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I have collected the following articles about adult education. The
articles will provide a thorough understanding of adult education
History of Adult Education:
?The idea of ?adult? education really developed only after the
schooling of children and adolescents became more formal. European
society had to become less elitist before large groups of young people
could be educated. It took more than weakening the class system,
though, to bring education to large numbers of people. Again, as with
the monasteries, religion played a big part. In fact, it was a monk,
Martin Luther, who in the 15 the century started a movement in
opposition to the Catholic Church that indirectly gave adult education
a huge push. The leaders of Luther?s Protestant Movement believed that
human beings did not need priests to act as go-betweens with God;
adults had the mental and moral abilities to deal with God themselves.
But, to do so they would have to understand the Bible, and to
understand the Bible they needed to know how to read!?
Aside from understanding the Bible, adult education was also used for
non-english speaking immigrants so that they can be more effective
citizens in America.
?Many new immigrants were coming from countries with strongly classed
systems, countries with kings, queens, or dictators, for example. The
thinking was (and still is!) that if these newcomers were going to be
effective ?Americans? ? that is, people who would vote and be directly
involved in other ways with government ? then they would need to know
how the system works.?
?Few people know that in the late 1800s and early 1900s, there were
thousands of adult education centers called ?lyceums? (named after
Plato?s first school in Ancient Greece) across the country. Nearly
every town had one, mostly halls with benches and a lectern. Farmers
and merchants flooded in to hear lectures from local experts or
traveling speakers..?
?It took more than religion and politics are not the only forces that
have fueled the steady growth of adult education. Economics has played
a very large part, too. As the United States became more
industrialized at the turn of the century, business leaders recognized
their need for literate workers.?
?Today, we are the beneficiaries of some powerful federal laws: the
Economic Opportunity Act of 1964, the Adult Education Act of 1966, and
the National Literacy Act of 1991.?
?A Short History of Adult Basic Education?
http://www.floridatechnet.org/inservice/abe/history.pdf
?The Federal government has been involved in adult education for well
over 200 years. The nature and extent of Federal attention to the
needs of adult learners has varied over this period, but, from its
earliest days, the government provided funds to establish, encourage,
and expand programs to assist adults in overcoming educational
deficiencies which would hinder productive and responsible
participation in the life and growth of the nation.?
?However, it was not until the early 1960?s, in the Kennedy
administration that poverty and adult literacy became a concern.
Building on Kennedy?s efforts, President Lyndon Johnson and a
sympathetic Congress launched a series of programs to end poverty and
increase the role of the Federal government toward the improvement of
education. With the passage of the Economic Opportunity Act (August
20, 1964), Title II B of Public Law 88-452 created the first Adult
Basic Education program as a state grant.?
?History of the Adult Education Act?
http://www.naepdc.org/issues/AEAHistort.htm
?Milestones in the History of Adult Education: Learning As a Way of Becoming Free?
http://www.nl.edu/ace/Resources/Documents/Klonsky.html
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The Concept Adult Education:
Concept:
Adult learning Theories:
a. Self-Directed Learning
?Self-directed learning focuses on the process by which adults take
control of their own learning, in particular how they set their own
learning goals, locate appropriate resources, decide on which learning
methods to use and evaluate their progress. Work on self-direction is
now so widespread that it justifies an annual international symposium
devoted solely to research and theory in the area.?
?A number of important questions remain regarding our understanding of
self-direction as a defining concept for adult learning. For example,
the cross-cultural dimension of the concept has been almost completely
ignored. More longitudinal and life history research is needed to
understand how periods of self-directedness alternate with more
traditional forms of educational participation in adults'
autobiographies as learners. Recent work on gender has criticised the
ideal of the independent, self-directed learner as reflecting
patriarchial values of division, separation and competition. The
extent to which a disposition to self-directedness is culturally
learned, or is tied to personality, is an open issue. We are still
struggling to understand how various factors - the adult's previous
experiences, the nature of the learning task and domain involved, the
political ethos of the time - affect the decision to learn in this
manner.?
b.) Critical Thinking
?Developing critical reflection is probably the idea of the decade for
many adult educators who have long been searching for a form and
process of learning that could be claimed to be distinctively adult.
Evidence that adults are capable of this kind of learning can be found
in developmental psychology, where a host of constructs such as
embedded logic, dialectical thinking, working intelligence, reflective
judgment, post-formal reasoning and epistemic cognition describe how
adults come to think contextually and critically (Brookfield, 1987,
1991).?
