Running Head: ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY BY MINYOUNG MOON
Annotated Bibliography
Minyoung Moon
June 24, 2013
EHRD 630 Adult Learning
College of Education and Human Development
Texas A&M University
ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY BY MINYOUNG MOON
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Annotated Bibliography
Chlup, D. T., & Collins, T. E. (2010). Breaking the ice: Using icebreakers and re-energizers
with adult learners. Adult Learning, 21(3), 34-39.
This study contends that having icebreakers and re-energizers by adult educators
will benefit both educators and students by motivating them to engage to educational
materials or activities within classroom settings. The article suggests several examples of
icebreakers and related activities that can directly apply to adult classrooms. Applying
these activities to classrooms will help not only enlarge understandings about designated
learning materials, but also help both instructors and students build a trustworthy
relationship.
Although the study provides numerous practical guidelines for educators, there
should be some examples for online courses as well. The article thoroughly explains ice
breakers and re-energizers in face-to-face settings, but many current classes are being
taught via the Internet like the Adult Learning course at TAMU. Thus, the increasing
numbers of classes will be taught online rather than in traditional face-to-face settings in
the future. For future research on this topic, it would be helpful to consider how
icebreaking activities could be efficiently applied to online courses as well.
Dattilo, A. E. L., Ewart, A., & Dattilo, J. (2012). Learning as leisure: Motivation and
outcome in adult free time learning. Journal of Park and Recreation Administration,
30(1)
The authors assert that there is a high demand for leisure learning such as
gardening, sewing, and playing instruments among adults nowadays. Respectively, this
study states that adults engage more in a variety of non-formal learning settings rather
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than in formal ones. Considering the rapid increase of adults who want to participate in
adult education, educators should focus on developing more leisure learning materials to
meet this demand. Unless adult education is offered for free, it is also educators’ goal to
meet customers’ needs and interests.
The study mainly investigates how adults experience their learning, their leisure,
and a combination of the two. Leisure could foster more substantial personal growth due
to its creativity and pleasure of learning something interesting without much pressure.
That being said, there are high numbers of adult students who want to participate in
leisure learning in their free time. To keep up with this trend, the leisure learning market
will be growing accordingly. However, we need to consider that leisure learning is
limited to people for those who are willing to spend extra time and money. For example,
people who suffer financially in their daily lives may not have much interest on leisure
learning. Hence, adult leisure learning may occur in economically advanced societal
contexts.
Therefore, professionals in adult education should consider what can be done
differently to meet diverse customers’ needs and wants. It will be important to develop
the effective learning materials accordingly. For future research, it is encouraged to
explore what types of leisure learning are conducted depending on people’s economic
status, cross-cultural contexts, and political situations.
Field, J. (2009). Good for your soul? adult learning and mental well‐being. International
Journal of Lifelong Education, 28(2), 175-191.
This study argues that adult learning should be systemically examined for
whether this impacts students’ well-being positively or negatively. The author states that
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many recent research studies confirm adult learning’s clear influence on earnings and
employability. These are some positive effects from adult learning. Although adult
learning brings more positive results, there are some negative results as well.
Unfortunately, there have been fewer research studies on the negative influences of adult
learning. Thus, this study explores the current qualitative data to illustrate some of the
potential negative consequences that decrease people’s well-being.
Generally, learning directly delivers non-cognitive skills such as high self-esteem
and confidence that lead to positive well-being. It is typical to believe that learning
brings joy and a sense of self-achievement. However, this does not mean that everyone
who takes this learning activity will feel happier and better about themselves. In the
study, Field (2009) notes that some people experience anxiety, stress, and frustration
through learning. The author points out that these negative experiences are not
highlighted in the current research. Thus, this article gives different perspectives on adult
learning. Learning mostly gives positive influences on learners. In order to develop more
efficient learning methods, there should be more research on the negative impacts on
learning as well. Reducing these negative factors will lead to positive well-being for
learners.
Heimlich, J. E., & Horr, E. E. T. (2010). Adult learning in free‐choice, environmental settings:
What makes it different? New Directions for Adult and Continuing Education,
2010(127), 57-66.
