Initial encounters in formal adult education

This paper reports on part of an ethnographic study of a class participating in Swedish municipal adult education. The study focuses on decision‐making and the power‐play between students and teachers, viewed as a negotiation. The qualitative analysis resulted in a conceptual system for describing the negotiations. Using this system, characteristics of the decision‐making process are described. One of the findings was that uniform explicit rules for decision‐making were lacking. Another was that students influenced decisions on certain topics, not because they were invited to do so, but at their own initiative. Students tried to influence the allocation of time and space for their studies, but left the use of time for the teachers to decide. One conclusion was that the students’ subordination was conditional.     

Authentic and self-directed learning in vocational education: Challenges to vocational educators

This article analyses the dilemmas and practical tensions in implementing competence-based vocational education. Eleven case studies were conducted, including observation of lessons and interviews with teachers and students. The results show that schools meet various fundamental issues in realising this approach. A crucial question is how to stimulate the acquisition and use of a way of knowing and thinking that is based on vocational theory. Reflection, authenticity and coaching are relevant characteristics that are hardly put into practice yet. To understand these results the article reflects on factors that account for the distance between promising concepts and actual teaching practice.     

Lifelong learning to empowerment: beyond formal education

Abstract

This paper discusses the relevance of lifelong learning vis-à-vis the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and stresses the need for an approach blending formal education, non-formal and informal learning. The role of Open and Distance Learning (ODL) in moving beyond formal education and the importance of integrating pedagogy, andragogy and heutagogy in lifelong learning are raised as key factors in ensuring that education and learning can generate positive externalities and impact livelihoods. Through a case study in the agricultural sector, this paper analyses the role of lifelong learning in empowering smallholders of backyard poultry enterprises in Kenya and argues that lifelong learning needs to be placed in appropriate social and economic contexts to generate outcomes and impacts such as empowerment.     

Lifelong learning: Universities and adult education

This paper argues that the driving force of social change in the contemporary world is economic globalisation, which has demanded and more highly educated work force. It discusses six major changes that are occurring in traditional university education, as a result, and notes that universities have now become a site where adults learn. Universities are becoming institutions of lifelong learning. In the final section traditional adult education is reviewed, which is also becoming lifelong learning, and the education of older adults is discussed.     

Gender differences in formal,non-formal and informal adult learning

At first sight, participation rates in adult learning do not differ strongly between men and women. Further exploration, however, makes clear that differences exist at the level of the type of learning. Men participate more in work-related learning and experience more job-related motives to participate. Women take on the main responsibilities in the home, resulting in less employment in knowledge intensive jobs and fewer opportunities for work-related training. In this paper, we use the Harvard gender analysis framework to gain insight into the differences in adult learning activities between men and women. In the empirical part, we use the Eurostat Adult Education Survey, which provides sex-aggregated data, which are needed to gain insight in the broader activity profile of the population divided by men and women.     

美国成人教育和职业教育中的兼职教师

在美国社区学院中兼职教师在成人教育和职业教育中扮演着重要角色,兼职教师职业发展极其重要。提高兼职教师的教学质量的切实措施是:熟悉、教育和培训、评估、行政支持。美国成人教育和职业教育中的兼职教师对我国成人教育和职业教育的发展具有重要借鉴意义。     

Radical adult education and learning

How can we speak about radical education in these seemingly unpropitious times? I explore this question first by examining aspects of our radical heritage (self-directed learning, facilitation, democratic pedagogy, learning in hegemonic struggle, learning in social action, critical pedagogy) and then by discussing what radical learning and education mean now, in an era of capitalist triumphalism. I outline a method which helps practitioners to investigae and act on what people are actuallly learning and teaching each other in different sites—educational instititions, workplace families, communities, the mass media and social movements. Culture is ordinary: that is where we must start. (Williams, 1958a)     

高等职业教育院校中的成人教育发展探讨

高等职业教育院校中的成人教育具有服务范围广泛、办学形式多元、教学内容务实等特点,决定了高等职业成人教育必须不断创新创优,继续提升办学实力,加强校政、校企、校校合作与交流,为社会培养更多具有创新能力的技能型人才,服务经济社会发展。     

