MDDE 613: Adult Education and Lifelong Learning

Delivery mode: Grouped study using Moodle

Credits: 3 - Elective

Prerequisites: None

Instructor Spring 2012: Deborah Bartlette

Overview

Welcome to MDDE 613, Adult Education and Lifelong Learning, an optional course in Athabasca University's Master of Education in Distance Education Program. MDDE 613. Adult learning has never been higher on the agenda of leading policy makers than at the beginning of the 21st century. The focus of this course will be on mapping the territory of adult learning and investigating the significance of andragogy as unique approach to the education of adults. This course examines debates and controversies around self-directed learning. As well, it explores current thinking on social and collective learning. Emancipatory approaches to adult education and the discourse and practices of the learning society are also explicated. Students are invited to join in on the ongoing conversation about the most lucid ways of thinking about adult learning and the implications for putting ourselves into practice.

 

The course addresses such questions as:

1. What is the essential ingredient that marks adult learning off from other fields of study or disciplines?
   
   
2. Can we integrate the multiplicity of adult learning into a coherent framework?
   
   
3. What do we need to know, be and do as teachers of adults in multiple, varying contexts?
   
   
4. What is the basis for the consuming interest adult educators have for the idea of self-directed learning?
   
   
5. How do theorists execute the conceptual move from individual to social learning theory?
   
   
6. What role does adult learning play in processes enlightenment, empowerment and emancipatory action?
   
   
7. What cultural and institutional changes must be enacted for the vision of the just learning society to be enacted?

By the time you complete this course you should have at least some tentative and some developing answers to these and other questions. However it should be noted that you will not find one overarching model which will account for all adult learning.

Course Objectives

Throughout the course, the following objectives are intended to guide your study:

1. Understand the origins of the discipline of the modern practice of education.
   
   
2. Craft a well reasoned personal mission statement referring to the practice of adult education.
   
   
3. Consider thoughtfully the individual and social dimensions of adult learning.
   
   
4. Take a considered position on the philosophy and practices of self-directed learning.
   
   
5. Understand, and move towards a synthesis, of the different variants of social learning current in the discipline.
   
   
6. Identify different approaches to emancipatory learning, and make strong arguments for a particular variant.
   
   
7. Understand the strengths and weaknesses of the learning society paradigm for our time.

Course Outline

• Unit 1: In Quest of a Map of the Territory
  
  
• Unit 2: Theory Building in Adult Education: Questioning our Grasp of the Obvious
  
  
• Unit 3: The Individual as Learner
  
  
• Unit 4: Social and Collective Learning
  
  
• Unit 5: Dreams of Emancipation
  
  
• Unit 6: From Lifelong Education to the Just Learning Society

Student Evaluation

In this course, the student's final grade will be composed of the following:

Conference Participation	25%
Assignment 1	25%
Assignment 2	25%
Assignment 3	25%
Total	100%

 

Course Materials

• Course Web Site
  
  
• The Study Guide
  
  
• Textbook: Welton, M. (2005). Designing the just learning society: A critical inquiry.
  
  
• Reader: Assigned readings are provide in print format as well as downloadable PDF files or as links to readings located on the Internet. It is suggested that the students read the readings in the order they are listed.

 

 

CDE - Last updated by MM February 06, 2012