THE COLLEGE FRATERNITY AS A FACTOR IN THE RELIGIOUS AND MORAL LIFE OF THE STUDENT

A brief research report on the attainments of Jewish attitudes in a religious school     

PERCEPTIONS OF NATIONAL LEADERS IN THREE PROFESSIONAL ASSOCIATIONS ABOUT AGING,LEARNING, AND WORK

The principal focus of the study was to identify the perceptions of the leaders in three professional associations (AAACE, ASTD, GSA) about changes in learning and work behaviors related to the aging process. A 40‐item, true‐false self‐assessment inventory was used to collect the data. Gerontology leaders scored the greatest number of correct perceptions, followed by adult education, and traing and development leaders. Implications for adult education practitioners are provided.     

The reflection integration model: A process for facilitating reflective learning

Abstract

One of the goals of teacher education is to develop each preservice teacher into a reflective educator. A reflective educator is a lifelong learner who perceives every experience as an opportunity for growth, change, and development of understanding. As a result of our teaching experiences in the College of Education, we have developed a process that helps students become reflective learners. In this article we discuss this process, the Reflection Integration Model (RIM). The four components of the model are (a) pre‐experience, (b) experience, (c) reflection, and (d) integration. While the model is germane to any experiential‐based learning, in this article it is applied to a field experience for preservice teachers.     

Adult learning in the context of African‐American women's voluntary organizations‡

The purpose of this research was to examine non‐formal adult education and informal learning within contemporary African‐American women's voluntary organizations. Face‐to‐face interviews were conducted with 28 women who were members of six different organizations. A semi‐structured interview process was used to elicit their perceptions regarding their (1) involvement in the education of others, (2) learning within the context of performing group membership roles and projects, (3) learning needs, and (4) comparisons of learning in this context with that in more formal educational settings. The findings of the research are discussed in relation to other research on learning in voluntary associations and the workplace. As with other studies of the voluntary association context, respondents did not seem to have given a great deal of prior thought to the nature of their learning within the context, having been more focused on the successful performance of their leadership and service roles than on what is learned from that work. They were none the less able to report numerous examples of how their work helped educate others and how they learned through their experiences. While instances of more systematic non‐formal education (e.g. orientation sessions, lectures and leadership training) were reported, the learning experiences reported more frequently and identified as most valuable seemed to reflect more informal, frequently incidental learning. This significant learning often reflected a perceived change in skills and abilities related to interacting with and working with others toward common goals, or a changing sense of self, in terms of growing self‐confidence and/or sense of connectedness to group members and the community which they sought to serve. Respondents who were quite well educated as a group, nevertheless generally indicated their preferences for the kind of interactive, experiential and situated learning that occurred as an outgrowth of group participation over the more abstract, teacher‐controlled learning they associated with formal education. These findings are discussed in terms of their importance to our understanding of informal learning, particularly that which occurs within the voluntary sector. Exploring this learning in a context specific to African‐American women is also seen as a way of moving beyond the culturally biased sampling often criticized in adult learning research.