Pedagogies on the edge: researching complex practice in youth and adult community education

This research arose from our involvements in adults and community education, adult literacy, youth issues, and in researching the new movement in Australia for the inclusion of ‘generic skills’ in education and training curriculum. We recruited twenty-two practitioners in Adult and Community Education (ACE) in a participatory action research approach to assist us in exploring how ‘generic skills and attributes’ are fostered in the context of adult and community education and to theorise pedagogies of ACE in the light of the changed demographic of those who access ACE programs (especially disaffected young people and older unemployed men). A ‘Framework for ACE Pedagogy’ was one outcome of the research. In this paper we describe the five ‘elements’ which we found to constitute ‘The Teacher’ in ACE. The elements include: personal engagement with learners; self-reflection on one's teaching and one's own learning journey; improvisation and risk-taking; awareness of relations of power; and having patience and trust in the learning process.     

Illiterates in south africa: who are they and what motivates them to participate in literacy campaigns?

This study seeks to identify the key factors influencing the participation of adult learners in literacy campaigns in South Africa. Preliminary research has indicated that adult educators often do not know and understand what inspires adult learners to participate in literacy education. The present study underscores that illiterates tend to be motivated by the same desire for self-actualization as any other member of society, and may well stop participating in classes unless educators are more responsive to their needs and aspirations. Vocational and economic expectations, children’s education, family relations, health, social motives, and gender issues as well as simply the hope for a better future all need to be taken account of. It is also shown that functional literacy in itself does not automatically empower women in the workplace.     

A response to strategies and tactics through participatory action research in a developmental mathematics course

This paper explores the value of participatory action research in a community college developmental mathematics course. The authors used the framework of critical mathematics education in order to understand the critical conversations of students about their learning experiences, and also to help the instructor of the course develop the curriculum that attended to student experiences. The authors also draw on Michel de Certeau’s ideas about strategies and tactics to understand how students responded to their past learning experiences. Data results from the study show that students can gain a better understanding of their own learning and subsequently develop deeper content knowledge when they are more involved in the teaching and learning process. Lastly, the authors conclude that as adult learners grow in their understanding of the learning processes and of the content being presented, participatory action research can play an important role in the entire development of thinking and intellectual engagement.     

Lifelong learning and the low‐skilled

This article is a combined result of a three years research project on low‐skilled learners’ experiences as participants of various kinds of adult training and education in Denmark, and the findings of a three years research consortium on workplace learning, summing up and generalizing our various findings as to how low‐skilled adults function in relation to participation in training and education activities, how they feel about it, what is important to them, and consequently what works in practice in relation to this very important but often neglected group of adult learners.     

Qualification paths of adult educators in Sweden and Denmark

The qualification of adult educators is a central aspect of the quality of adult education. However, within current policy discourses and adult education research on the professional development of prospective adult educators, little attention is paid to teacher qualification when compared to other fields of education and training. In this study, we analyse the qualification paths, or learning trajectories, of prospective adult educators in Sweden and Denmark. The analysis is based on narrative interviews with 29 students in training to become adult educators. The career paths of adult educators are often long and winding roads. Becoming an adult educator could be their primary desire, but it could also be their ‘Plan B’, a second choice. Individual motives and external demands interact in the professionalisation process. A shift in focus from teaching subject and methods to teaching context and the relation to the learners is part of the professional development. Finally, we argue that both academic studies and hands-on work in the adult education community are crucial parts of the adult educator's qualification path.     

Into the community and not on the shelf: learning to develop a meaningful HIV/AIDS curriculum for multiple communities

This paper describes the process involved in creating a community-based training curriculum designed to build capacity and foster new knowledge in support of HIV/AIDS education. Highlighted are the challenges and triumphs incurred while working with community and academic partners to ensure the production of an adaptable curriculum designed to accommodate diverse teaching and learning styles. The curriculum provides teachers, community leaders and peer educators with knowledge and skills to competently deliver HIV/AIDS information, regardless of previous training in sexual health education. Educators are encouraged to adapt the curriculum according to community/classroom needs. Also highlighted is the need for creating further opportunities that enable teachers, community practitioners and researchers to collaborate around issues that influence learners' lives.     

