Social presence is the feeling of connectedness among learners. In this article, the authors explore the theory and practice related to social practice in online adult learning environments.

As a concept for preparing and promoting adult student success in an undergraduate, Interdisciplinary Studies degree program with an online senior capstone, this article analyzes how the senior capstone serves as the penultimate component in the students' degree completion. To capitalize on student success, academic advisors and faculty members…

Adult learners, including those who are employed at least part-time, have children or other family responsibilities, and are older than 25 years can benefit from the flexibility and convenience of online courses. In community colleges, adult learners enroll in online courses at a higher rate than in-person courses, but their success rates are low,…

College Unbound is a degree-completion college working to ensure all adult learners are valued as scholar-practitioners and have access to a bachelor's degree. As College Unbound has developed over the past decade, they have tried to interrogate what education for the public good means. College Unbound advances the public good inside three…

The "alone together" paradox is a phenomenon that occurs when adults make meaning of their learning in the online environment. By way of being "alone together," the online environment manifests a context for incidental and informal learning.

By mid-March 2020, with COVID-19 infection numbers rising across the United States, in Rapid City, South Dakota, the Career Learning Center of the Black Hills (CLCBH) staff moved quickly to respond to the new needs of CLCBH adult learners. Several areas of need quickly emerged: digital access and digital literacy, i.e., more access to computers…

The purpose of this report is to describe how a teacher utilized technology to teach elderly learners Chinese calligraphy and how they learnt. Before the incidence of COVID-19, six sessions of Chinese calligraphy were conducted in a community services centre for elderly learners in Hong Kong from 9:00am to 5:00pm on a weekday every week, with each…

Online courses are now a significant part of the higher education landscape. Faculty awareness of the needs of the changing population served, the inherent challenges in learning online, and the importance of enhancing student engagement are of paramount importance to successful online course design. Knowledge of theory and research in adult…

Since information and communication technologies were introduced into education, the number of courses delivered in an online or blended learning (OBL) format has increased significantly. However, not all teachers are experienced in teaching in this new digital environment. While various teacher professional development (TPD) models exist, few…

The Washington Social Emotional Learning (SEL) Committee (referred to in this report as "the Committee" and "Committee") was established in 2019 through Senate Bill 5082 (SB 5082) to address the growing body of evidence that shows the need for improving a student's social and emotional competencies which are critical to every…

This paper highlights the design and development process that two academic business librarians employed to create an online toolkit of eLearning supports for business students. After receiving funding from their institution's internal teaching innovation fund, they hired and worked with two eLearning design companies to produce the toolkit. The…

Academically underprepared postsecondary students make up a large proportion of college campuses. Recent estimates indicate that up to 70 percent of incoming students at two-year community colleges and up to 40 percent of incoming students at four-year colleges enroll in developmental courses. There has been some criticism of the effectiveness of…

The history of American higher education has long been dominated by a battle of sustaining innovation. This paper highlights five diverse institutions that are tackling a broad range of problems in their efforts to innovate and sustain: (1) Arizona State University's open-access Global Freshman Academy creates a new pathway into the institution,…

Historically, distance education was designed to connect with people for whom educational experience was otherwise unavailable. While origins of distance education date back to the 19th century, it was around the mid- 1980s that it became well-established in the United States ( Matthews, 1999). Reports note continually steady growth in distance…

With innovations in technology, adult educators can begin to create learning opportunities in very expansive terms. But, innovative, technologically advanced learning environments still benefit from a solid foundation in adult learning theory, instrumental theories like John B. Watson's Behaviorism, Lev Vygotsky's Social Development Theory, Jack…