Altilab2005 - Distance Education Blog

Dianne Conrad and Bruce Spencer – Distance Education Online: A forum for Adult Education?

Can distance education in its current online form serve the social purposes of adult education that demand authenticity, openness, critical thinking, purposeful and respectful reflection, and the promotion of participative democracy and citizenship? With the advent of collaborative online learning, distance education has moved from individualized and often isolated study to dynamic, interactive exchanges that, properly facilitated, encourage knowledge building, teamwork, and communication skills. The groundwork has been laid for social purpose educational practices and outcomes.

Current distance education emphasizes social, communication-based, and constructivist learning… The creation of community simulates for online learners the comforts of home and provides a safe climate, an atmosphere of trust and respect, and invitation for intellectual exchange, and a gathering place for like-minded individuals who are sharing a journey that includes similar activities, purpose, and goals.

Geoff Peruniak and Rick Powell – Coming to Terms with Prior Learning Assessment

PLA concerns informal learning; that is, learning not formerly attested to by an accredited educational institution. PLA is a means by which informal and nonformal learning can be recognized by accredited programs of study. …

There is certainly a constituency within the Canadian academic community that is fundamentally opposed to PLA. They have argued that university-led learning can take place only in a classroom and when taught by an academic. Although this school of thought is undoubtedly a barrier to the acceptance of PLA, it is probably not critical because a number of respected Canadian universities have formally acknowledged PLA as legitimate – at least in principle. A much more serious barrier is the challenge of PLA to academics’ notions of their educational role – even those who might accept PLA in principle.

Academics have traditionally viewed their educational roles of teaching and student assessment as an organic whole. The acceptance of PLA as an integral practice rather than a marginal practice means unpacking these educational functions. The discomfort of academics is understandable. A necessary but usually tiresome and unrewarding aspect of their university roles now comes to the forefront. Moreover, one must attest to what one has not taught.

In a conventional university setting,  formal course learning objective and expectations are not usually needed. They are implied by the course syllabi and reinforced through the process of classroom instruction. Indeed academics’ take on course objectives may undergo change as a result of the classroom experience. Formalizing course objectives and learning expectations has not traditionally been emphasized. Also, some forms of PLA (e.g., portfolio-based) are assessed by panels: Collective assessment is a foreign experience to most academics. When PLA becomes an integral, rather than a marginal, practice for assessment and attestation, it extends beyond the comfort zone of even the most sympathetic academics.

Allan Quigley – What Does It Mean to Be a “Professional”? The Challenges of Professionalization for Adult Literacy and Basic Education

Schon (1983) found that the world’s top professionals were not necessarily those with the most prestigious certificates, but that the best-of-the-best had truly mastered ways to learn from all aspects of practice. The could critically reflect on what they had learned through their own experience, from the literature, and from others; and the could internalize both theory and practice into their current work. Schon argued for practitioner critical reflection. No external list of requirements will force striving for excellence; no standardization will force professionalization. The energy for literacy professionalism needs to be placed in enhancing what we do well now. This can be seen as a praxis approach and is suggested as a way forward.

Schon, D. (1983). The reflective practitioner: How professionals think in action. New York: Basic Books. 

Mohamed Hrimech & Nicole Tremblay – Training of Adult Educators in Quebec

The right to education for all has yet to be recognized for adults, and the means to implement it are scarce. The fight for this right is far from being on the agenda in today’s social and economic context. Cruikshank (1998) suggested that adult educators who still believe in adult education in terms of social justice must be alert to the dangers of this new reality of corporate training. Today’s globalization, combined with the development of distance education and an increasingly present virtual world brings its share of upheavals to the customary training of adult educators. How relevant are our lengthy graduate programs with all their academic and time constraints when the clientele is increasingly made of learner-consumers who are used to quick changes, on the lookout for tailor-made, small, and fast courses. One wonders whether our universities have responded quickly enough compared to private training services for adult educators. Competition is great from private consultation companies, internal training departments, and professional colleges that provide their own continuing education to their members and training to instructors. Consider the many catalogues of seminars and workshops published by private training organizations. Moreover, their training is often offered on very appealing and fairly informal premises.

