Graduate students seeking certification as literacy specialists were asked to send monthly newsletters home with their students as a requirement for one of their courses. They were also asked to critically examine their newsletters, to discuss the impact, if any, it made on their relationships with parents, and to reflect on the experience. This…

The 2010 International Pre-Conference of the Commission on International Adult Education (CIAE), American Association for Adult & Continuing (AAACE), was successfully conducted from October 24-26, at the Hilton Clearwater Beach Resort, Clearwater Beach, Florida. This publication includes the papers presented during the conference. These are:…

Increasing diversity and linguistics complexity in classrooms is occurring in schools throughout the world. Bilingual teachers need to develop knowledge and skills to succees in teaching diverse students. Demographic shifts are bringing increasing numbers of international students from diverse racial, ethnic, religious, class, and linguistic…

Without teacher change, a successful educational reform is either incidental or superficial. Therefore, it is very important to understand the nature of teacher change for science educators. Mezirow's transformation theory, a constructivist theory, provides a theoretical basis for both teacher learning and teacher change. This paper presents an…

Chormmunity is a group's collaborative, embodied text-making. It explores interfacings of intention, metaphor, empowerment, inspiration, vision, negotiation, collusion, the propositional, the practical, the experiential, the presentational, the tacit, the sociological, the psychological, epistemology, methodology, and ontology. Chormmunity is…

A participatory action research study of male former tradeworkers studying to be teachers showed how their cultural ideology of toughness, racism, and sexism was moderated through reflection on culturally specific narratives that influenced a transformation in cultural beliefs and practices. (SK)

Discussion of women as adult learners focuses on the adult learning theory of transformational learning as a framework to examine how women develop their careers, especially technology-related careers. Highlights include the role of voice; pathways of women's careers; gender and technology career issues; minority women; and suggestions for…

Autobiography is the imaginative construction of one's life story and the creative expression of lifelong transformative learning. Its use in studying adult transformation raises political and ethical questions and concerns about qualitative methods; it demonstrates the usefulness of conversation as a research process. (SK)

From interviews with 12 U.S. adults who successfully lived in another culture emerged a model of the learning process for intercultural competence. Its components are setting the stage (learning readiness), cultural disequilibrium, cognitive orientation (reflective/nonreflective), learning strategies (observer, participant, friend), and evolving…

Mezirow's concept of perspective transformation (PT) is criticized for considering examples of socially expected development as instances of PT. Individual development is both social and psychological, and PT is best considered as a developmental shift (a new world view) rather than developmental progress. (SK)

Nursing students' exposure to transformative learning is compared to Alice's adventures in"Wonderland". Teaching strategies that encourage critical reflection and discussion, questioning of the status quo, and understanding of one's own and others' world view are recommended. (SK)

In a history class, students typically listen to the teacher lecture, read from their textbook, then take a test. Although they may sometimes be required to memorize information or read stories about historical events and people, they rarely work with other students, use original documents, write term papers, or discuss the significance of what…

The purpose of this paper is to explore the journey of the scholarship student as he or she becomes a responsible scholar. We present three narratives, each one providing a different lens through which we view the journey of the scholarship student. We use transformative learning (as expounded by Mezirow) as a framework to discuss this transition,…

This paper describes a project designed for college students unlikely to participate in international exchange programs but who, nonetheless, can learn much about intercultural communication through available resources in their own communities. The project involved a mentoring program between third and fourth year university students and first and…

Elementary and secondary school teachers certainly know that assessment is like a mirror. What their students learn reflects back on them. However, there is often a disconnect between student and faculty assessment in higher education. While all professors take responsibility for creating and disseminating knowledge, most do not like to be held…