Enhancing student engagement in pre-vocational and vocational education: a learning history

Interest in student engagement has increased over the past decade, which has resulted in increased knowledge about this concept and about the aspects that facilitate engagement. However, as yet, only a few studies have focused on engagement from the perspective of the teacher. In this study, we capture the experiences of teachers who were explicitly working with their teams on fostering student engagement. We used the learning history method to capture those experiences and at the same time to stimulate learning within the participating teams. A learning history includes the voices of the different participants involved in order to stimulate reflection and learning. Three teams of teachers participated in the writing of this learning history. Several teachers (n = 10), students (n = 10), and managers (n = 5) from or related to the teams were interviewed. The learning history shows that, on the one hand, teachers emphasized positive relationships and structure in relation to student engagement, yet, on the other hand, students continued to provide examples of negative relationships and mentioned a lack of structure, although they also mentioned improvements. Furthermore, the learning history showed that teachers in all teams reflected on their experiences and learned from the activities employed to foster student engagement, which included taking a more positive approach, conversations about a skills form, and being more consequent. These results taken together indicate that it is possible for teachers to do a better job of engaging their students and that their repertoire can be expanded to include more engagement-related actions. Finally, the learning history produced offers insight into the difficulties experienced by the teams. An important limitation mentioned by all teams was that teachers found it difficult to address each other’s behavior when someone did not act as agreed upon.     

Theorising partnerships for site-based education development in vocational education and workplace learning

Abstract

Site-based education development now constitutes a common approach to preparing learners for particular occupations, enabling them to secure employment and at the same time achieve broader social, economic and personal outcomes. New forms of partnerships, other than traditional vendor–client relations, are necessary to achieve such multi-faceted goals. This can be achieved by recognising and appropriately integrating pedagogical contributions in different sites to cater for learning needs. Accordingly, professionals from educational institutions need to actively collaborate and engage with a range of key personnel to form partnerships for the purposes of harnessing and facilitating learning opportunities within the constraints of given sites. An action research process enables participating partners to work towards and achieve agreed outcomes. Outcomes addressing areas causing concern are developed and discussed ‘on site’, forming site-based education development. Using a collaborative action research methodology that addresses issues identified by those in particular sites, solutions can be made visible and problems worked through. This enables the partners to achieve agreed outcomes developed during the life of the partnership. Outcomes and possible training areas are developed and discussed by key partners, particularly those in workplaces. In this article, we draw on intersecting sets of understandings around the philosophy of site-based education development, founded mainly on two overarching theories of workplace learning and practice architectures, to theorise partnerships for site-based education development. Some findings and ideas from two exemplar action research projects are presented to exemplify the key concepts.     

Lifelong learning ecologies in online higher education: Students' engagement in the continuum between formal and informal learning

Lifelong learning opportunities are readily accessible through the hybridization of digital learning contexts—from formal to informal—in today's globally networked knowledge society. As such, expanded learning opportunities generate a continuum of learning contexts and experiences mediated through digital technology. Consequently, there is an urgent need to actively examine the interconnections and complex relations between what is learned in formal university scenarios and the everyday learning that happens outside of the classroom, particularly the informal learning that is afforded through expanded and emerging digital contexts. The current research problem illustrates that expanded and emerging professional development scenarios require new pedagogical designs for empowering lifelong learners to harness the affordances of the web across both formal and informal contexts and practices. This study outlines ways in which students shape their learning ecologies in virtual contexts to support formal academic learning in online higher education. The paper presents qualitative results from a larger mixed methods interpretive case study. The multicase and multisite study examines three fully online graduate programmes in Education and Digital Technology during the 2017–18 academic year, collecting data in the form of online programme documentation, student interviews and online participant observation. Purposeful and criterion sampling were used to select 13 participants across three sites in Spain, the UK and the USA. The study was underpinned by a lifelong learning ecologies theoretical perspective to analyse learning processes across a continuum of practices and contexts. Findings illustrate how students conceive of, as well as how they organize their learning ecologies through a unique configuration of activities, digital resources and networked social support, indicating that academic programmes and teachers have an essential role in empowering student learning ecologies across contexts, recognizing past trajectories and supporting the development of valued disciplinary practices and perspectives across a continuum of learning.     