This study suggests adult educators develop more environmental learning
opportunities to adult learners. According to the authors, environmental education (EE)
is the study of natural earth systems, sustainability, and individual roles in making
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decisions and critical thinking related to environmental literacy and action. EE is a
learning process that increases people’s knowledge and awareness about the environment
and related challenges. The focus is learning more about things in outdoors rather than
indoors.
People’s desire to learn about nature, environmental issues, and relations of these
two are a seamless process. Environmental situation matters a lot during adult learning.
For these individuals, understanding about their environments may influence his or her
decision-making, thoughts, and views. Thus, it could be more significant to learn about
environments beforehand. Through this article, readers could realize new views on adult
learning as this is not solely confined to in-class lessons. The learning opportunities and
styles are varying, and adult educators should support their learners to strive further in
every aspect.
Mezirow, J. (1997). Transformative learning: Theory to practice. New directions for adult
and continuing education, 1997(74), 5-12
The article examines the transformation theory of adult learning and explains the
relationship of transformative learning to autonomous, responsible thinking, and
discusses practical implications for adult educators. The author suggests that learners
build their abilities to interpret their own experiences rather than simply act on the
purposes, beliefs, judgments, and feelings of others. Developing such exercise is one of
the fundamental goals of adult education. Thus, transformative learning develops
autonomous and critical thinking habits.
Transformative learning occurs when critical reflection of assumptions, validating
contested beliefs through discourse, taking action based on one’s reflective insight, and
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critical assessment are performed. From the perspectives of transformation learning
theory, adults form their views or thoughts based on their own interpretations. Therefore,
as future adult learning educators, we need to select appropriate educational practices to
guide learners to achieve various transformative learning goals. In particular, the author
stresses the importance of learning diversity in this ever changing learning environment.
As the world is getting closer day by day, understanding diversity may influence greatly
on the transformational learning outcomes.
Michelson, E. (2011). Autobiography and selfhood in the practice of adult learning. Adult
Education Quarterly, 61(1), 3-21.
Autobiographies are regarded as a useful source for looking back over students’
lives from the past to present and how these have been forming their beliefs and values
throughout their experiences. It is greatly used in adult learning classes as well as its
literatures. Adults are encouraged to review all those experiences that have formed their
present beliefs and knowledge. However, in this article, the author examines the pitfalls
of having these reflections that are produced by unintentional biases or stereotypes. The
author argues that people tend to articulate their notions to a particular kind of human
self, one that is coherent and recognizable in a society. People are hesitant to share their
genuine stories, and they might come up with fictions.
Fiction is opposed to fact. In the adult learning course at TAMU, students were
also required to submit a narrative autobiography that led to our knowledge for the first
assignment. Although autobiographies describe who we are and what we become
through our previous experiences, the results may be influenced by our own
interpretations of what we think it is rather than what it really is. According to the author,
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people unintentionally select what is right or wrong based on the general norms rather
than their own perspectives. Furthermore, people share things that are comfortable to
expose in public. Hence, there could be some fictions when telling their life stories.
As adult learning educators, it will be important to encourage their students to
share genuine experiences without many given thoughts. Telling the life narratives
remain important to practice of adult learning. However, the important thing is helping
students practice those narratives that could be either derived from successes or failures,
satisfying events or unsatisfying ones, and stable or unstable outcomes.
Milheim, K. L. (2011). The role of adult education philosophy in facilitating the online
classroom. Adult Learning, 22(2), 24-31.
The author argues that adult education philosophy is not restricted to a traditional
face-to-face classroom environment. As courses are increasingly taught online,
philosophy needs to inform practice for educators of these programs as well. Online
instructors should find different methods than those used in traditional settings.
Particularly, educators should change their approaches to convey learning materials
differently from the face-to-face courses. For instance, online educators should conduct
proactive communication with their students and build dialogue in written forms.
