Adult learning remains an important component of educational systems in countries all over the world, particularly because it seeks to explain how adults obtain education through formal, non-formal and informal modes. While many education providers and researchers focus on increasing resource support and the development of the knowledge and skills…

As a foundation for discussing transpersonal adult development, the author traces her trajectory, involvement in, and contribution to the modern transpersonal movement and her introduction of it to the adult learning literature, beginning during the early 1980s. Highlighted are the transpersonal domain and a differentiation between transpersonal…

Taking an autobiographical approach, I tell the story of my experiences facilitating adult development, in a polytechnic and as a management consultant. I relate these to a developmental framework of Modes of Being and Learning that I created and elaborated with colleagues. I connect this picture with a number of related models, theories,…

This article recommends strategies and process tools that teach learners to communicate with peers, observe specific behaviors in group processes, and share and analyze those observations to create increased awareness of their and others' assumptions and behaviors. The authors apply these strategies and tools in ways that make explicit to learners…

This chapter focuses on the use of coaching for adult learners, the specific characteristics adults bring to the learning environment, and strategies for dealing with the obstacles adult learners may face.

This chapter provides an overview of key principles and practices in executive coaching. Coaching is discussed as a reflective learning opportunity and offers the theoretical grounding, strategies, and case studies for each of four key elements of a coaching engagement.

Since the 1980s, educators in adult basic education and special education have speculated that a substantial if unknown percentage of adults have specific learning disabilities (LDs) and have sought to identify and address effectively the needs of these learners. Two rarely intersecting bodies of historical literature on LDs provide the background…

In this article, we examine adult education literature as it relates to all aspects of popular culture. After an extensive literature review we found that, increasingly, adult educators are investigating popular culture's connection with adult education and learning; however, we argue that much more work needs to be done in this area, specifically…

The assumptions of influential adult development models are being questioned: that growth is linear, higher developmental levels are better, all adults want to change and grow, and models based on males apply equally to females. The extent to which knowledge of psychological development is indispensable to practice continues to be debated. (SK)

The most important job description for educators is discovering and providing conditions fostering off-the-chart learning curves for children and adults. At-risk students and educators are those with little possibility of continued learning. Only when schools become communities for adult development, will they become hospitable to student…

Discusses adult individuality and the need to recognize and consider individual differences in adult education. States that the effects of differences experienced over time determine adult value systems. Presents data from author's dissertation study to show one group's value ranges and how no one person can represent the composite data. (MF)

Favors community college recognition of the diversity of potential college students. Argues for research into the major areas and stages of adult development through analysis of individual ego, moral, and intellectual differences in relation to individual orientations toward knowledge, educational practices, and programmatic alternatives. (CM)

Autobiography has generally been recognized for its literary and artistic aspects, and as a result has been largely overlooked as an instructional method in adult and continuing education. This paper argues for a wider use of autobiography in adult and continuing education programs, proposing that autobiography actually encompasses not only the…