?The most important work in this area is that of Mezirow (1991).
Mezirow's early work (conducted with women returning to higher
education) focused on the idea of perspective transformation which he
understood as the learning process by which adults come to recognize
and re-frame their culturally induced dependency roles and
relationships. More recently he has drawn strongly on the work of
Jurgen Habermas to propose a theory of transformative learning "that
can explain how adult learners make sense or meaning of their
experiences, the nature of the structures that influence the way they
construe experience, the dynamics involved in modifying meanings, and
the way the structures of meaning themselves undergo changes when
learners find them to be dysfunctional" (Mezirow, 1991, p.xii).?
c. Experiential Learning
?The emphasis on experience as a defining feature of adult learning
was expressed in Lindeman's frequently quoted aphorism that
"experience is the adult learner's living textbook" (1926, p. 7) and
that adult education was, therefore, "a continuing process of
evaluating experiences" (p. 85). This emphasis on experience is
central to the concept of andragogy that has evolved to describe adult
education practice in societies as diverse as the United States,
Britain, France, Hungary, Poland, Russia, Estonia, Czechkoslovakia,
Finland and Yugoslavia (Savicevic 1991; Vooglaid and Marja, 1992). The
belief that adult teaching should be grounded in adults' experiences,
and that these experiences represent a valuable resource, is currently
cited as crucial by adult educators of every conceivable ideological
hue.?
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How Adults Learn:
?Adults are autonomous and self-directed. They need to be free to
direct themselves. Their teachers must actively involve adult
participants in the learning process and serve as facilitators for
them. Specifically, they must get participants' perspectives about
what topics to cover and let them work on projects that reflect their
interests.?
?Adults have accumulated a foundation of life experiences and
knowledge that may include work-related activities, family
responsibilities, and previous education. They need to connect
learning to this knowledge/experience base.?
?Adults are goal-oriented. Upon enrolling in a course, they usually
know what goal they want to attain. They, therefore, appreciate an
educational program that is organized and has clearly defined
elements.?
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Objectives of Adult Learning:
a.) According to experts there are two objectives for adult education.
i.) Compensational Function ? This either for completion of unfinished
education or additional training for career advancement.
ii.) Further Continual Education ? for acquiring new knowledge and skills.
?Adult Education? (Page 2)
http://www.see-educoop.net/education_in/pdf/bela_knjiga-10-cro-enl-t02.pdf
b.) Patterns in Adult Learning:
?Adult learners tend to expect learning to be delivered in a
traditional, teacher-led way, and to expect the faculty member to do
the ?work? of the learning. The adult learner is there to absorb the
learning.?
?Adult learners who tend to undertake a project on their own (as
opposed to being assigned the project) do so with the purpose of
solving a problem, or applying the information right away, as opposed
to learning a new subject for the sake of learning it.?
?Motivation for adult learners in education tends to come from a need
to fill a professional gap or a direction from superiors.?
?Adult learners tend to rely on colleagues or friends who may also be
experts in their professional field for advice when seeking advice on
learning or embarking on a new educational venture.?
?Adult learners tend to appreciate ? and continue learning ? in
courses where they feel they have a significant contribution to make
to the discussion, and that their contributions are acknowledged and
appreciated by the group as a whole.?
?Patterns in Adult Learning?
http://adulted.about.com/cs/learningtheory/a/lrng_patterns_2.htm
c. Motivation for learning
?Adults seek out learning experiences in order to cope with specific
life-changing events--e.g., marriage, divorce, a new job, a promotion,
being fired, retiring, losing a loved one, moving to a new city.?
?Adults are generally willing to engage in learning experiences
before, after, or even during the actual life change event. Once
convinced that the change is a certainty, adults will engage in any
learning that promises to help them cope with the transition.?
?Increasing or maintaining one's sense of self-esteem and pleasure are
strong secondary motivators for engaging in learning experiences.?
?Adults are generally willing to engage in learning experiences
before, after, or even during the actual life change event. Once
convinced that the change is a certainty, adults will engage in any
learning that promises to help them cope with the transition.?
?30 THINGS WE KNOW FOR SURE ABOUT ADULT LEARNING?
http://www.hcc.hawaii.edu/intranet/committees/FacDevCom/guidebk/teachtip/adults-3.htm
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