworth, 1979) point out that Maslow's concept of the need to know is as basic a need as the physical, security, and belongingness needs. And so, mature (25–55 years) and older (55 years and above) adult learning has flourished within the community: in museums, libraries, churches, in trade unions, business and industry, in evening programs emphasizing self-enrichment and vocational advancement, in a range of postsecondary noncollegiate, occupational, and adult education programs. Higher education and its academic disciplines, in contrast, have notably been age segmented and youth oriented. This paper outlines four major sociocultural changes which at once challenge higher education's youth orientation while simultaneously offering educational psychology opportunities for significant research, teaching, and service, for fertile dialectic within the higher education communities, and for wider support of the adult's need to know.     

成人学习者远程学习适应性研究的思考

本文主要对远程教育成人学习者学习适应性研究的现状及一些问题进行了思考。认为应从多角度、多层次来理解和研究成人学习者的学习适应性:可以从宏观和微观的不同层次来分析和强调成人学习者与远程教育院校之间的彼此主动适应;可以从内外两方面以及观念、制度、活动三个层面对成人学习者远程学习适应性作一结构化的理解;可以从教与学相关联的角度,从学习者所处的不同群体层次来考察他们的学习适应性问题。在提高成人学习者的学习适应能力方面,除了学习者自身的努力外,还应注重远程教育院校对学习者的引导和帮助,注重学习者与他人(包括老生在内)全方位的人际往来。     

成人专科数学教育的几点思考

本文讨论了成人专科数学教育中教学内容的改革，教学方法手段的选择运用等问题，提出了成人专科教育应材施教，因人施教的观点，然后讨论了教师自身素质提高的必要性。     

Counseling services in the Peoples Republic of China

The principal vehicles for counseling in the Peoples Republic of China are the neighborhood council and the extended family. In addition to providing access to many services, the local council offers informal counseling to families and individuals in the neighborhood through peer helpers. This council is also the first level in a three-tiered health care delivery system. Informal counseling is sup-plemented with counseling from paraprofessional health care providers in the neighborhood clinics. Severe problems are referred to the second level — the district hospital — which usually has a psychiatric unit with medical psychologists able to deal with problems on both inpatient and outpatient bases. The third level of assistance is provided through specialized institutes that take a few severe psychological problems for treatment, research, and teaching purposes. Schools refer special behavior problems through the health care or political systems, but care for minor behavior and educational problems is provided through the teacher working with the family in the educational setting. While most counseling services are conducted informally through family and neighborhood council members, the disadvantage is the close linkage of counseling regulatory tasks with functions monitoring behavior and enforcing political policy. On balance, however, it appears that the array of services offered through local councils with a caring neighborly attitude outweighs the disadvantages of loss of privacy and pressures to conform to local behavioral expectations and political demands.     

Parents as adult learners in family-centered early education

Several concepts from the adult learning literature are described that relate to working with parents of young children who are deaf. It is proposed that an adult learner perspective makes an important contribution to the family-centered philosophy and knowledge base that guide the development of practice in early intervention. Three areas are discussed: the context for adult learning, that is, the life situation of adults, including their social roles and responsibilities and experience; learning related to transitions in the adult life cycle; and transformative learning, which examines the ways people make changes in how they understand their experience. Implications for practice in early childhood education are presented.     

Distance education plans: Course planning for online adult learners

Summary There can be an untethered excitement connected with ever-expanding technologies and the vastness of educational opportunities that online learning generates. Yet, these new and exciting opportunities do not diminish the real-life concerns and issues that online professors face. Lack of planning often sets the stage for disastrous educational experiences. Problems with technology, the lack of professor guidance and the inability to build community, facilitate communication or humanize learning can sabotage educational efforts. Minimal or nonexistent evaluation can lead to a recycling of futile educational efforts in future online courses. Yet, you can circumvent these issues with proper planning-with the use of distance education plans     

An analysis of theoretical perspectives that define adult learners for effective and inclusive adult education policies

International Review of Education - Adult learning remains an important component of educational systems in countries all over the world, particularly because it seeks to explain how adults obtain...