Learning from the Past: An account of an oral history project for students in an early childhood teacher education program

Engagement of student-teachers with the community of practice they are entering is central to the formation of their identity as an educator. This paper outlines a teaching and research project that enabled early childhood student-teachers to gain insights into the field through interviewing past teachers and reflecting on their practices. In the process, students became aware of the complexities of their chosen profession, alternative teaching practices and different ways of relating with families. Their responses indicated that the experience had an impact on their identity with the profession, their learning about the nature of history and their understanding of research processes.     

Putting the learner at the centre: Quality in adult learning and education

International Review of Education -     

Innovation,research and professional development in higher education: Learning from our own experience

This paper describes and analyses an innovative experience carried out by a group of lecturers from the Psychopedagogy Faculty of the University of Alcala, involved in an action research process with the purpose of reflecting about our own practice and constructing alternative teaching strategies to facilitate students’ reflective, autonomous and critic learning. The experience consists of a didactical proposal through which we intend to establish connections and interdisciplinary relationships among courses, in order to break down the isolation that usually characterizes the work of university teachers, and move towards a more global and complex formula for curriculum development. We also propose the use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) as tools to support the learning process and expand opportunities for reflection, dialogue and collaboration beyond the classroom activities. The results of this experience show a dialectic interaction amongst innovation, research and professional development processes.     

Recognition and adult education: an incongruent opportunity

Building on narratives of students in adult education in Sweden, where the majority of the students are young adults, this paper argues that adult education has both negative and positive aspects in helping individuals to be recognised as valuable. Students, often part of the precariat class, have not always been able to survive in the job market and have a history of failing in upper secondary school. By drawing on the recognition theory of Axel Honneth, the results show that municipal adult education has the potential to be a transitory learning platform in which the individual can regain esteem that has been lost due to unemployment, precarious employment and failure in upper secondary school. It provides temporary stability. Yet, most students are in a sense forced to study and it is not patent that adult education can help them in their struggle for self-actualisation.     

Dimensions of conflict: reflections on the higher education experience from an access education perspective

Given the widening participation agenda and associated enrolment targets, mature students who enter higher education by non-traditional pathways look set to become an increasingly prominent cohort who bring with them valuable skills, experiences and personal attributes that can and do enrich the learning environment. However, the Australian case study reported here indicates that those same attributes can present particular challenges for educators and for the students themselves, not least of which is the challenge inherent in the need for students to transform the procedural knowledge of their prior experience into the corresponding propositional form required by academic contexts. In relating the experiences of ‘Judy’, who had both successfully completed a comprehensive access programme and who began her undergraduate studies equipped with richly relevant life experience, this account provides evidence of some of these challenges, the potential for tension and conflict that they present, and the negative impact they can have on the first year higher education experience. Their effects can however be mitigated, we suggest, by: closer collaboration between support services and academic faculty; raising awareness in prospective lecturers and tutors; and ensuring, through training and professional development initiatives, that staff are adequately equipped to respond effectively and appropriately.     

Educational generations and the futures of adult education: a Nordic experience

In this study of the meanings of education and learning in people's lives, educational generations in Finland were investigated. The analysis is based on Karl Mannheim's concept and theory of social generation. This approach resulted in the differentiation of four educational cohorts living in contemporary Finnish society, three of which provided distinct core life experiences and educational experiences for analysis. These are: the war generation with scant education (born before 1935); the generation of structural change with growing educational opportunities (born 1936–55) and the welfare generation with many educational choices (born after 1955). This article, reviews the characteristics of these generations, and analyses the dynamics of their educational courses and experiences. It is concluded that their core experiences of education can be summarized in two basic narratives: the narrative of national culture and that of economic structural change. Finally, it is argued that such generational change reflects the more general rationalization of Western culture and society. Based on this argumentation, the future of adult education based on the application of Weberian social theory and its conceptions of material and formal rationality are considered.     