Assessment of learning outcomes in Finnish vocational education and training

This article provides an outline and critical review of assessment, an evaluation of learning outcomes, in vocational education and training (VET) in Finland. Assessment of VET is formative, development-orientated and criteria-based. There are no national tests and information from vocational skills demonstrations is used instead. Assessment targets are individual and communal learning focusing on processes instead of reports. Interactive, multifaceted assessments and qualitative methods promote learning and are based on trust – not control. The developmental assessment of learning outcomes started as an experiment in 2002 and as a permanent system in 2007. The whole process has been included and still includes also many challenges of methods, which this article tries to open.     

澳大利亚成人职业教育的特点与启示

为了适应社会经济发展的需要，澳大利亚十分重视职业技术教育的发展，并在成人职教方面形成了独自的特点，通过对澳大利亚成人职教特点的介绍，企望对我国成人职业教育发展有所借鉴。     

From vocational training to open learning environments: vocational special needs education during change

This paper describes the development of education of students with special needs in vocational education. The paper is based on a case study research conducted in 2001–2005 in Jyväskylä Municipal Federation of Vocational Education in Central Finland. The study consisted of two parts: firstly of the historical analysis of special educational stages, and secondly of the contemporary analysis of special educational challenges in the research target. The Developmental Work Research model was used in attempting to get a systemic view of different factors affecting a special educational entity. The study showed the importance of a holistic view. The special educational system in the research target seems to be strongly linked to the general structure of vocational education, its goals, learning principles, legislation and personnel structure. The development of vocational special education in Jyväskylä followed the strongly regulated national guidelines set for vocational special education until the end of the 1990s. At that time new legislation, structural reforms and the change from norm‐based towards an autonomous information‐based self‐government opened doors for new special educational implementation. From the perspective of teachers specialized in special educational needs (SEN‐teachers) a clear change can be seen from an autonomous, defined work towards a loss of an expertise position. However, the strong linkage between general and special education in vocational education offers possibilities for inclusive education. In order to face the new challenges, the work of SEN‐teachers has to be redefined to clearly broaden the perspective from teaching towards new expertise in each educational establishment.     

高职化工类专业“工学结合”实践基地建设探索

从化工行业对从业技术人员的要求出发,分析了高职院校化工类专业"工学结合"实践基地建设的现状:高职教育重理论,轻实践;基地建设和运行成本过高;只重视"学",而"工"的职能体现不够.对石家庄职业技术学院化学工程系"工学结合"实践基地建设所取得的成效进行了系统的阐述,通过基地建设既提高了学生的工程实践能力,又增强了教师的实践能力.     

上海市中等职业学校开展成人中等职业教育

为贯彻<教育部关于贯彻落实全国职业教育工作会议精神,进一步扩大中等职业学校招生规模的意见>和<教育部关于加快发展中等职业教育的意见>等文件精神,以科学发展观为指导,优化高中阶段教育结构,扩大中等职业教育规模,提升中等职业学校办学能力,充分发挥优质教育资源作用,通过拓展招生对象的范围,改革办学模式进一步扩大招生规模,上海市教委为培养更多适应上海城市建设需要的高素质劳动者,从2005年起,在上海市中等职业学校中举办成人(业余)中等职业学校教学班(以下简称成人中职班).     

Facilitating the learning journey from vocational education and training to higher education

An increase in students who enter higher education in Australia following their studies in the vocational education and training (VET) sector has led to heightened national interest in the transition experiences of these students. This paper reports on the experiences of students who, as a result of their VET studies, entered a relatively new, large, metropolitan university in 2009 and 2010 in the fields of Business and Law, Early Childhood and Nursing. The investigation elicited responses from students about a range of personal, administrative and academic experiences. A total of 529 students responded to a survey, 74 students were interviewed by telephone and 33 students attended focus groups. A major finding of the research was that many students saw the new learning context as a positive factor and responded to challenges with enthusiasm and resilience. Despite this, it seems that the transition period, particularly the first semester of study, is an unnecessarily stressful time for many students and that this could be mitigated by the provision of timely information about differences between institutional and learner expectations, workload, administrative processes and learning practices.