Cruikshank, J. (1998). Are we aiding the enemy? Adult education in the global economy. Canadian Journal of University Continuing Education, 24(1), 101-113.

Denis Haughey – Not Waving But Drowning: Canadian University Extension for Social change Revisited

Edwards and Miller (2000), in looking at issues in contemporary adult education and lifelong learning, also reinforced the crucial point that in lifelong learning greater emphasis is placed upon learner control and what goes on outside the educational institution; thus, placing boundaries around that learning and creating spaces for learning in the face of other demands becomes problematic. Learning can be adopted as part of lifestyle rather than arising from a need for enlightenment. Foley (2001) pointed out that extremely vital and comprehensive learning and teaching for social purposes is taking place not only in educational institutions, but in the workplace, families, communities, the mass media, and social movements. Increasingly, the new terrain is outside of the formal university setting and requires a new understanding of the role of the adult educator.

Edwards, R. and Miller, N. (2000). Go your own way: Lifelong learning and reflexive autobiographies in postmodernity. International Journal of Lifelong Education, 19(2), 126-140.

Foley, G. (2001). Radical adult education and learning. International Journal of Lifelong Education, 20(1/2), 71-88.

Maurice Taylor & Adrian Blunt – Towards a Canadian Research Culture in Adult Literacy Learning

Two dialogical problems persist to shape and define the culture and common spaces occupied by literacy researchers. Dialogism, according to Bakhtin (1981), is the occurence of opposing positions among social actors, positions that are permanently irresolvable; they are foundational positions that are self-affirming and sustain resistance to the positions of others. The first dialogical problem is the difference in priorities between practitioner-researchers in the field and researchers in the academe. Typically practitioners value most highly research that focuses directly on the problems that they encounter in their daily work. They tend to see concrete solutions to improve practice; that is, strategies to enhance the effectiveness of instruction and the achievement of community program and individual learners’ goals. Although academic researchers may espouse similar pragmatic outcomes for their research, as social scientists they must also use abstractions of reality to develop theory, seek conceptual understandings that will allow research findings to be extended beyond micro-level concerns, and seek understandings and findings to inform policy and program development at the macro-societal level.

The second sphere of dialogism is apparent in discourses on the purposes and valuing of adult literacy education in society. On one hand, literacy is highly valued and resources are provided for homo economicus, “an actor whose salient criterion is an economic calculus, and who is educated for productive roles in the commercial world” (Blunt, 2001, p. 103). On the other hand, resources are withheld and literacy education is not provided for homo literatus, “an actor who thinks as a person-in-the-community,  … [with] multiple roles in society, [who values] person-within-the community relations, and … [who acts] to meet valued labour market demands” (p. 103).

Both dialogisms demonstrate how social practices in literacy work are linked to ideological positions, which in turn are linked to social sites and communities. The metaphor of a mosaic to describe the culture of research is as valid and problematic for the field as it is a national metaphor to describe and construct Canadian national identity and social cohesion.

Bakhtin, M. (1981). The dialogic imagination (C. Emerson and M. Holquist, Trans.). Austin, TX; University of Texas Press.

Blunt, A. (2001). Workplace literacy: The contested terrains of policy and practice. In M.C. Taylor (Ed.), Adult literacy now (pp. 89-108). Toronto, ON: Irwin.

Shahrzad Mojab – Adult Education Without Borders

We live in a very troubled world: The conditions that sustain life, both human and non-human, are seriously deteriorating; human beings, or rather small sections of them, have created conditions that disrupt the ability of living beings on the planet to reproduce the conditions of their (co)existence. The modern institutions of  the market and nation together with institutions such as patriarchy, state, and religion are at work in creating these conditions. The ever-growing rule of the capitalist market – globalization – destroys borders but creates new boundaries that sharply divide the world’s haves and have-nots. If this characterization of the our world is accurate, the most urgent question for us would be the role of adult education. If we indeed witness a serious turn in the history of the world, how do we envisage adult education?