The culture of power and science education: Learning from Miguel

In this paper we begin a discussion around the need for science educators to understand the relationship between cultural and socioeconomic issues and the science education of inner‐city students. We refer to the works of critical scholars in science, education, and sociology in order to help us deconstruct the relationship between sociopolitical agendas and the lack of opportunity in science education for students from lower socioeconomic inner‐city enclaves. Through our ethnographic case study of a homeless family in a major metropolitan area in the Northeast, we frame our analysis through the pedagogical questions of representation of science through culture, socioeconomic status, and “culture capital.” We use this analysis to raise questions for further research on the significance of understanding, accessing, and critiquing the “culture of power” in science education. © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 37: 871–889, 2000     

Agricultural extension as adult education: institutional evolution and forces for change

Agricultural extension is generally considered by adult educators to be one of the many different providers of adult education. Agricultural extension's pragmatic, specialized content and its task‐oriented field‐directed methodologies for providing information and technology transfer, and often other services as well, places this education provider in a unique category, so unique in fact that it is often overlooked in discussions of formal as well as nonformal education. This paper briefly reviews the value and current reforms taking place to reform agricultural extension, through structural, financial and managerial decentralization strategies and through the shift of government power and responsibility to market‐oriented approaches. The paper highlights the major forces for change that underscore the challenges facing this specialized provider of non‐formal adult education, including sociopolitical, economic, institutional and programmatic forces, which are affecting and will continue to affect extension worldwide.

     

欠发达国家农村成人教育的历史经验

本文从积极开展农村扫盲活动、加强农村职业技术教育、建设乡村综合教育基地三方面阐述了欠发达国家农村成人教育的历史经验，探讨了它们对我国的启示：加大农村成人教育投资力度，拓宽融资渠道；进一步加强农村扫盲和成人职业技术教育工作；把农村学校办成为农村综合发展服务的教育基地。     

借鉴德国职教经验,创建机电一体化实践教学模式

比较了中德两国高职教育实践教学模式,主要从入学前的实习、完整的实习学期、工学交替的教学方式、毕业设计的辅导过程等方面进行了深入分析,进一步提出了机电一体化技术专业实践教学改革的模式,主要从创新实践教学体系的4个原则,分析实践教学体系的4个层次,研究实践环节的4种类型和探索实践教学的4种方法等方面提出了建议.     

高等教育大众化:日本的经验与教训

日本高等教育大众化的实现具有与欧美各国不同的路径,即以大力发展对社会需求具有“敏感性”的私立高等教育来达成的,但也因此遇到高等教育质量的下降及爆发全国性的大学学潮等问题。为了摆脱高等教育面临的“危机”,构建适应大众阶段的、新的大学和高等教育系统,日本政府(文部省)进行了一系列的政策性探索,其中最具代表性的是中央教育审议会于1971年提交的咨询报告所阐述的关于高等教育的13项改革构想及其实施。日本高等教育大众化所遇到的诸多问题,在许多方面与现在正处于急速发展的大众化过程的中国具有共通性,其为解决问题而出台的诸政策对中国来说,也具有一定的借鉴意义。     

Learning and the changing concept of enlightenment: Danish adult education over five centuries

International Review of Education - A theme running through European cultural history is the notion of enlightnment, with its concomitant metaphor of the search for light. But what is the source of...     

Teaching styles in adult education: an exploratory essay

Lapides, J. “Teaching styles in adult education. An exploratory essay,” Revue ATEE Journal 3 (1980) 191‐205.

Two approaches to teaching styles are explored. The first is a static approach borrowed from management research and organizational development practice. In this approach teaching styles were derived from Maslow's hierarchy of needs. They were seen as the interpersonal styles of behavior with others, which grow out of people's needs. Seven teaching styles were identified and described. The second approach, in contrast with the life‐style approach, is based on the assumption that teachers can be trained in alternative styles. Mosston believes that everyone can change through learning and that teaching style is a learned characteristic. Seven styles from command to discovery have been identified and described. Suggestions for teacher training are included.     

Learning transferable skills through adventure education: The role of an authentic process

The purpose of this study is threefold: (a) to explore what 18 adolescents learned while participating in a three week long adventure program, (b) to examine how they learned while on the program, and (c) to determine what program outcomes they considered most applicable to their home environments, or which learning is “transferable”. To address these purposes, 18 participants 13-18 years old on 14 different three-week long sail and dive training courses were interviewed. The study found that participants learned both hard skills (e.g., sailing and diving) and life skills. They learned these skills experientially, by observing and receiving feedback from others, by exposure to new and different persons, and through the authenticity of needing to learn these skills through the course design. Participants reported that the life skills were most likely to be applicable after course completion in the home environment. Implications for research and practice are discussed.