Specifying a curriculum for biopolitical critical literacy in science teacher education: exploring roles for science fiction

In this essay I suggest some ways in which science teacher educators in Western neoliberal economies might facilitate learners’ development of a critical literacy concerning the social and cultural changes signified by the concept of biopolitics. I consider how such a biopolitically inflected critical literacy might find expression in a science teacher education curriculum and suggest a number of ways of materializing such a curriculum in specific literatures, media, procedures, and assessment tasks, with particular reference to the contributions of science fiction in popular media.     

社区教育中成人多元智能培养策略研究

加德纳提出的多元智能理论给当代教育提出了一个新的课题,将多元智能理论引入社区教育,可以为社区教育的开展提供一个多元视角。分析成人学习者的特征及其多元智能培养的必要性,进而从课程资源、教学环境、教学方式和评价方法等方面,提出培养成人多元智能的策略,以促进人的全面发展,推动社区教育、学习型社会建设顺利进行。     

ENTRE REPRODUCTION ET MOBILISATION: LES RAPPORTS DE GENRE EN FORMATION CONTINUE EN FRANCE ET AU CANADA

REPRODUCTION OR MOBILISATION? GENDER PROPORTIONS IN CONTINUING EDUCATION IN FRANCE AND CANADA – Initial education provisions for women have evolved greatly over the past 40 years. But what about their situation within adult education and training? This article, comparing Canada and France, shows that, while it is well known that more women than men participate in adult education, their greater presence in professional training courses is a new development. The analysis highlights certain particular findings, such as the growing demand for continuing education in Canada and the increased rate of participation by full-time employees in France. In both countries, a number of social factors continue to influence women’s participation.     

Competing knowledges in lifelong education

This is a discussion paper about access to, and participation in learning opportunities for Māori learners in New Zealand, and Indigenous learners in Australia. Teaching and learning practice in three separate institutional education programmes—one in New Zealand and two in Australia—highlight the problematic nature of inclusion based on competing knowledge systems and frameworks. These systems relate to differing worldviews about how knowledge is privileged and disseminated within society. One view is that whiteness behaviour, through a western worldview, is the erasure of inequality because it presents as the norm in many adult education teaching situations; quite often manifested as indulgent practice, but one that also reinforces the hegemony of normativity. In contrast, an Aboriginal/Indigenous worldview is one that places knowledge within a spiritual realm; constantly resituating the individual into the nexus between individual and cultural ties. The discussion here, is about ideas of whiteness behaviours being present in curriculum delivery, whereby mainstream ideals produce planes of engagement that encapsulate white subjectivities which are both visible and invisible, and represent just one chronology of whiteness. That is, consciously and unconsciously patterned behaviours of delivering curriculum, no matter what the discipline area, have the potential to produce accessibility and achievement, but many would argue that these same behaviours also reproduce inequalities. Ideas from the above theme, take on a whole new perspective with a focus on building workplace and academic skills to the exclusion of cultural identity development. Acquiring skills has the potential to provide another form of competence, yes, but may also undermine learner confidence in being able to transition successfully to further community or higher education programmes. For example, such development alone does little to improve and strengthen literacy, language and numeracy capability for learners to be able to access and undertake tertiary studies, but may do more to compound debates about whiteness behaviours implicit in the post-colonial criticism of ‘whose interest is being served’.     

The <Emphasis Type="Italic">Synergies</Emphasis> research–practice partnership project: a <Emphasis Type="Italic">2020 Vision</Emphasis> case study

This paper, describes Synergies, an on-going longitudinal study and design effort, being conducted in a diverse, under-resourced community in Portland, Oregon, with the goal of measurably improving STEM learning, interest and participation by early adolescents, both in school and out of school. Authors examine how the work of this particular research–practice partnership is attempting to accommodate the six principles outlined in this issue: (1) to more accurately reflect learning as a lifelong process occurring across settings, situations and time frames; (2) to consider what STEM content is worth learning; (3) to examine learning as a cultural process, involving varied repertoires of practice across learners’ everyday lives; (4) to directly involve practitioners (and learners) in the research process; (5) to document how existing and emerging technologies and new media are, and will continue, to shape and redefine the content and practice of STEM learning research; and, (6) to take into account the broader socio-cultural–political contexts of the needs and concerns of the larger global society.     