As adult education continues to develop its theories and research, it is necessary
to notice its relationship to online learning environment. Different approaches or systems
may require preceding the Internet based learning. The article addresses the importance
of being more attentive to students’ diversity factors, such as gender, race, ethnicity, and
culture. The inquiry of online learning will keep increase due to technology development
and flexibility. While observing changes on people’s learning inquiries from offline to
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online, it will be necessary to examine more empirical research linking philosophy to
online learning.
Smith, J. E. (2009). The meaning depends: Learning about me and my learning. Adult
Learning, 20(3), 26-29.
The author states that people experience tensions between self-authorship and
external authority, between dualistic and dialectical thinking, and between a single and
multiple identities. Meanwhile, people develop their own standards to judge or to adapt
to what they perceive, and the constructivism theory applies to this developmental
process.
A constructivist view of meaning making is implicit in people’s reflections.
Constructivism is a theory that explains how knowledge is constructed in the human
being when information comes into contact with existing knowledge that had been
developed through previous experiences.
I believe that adult learning is a continuous discovery process between what they
experience and what they know. Underlying this constructivist view in the meaningmaking process during a learning journey is highly depending on learner’s own choices.
People choose what to believe and what they want to be. Moreover, there will be always
sociocultural filters when people deal with decision making. Therefore, it is encouraged
for learners to experience as many areas as possible to balance their knowledge, values,
and beliefs within the society and themselves.
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Tan, F., Nabb, L., Aagard, S., & Kim, K. (2010). International ESL graduate student
perceptions of online learning in the context of second language acquisition and
culturally responsive facilitation. Adult Learning, 21(1), 9-14.
In this article, the authors content that advancing technology influences on the
way of teaching and delivering information around the world, particularly in higher
education. A virtual learning environment enables students and instructors to share
knowledge and information around the globe. Accordingly, this development of
technology has made international students to pursue their higher degrees via the Internet
sources from the universities in the States. Although there are many English as Second
Language (ESL) students enrolled in American schools, the authors proclaim that there
still are lacks of research studies on ESL students’ perspectives toward the online courses.
The authors conducted a qualitative research by interviewing 7 ESL students in
order to investigate their perceptions of online learning experiences. All the interview
participants agreed that both language and culture differences presented daunting
challenges in online learning situations. For some, these challenges may caused by the
lack of recognition or understanding of cultural differences that eventually prevent from
building a close relationship among the classmates.
In respect to the increasing numbers of online international students, producing
more cultural awareness and culturally responsive education are more required than ever.
This will lead to promote more effective educational practice in light of emphasis on
diversity factors in adult education. For adult educators, they should include several
cultural diversity lesson plans in their classes. Furthermore, applying more audio visual
aids to the class will help to foster more ESL students to improve their language skills.
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Werth, E. P., & Werth, L. (2011). Effective training for millennial students. Adult Learning,
22(3), 12-19.
A generational shift is occurring in our learning environment worldwide, bringing
promises to dramatic and major changes to our traditional learning methods. The authors
state that there are four different generations interacting and working together and they
are: Baby Boomer generation, Generation X, Generation Y, and Millennials. According
to the authors, Millennials are described as a challenging group to recruit and manage as
these individuals think and value independently in every aspect. Having various
generations in a class is now inevitable as the learning accesses and opportunities are
providing equality for people without certain restrictions. Among various generations,
Millennials are the majority in a class. Hence, the authors give guidelines to both
training administrators and educators with concrete suggestions on how to effectively
facilitate the learning of Millennial generation students.
Millennial generation resists formal instruction. Deemphasizing lecture and
making effective use of technology are major recommendations toward refocusing
education for the Millennial learners. Today, students are interested in relationship
building, proactive thinking, and different sources combining ability in a multifaceted
problem solving process. In turn, it might be a challenge for instructors to conduct their
classes with simple and fixed methods. The teaching methods should be varying,
inconsistent, and creative while valuing students’ different skills and expectations.
Trainers or educators alone cannot change the overall educational entities. In all
aspects, instigating changes challenge both educators and learners. It is though clear that
change is happening in our daily lives. An effective learning environment should be
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evolved in respect to changes of leaning generations. To this end, understanding the
Millennial learner is critical to coordinate all these changes around us as they are major
customers in terms of delivering new aspects on learning and education today.