This article emphasizes the need for adult educators to adapt to the constantly evolving digital landscape. Traditional methods of professional development (PD) no longer suffice, so PD courses should strive to foster a lifelong learning mindset and encourage a culture of experimentation. The article outlines three strategies for creating an…

Adult education is a field that needs teachers that exhibit social justice dispositions in their classrooms. As the students in these classrooms are predominantly people of color, the teachers who support them in the pursuit of their educational goals need to have a deeper understanding of their culture and backgrounds in order to enable trust and…

Improving the quality of educational programs and the demand for accountability have put the professional development of Extension educators high on Cooperative Extension's agenda. Effective professional development facilitates improved program design and implementation, which, in turn, translates into higher clientele satisfaction. The purpose of…

Adult education is a wide field which is dealing with the educational needs of adult learners from a diversity of groups, including people with special needs, women, refugees and asylum seekers. The aim of this study is to understand and analyse the opinions of the educators regarding their understanding of the participatory video method, the…

Technology integration has significantly influenced the way students access and retain knowledge gained in the classroom (Ahmed, 2016). This is particularly relevant in classrooms for adult learners who engage in continuing education. This paper used a descriptive case study (Yin, 2014) to share how an instructor utilized mobile learning with a…

This article describes the experiences of two graduate faculty members from Indiana University who facilitated two workshops sponsored by Ball State University at Highlander Research and Education Center, one in May of 2013, and another in May of 2014. We describe the history of Participation Training, the program we used to plan and conduct…

The authors describe the training model used to develop proficiency in teaching a culturally-grounded prevention curriculum. Teachers believed it vital to discuss substance use and considered culture and ethnicity central to students' lives, although few had experience teaching prevention curricula. Training effects were evaluated using three…

This issue of the journal, "Seeds of Innovation," focuses on the teacher as learner, on creating successful supportive learning environments for professional growth and development. It draws from experiences of Tennessee adult basic education (ABE) practitioners who participated in the 1993-94 Literacy Trainers Institutes and the 1994-95 Learner…

Staff development continues to be an important but much-debated topic in adult basic education and adult literacy education. Some staff development professionals start with the "deficit" model, in which learners are presumed to be empty vessels to be filled with knowledge. This model ignores the rich and varied experience that practitioners bring…

As part of a project to improve professional development for adult basic and literacy educators in Pennsylvania, a literature review was conducted of studies of professional competencies needed by adult educators. Extensive review of previous studies showed that hundreds of competencies had been identified. Some states also had generated their own…

Technology is the subject of so much attention in education today, first, because of its prevalence; second, because it promises to provide education at lower cost; and third, because technology can help some people to participate more easily in education, to learn more effectively, and to enjoy learning more. Although there are problems connected…

This study focused on the problem of deaf and hard of hearing learners who have very low English literacy levels compared to their ability levels. Participants in the study were deaf and hard of hearing adult learners in the Adult Basic Education Program of the Center on Deafness in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. This mixed urban-rural population had…

An Australian project provided an inservice, team teaching program interspersed with professional development workshops for community-based practitioners in English as a Second Language (ESL) and Adult Literacy and Basic Education (ABLE). The group who participated included four ESL teachers working in community providers and four adult literacy…

This project was conducted to determine whether using videotapes, designed for the purpose of teaching English pronunciation, would improve the pronunciation of English as a second language learners at the Lebanon Adult Education Center in Pennsylvania. The videotapes used were entitled "Perfect English Pronunciation." Learners were…

This Teaching Adult Learners Kit (TALKit) is an inservice "cafeteria" that offers many choices to the workshop planner/facilitator. The core of the kit is a series of structured workshop activities designed to help teachers build a teaching foundation--a working philosophy for adult education. Activities focus on three areas: the philosophy of…