Designing innovative learning environments to foster communities of learners for students in initial vocational education

In this study, the concept of ‘community of learners’ was used to improve initial vocational education. The framework of a ‘community of learners for vocational orientation’ that we present offers both a theoretical understanding of teaching–learning processes in initial vocational education and heuristics for the design of innovative learning environments for optimising these processes. In a design research study, we investigated if, and how, learning environments designed on the basis of these heuristics fostered communities of learners for vocational orientation, in which students experience to learn in a shared, meaningful, reflective and transfer-oriented way. We examined students’ perceptions of the learning environment and their learning activities during eight curriculum units specifically designed to foster the communities of learners. During almost all of the units that we designed, students found themselves learning in a more shared, meaningful, reflective and transfer-oriented way than during regular units. We conclude that the proposed heuristics had been useful starting points for the design of innovative learning environments that foster communities of learners for vocational orientation. In addition, we show how the heuristics can be elaborated for a particular school, based on practical and pedagogical content knowledge of teachers, as well as students’ perceptions of the learning environment and their learning activities.     

A Perspective on the Intended Science Curriculum in Iceland and its ‘Transformation’ over a Period of 50 Years

In recent decades, a consensus has emerged among educators and scientists that all compulsory school students need good science education. The debate about its purpose and nature as a school subject in an emerging information society has not been as conclusive. To further understand this, it helps to examine how the science curriculum has transformed and what forces have shaped it as a core curricular area over time. This article sheds light on the transformation of the science curriculum for compulsory schools in Iceland in force from 1960 to 2010. Using criteria based on curriculum ideologies regarding the function of learners, instructors and subject matter in the learning process and the orientation of content and product versus process and development, it offers findings from content analysis of the intended science curriculum. The official curriculum was studied and conceptualised as it has evolved over time. The curriculum developers appear to have been striving for a compromise between conflicting views, resulting in what the authors of this article conceive as a ‘kaleidoscopic quilt’ of ideas over the period studied.     

Rooted in resistance: women teachers constructing counter‐pedagogies in post‐authoritarian Brazil

This study focuses upon the narratives of women educators (educadoras) who contributed to radical democratic school reforms in post‐authoritarian Brazil. We illustrate through three of the teachers’ narratives how their professional identities and actions were shaped partly by their experiences of resisting the military regime and by their participation in professional development opportunities that grew from liberatory social movements. Our analysis focuses on their efforts to construct counter‐pedagogies in their disciplines of history, mathematics, and physical education that resisted colonizing, authoritative practices and moved toward more liberatory, humanizing pedagogies. We consider how these counter‐pedagogies reflect both women’s ways of knowing that emphasize dialogue, collaboration, community, and the value of personal knowledge and relationships, as well as feminist principles of consciousness‐raising and social action. This analysis highlights possibilities and challenges of radical democratic reform in education by focusing on the work, experience, and identities of women educators engaged in the day‐to‐day efforts to bring about lasting change.     

Adult learners and professional development: peer‐to‐peer learning in a networked community

This paper analyses how adult learners on a professional development course learn and develop through online dialogue. The research uses Wenger’s community of practice framework, and assesses whether the concept of ‘legitimate peripheral participation’ is useful in relation to this specific case study in which the students are practitioners and parents of individuals with autistic spectrum disorders (ASD). The study focuses on peer‐to‐peer learning and analyses a sample of asynchronous online discussions from three separate online tutorial groups. The first part of the study combines quantitative analysis of distribution patterns, with qualitative discourse analysis that measures central concepts associated with communities of practice. The second part of the study addresses whether the concept of ‘legitimate peripheral participation’ is useful in this context. The contribution of one key individual in each group is analysed in order to provide a narrative about how that person communicates with the others, shares values and repertoires with them and gradually becomes a central member of the community. The data supports the notion that these forms of interaction and approaches to learning can favour the construction of knowledge and help to develop reflective skills and a sense of ‘togetherness’ in the group through sharing stories with one another, developing identity through the discussions and through this enabling the development of community. The findings indicate that the learners are provided with opportunities to consider the strengths and weaknesses of ideas from multiple perspectives and that key students play a role in enabling other students to move from a position of legitimate peripheral participation to becoming full members of the community.     

Lifelong Learning: A model for increasing the participation of non-traditional adult

This article examines the attempt of one college (Orpington College in Kent) to increase the participation in further education of adult students who would not normally have benefited from post-school education and/or training; effectively non-traditional learners. The college targeted a specific and defined community, the residents of which had, prior to this initiative, limited access to continuing education. This example is by no means a unique one, but it is unusual and reflects what is best termed a community-based approach to widening participation, harnessing the support of a wide range of community, statutory and voluntary groups to ensure its success.     

The impact of Skills for Life on adult basic skills in England: how should we interpret trends in participation and achievement?

The English Skills for Life strategy symbolises the prominent place that adult basic skills have claimed in education and training policy in England since the beginning of this century. The strategy aims to improve the skills of a large number of learners over a ten year period (2001–2010). This paper explores what we can learn about the impact of the strategy from an analysis of available statistical data. The paper presents trends in participation and achievement over the first four years of the strategy, which indicate a pattern of diminishing returns to numbers participating over time, and which may well reflect the growing difficulties the policy will face of engaging ‘hard to reach’ learners. Alongside this analysis, the paper raises a number of issues concerning the limitations of available statistical data in providing answers to questions such as the progress made by learners and their subsequent progression, both within and beyond adult basic skills provision. The paper goes on to argue that the strong emphasis on a numerical target related to qualification outcomes may serve to focus both practitioners’ and policy makers’ attention on this aspect alone. This, it is argued, may serve the interests of international benchmarking of skills levels in the population, but may do rather less in helping to improve learners’ lives and capabilities.     

Teaching Through Personal Stories: Congregational Rabbis and Teaching Adults

As educators, synagogue rabbis frequently devote a great deal of time to teaching adults. Yet little empirical research exists about what they do. This study describes and analyzes the teaching of three congregational rabbis who have excellent reputations as teachers of adults. In particular, it focuses on how these rabbis incorporate personal stories into their teaching and examines the ways that sharing such stories is integral to their teaching approaches. Rabbis who use stories in their teaching potentially occupy a crucial place in the Jewish identity development of their adult learners. This study offers rabbinical seminaries recommendations for how to incorporate the results of the research into their curriculum.     

New technologies to support teaching for understanding

In this era of rapid change, educators increasingly recognize that students must learn how to develop and apply knowledge creatively, not simply remember what they have been told. To meet these demands, teachers need professional development opportunities that support them in a transformational process. New technologies appear to hold promise in overcoming the traditional limitations of professional development. In this chapter, we describe and analyze a program designed to provide such professional development. We begin by summarizing recurrent challenges and promising approaches to professional development organized around a set of qualities that characterize effective learning. Next, we use these qualities to describe a program that explicitly incorporates a model of teaching for understanding into the design of an online learning environment and professional development activities for educators. Finally, our analysis of this program emphasizes the Internet's unique advantages, as well as some remaining issues to resolve in online professional development for educators.In this era of rapid change, educators increasingly recognize that students must learn how to develop and apply knowledge creatively, not simply remember what they have been told. This goal requires shifting from traditional lessons based on transmitting information toward approaches that help learners build robust and flexible understanding. Such transformation of curriculum and pedagogy is a complex process for teachers who must develop new knowledge, skills and beliefs.To meet these demands, teachers need professional development opportunities that support them in a transformational process. Unfortunately, most learning opportunities for teachers fall short. They tend to be short-term workshops, focused on general topics rather than deep knowledge of subject matter and pedagogy, inattentive to teachers’ individual interests, disconnected from specific classroom practices, and isolated from ongoing support by coaches and colleagues. Formal professional development activities are often the antithesis of what is known to promote effective learning.New technologies appear to hold promise in overcoming the traditional limitations of professional development. The World Wide Web, with its rich trove of multimedia resources, interactive tools, and telecommunication facilities, accessible from anywhere on the planet, seems full of potential as a facilitator of teacher learning. Yet we know that mere access to technical resources is not sufficient to generate learning or to change practice. How might the Internet be used to support communities of reflective practitioners committed to teaching for understanding?