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Developing a case-based experiential learning model at a program level in a regional university : reflections on the developmental process

- Patil, Tejaswini, Hunt, Michelle, Cooper, Kimberlea, Townsend, Rob

  • Authors: Patil, Tejaswini , Hunt, Michelle , Cooper, Kimberlea , Townsend, Rob
  • Date: 2020
  • Type: Text , Journal article
  • Relation: Australian Journal of Adult Learning Vol. 60, no. 2 (2020), p. 225-244
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  • Description: This article reflects on the developmental process of a case-based experiential learning model: the Federation University model, in an undergraduate community and human services program at a regional university. There is abundant literature that addresses the use and need for introducing experiential learning at the subject/unit level in community and human services/social work content. However, despite the expansion of research on experiential learning, there is limited literature that bridges the gap between course/program level teaching philosophy and using experiential learning activities in individual subjects. The article will demonstrate how Kolb’s four stage cycle (Kolb, 1984) and case-based experiential learning were integrated to develop curriculum at a program level. It will also demonstrate how a move to experiential learning facilitated better alignment with face-to-face and online learning. As a way of argument, we suggest that case-based experiential learning is very relevant and useful to human services/ social work education because of its emphasis on bridging the theory and praxis nexus and providing graduates with an opportunity to work effectively in a complex, fluid and ever-changing sector. © 2020, Adult Learning Australia. All rights reserved.

Promoting quality learning and teaching pedagogy : evaluating a targeted localised academic induction program (AIP) for the impact on continuing professional development

- Weuffen, Sara, Andrews, Tulsa, Roberts, Kate

  • Authors: Weuffen, Sara , Andrews, Tulsa , Roberts, Kate
  • Date: 2020
  • Type: Text , Journal article
  • Relation: Australian Journal of Adult Learning Vol. 60, no. 2 (2020), p. 245-267
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  • Description: Despite their position as providers of tertiary education, universities sit beyond normalised discourses of education where qualifications, registration, and continuing professional development are concerned. In this case study, we explore how participation in an academic induction program (AIP) builds foundational andragogy knowledge and skills and fosters individual commitment to continuing professional development (PD) for the critical engagement, maintenance, and enhancement of quality teaching practices. Through a poststructuralist lens, we gathered triangulated evidence via surveys (n=32) and attendance data (n=190). Our findings indicate a positive correlation between AIP attendance and initial PD engagement but identifies a 35% decline in PD uptake six-month post-AIP. Survey responses indicate that while an AIP is a valuable tool for prompting initial engagement in learning and teaching PD, the role and function of teaching within universities needs to be elevated in order to support a career-long commitment to academic enhancement. © 2020, Adult Learning Australia. All rights reserved.

Learning to be drier : A case study of adult and community learning in the Australian Riverland

- Brown, Michael, Schulz, Christine

  • Authors: Brown, Michael , Schulz, Christine
  • Date: 2009
  • Type: Text , Journal article
  • Relation: Australian Journal of Adult Learning Vol. 49, no. 3 (2009), p. 497-519
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  • Description: This article explores the adult and Community learning associated with 'learning to be drier' in the Riverland region of South Australia. Communities in the Riverland are currently adjusting and making changes to their understandings and practices as part of learning to live with less water. The analysis of adult and community learning derived from this research identified six different forms of learning. These are, learning to produce, learning to be efficient, learning to survive, learning to live with uncertainty, learning to be sustainable and learning to share. These forms of learning do not occur in isolation and separately from each other but to the contrary are occurring simultaneously with and alongside each other. Further, it is argued that the people and communities in the Riverland, through learning to live with the effects of climate change and less water, are at the forefront of learning to be drier.

Getting serious: The national ‘vision splendid’ for adult education 60 years on

- Golding, Barry

  • Authors: Golding, Barry
  • Date: 2020
  • Type: Text , Journal article
  • Relation: Australian Journal of Adult Learning Vol. 60, no. 3 (2020), p. 365-398
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  • Description: This paper poses three research questions, based primarily on evidence from six decades of the Australian Journal of Adult Education (AJAL, 2000-present) and its antecedent journals dating back to 1961. Firstly, it asks what was the context for establishing a national adult learning association, Australian Association of Adult Education (AAAE) in 1960, renamed the Australian Association for Adult and Community Education (AACE) in 1989, and Adult Learning Australia (ALA) in 1998? Secondly, it asks how the association, the research in its journals and the field of adult education adapted to the rapidly changing context, opportunities and needs for lifelong learning in Australia? In doing so, the paper critically examines evidence of ongoing tensions and difficulties delivering on ALA’s 2020 vision of ‘lifelong and lifewide learning for all Australians’. It also asks what the current situation is for Australian adult education, and what possible new courses for the future ALA and AJAL might take. The first two research questions are addressed in the body of this paper. The third question is addressed primarily within the Discussion. © 2020, Adult Learning Australia. All rights reserved.

Learning to be drier in dryland country

- Smith, Erica, Campbell, Coral

  • Authors: Smith, Erica , Campbell, Coral
  • Date: 2009
  • Type: Text , Journal article
  • Relation: Australian Journal of Adult Learning Vol. 49, no. 3 (2009), p. 520-543
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  • Description: This research project, part of a much larger study, considered how people in regional communities learnt to deal with the impact of reduced water availability as a result of drought or climate change. The communities in the Mallee-Wimmera region of Victoria, Australia, were the focus of this study and a range of local people from different sectors of the communities were involved in interviews, which became our main data source. We recognise the limitation that not all viewpoints could possibly be accessed in the participant selection process. The resultant data indicated that significant changes were being made to local practices as a result of the learning taking place and that there were a range of processes which enabled adult learning across the communities.
  • Description: 2003007933

Bearing the risk : Learning to be drier mid-river

- Golding, Barry, Angwin, Jennifer

  • Authors: Golding, Barry , Angwin, Jennifer
  • Date: 2009
  • Type: Text , Journal article
  • Relation: Australian Journal of Adult Learning Vol. 49, no. 3 (2009), p. 472-496
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  • Description: This paper investigates learning related to the phenomena of drying over the past decade in the southern Murray-Darling Basin in Australia, as perceived in a mid-river site within the western Riverina of New South Wales, Australia. The insights from audio-recorded interviews, with a wide range of adults across the water-dependent community, mostly relate to the catchment of the Murrumbidgee River in the Shire of Hay. Our overarching theme is about how people are learning about, understanding and bearing the risks, of what is widely regarded as a prolonged drought. For some, the learning is about how to cope with less water in the Basin, and particularly from the river, as predicted in the climate change literature. Our narrative-based, empirical research registers the felt experience of those located, in situ, as a severe 'irrigation drought' extends into 2009. The paper dramatises the many obstacles to learning how to think and act differently, in difficult and rapidly changing ecosocial circumstances.
  • Description: 2003007973

Learning to be drier in the southern Murray-Darling Basin : Setting the scene for this research volume

- Golding, Barry, Campbell, Coral

Water, weeds and autumn leaves : Learning to be drier in the Alpine region

- Foley, Annette, Grace, Lauri

  • Authors: Foley, Annette , Grace, Lauri
  • Date: 2009
  • Type: Text , Journal article
  • Relation: Australian Journal of Adult Learning Vol. 49, no. 3 (2009), p. 451-471
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  • Description: Our paper explores how and what adults living and working in the Alpine region of Victoria understand and are learning about the changes to water availability, in a time when the response to water availability is subject to extensive debate and policy attention. Interviews for this study were conducted in the towns of Bright and Mount Beauty, with participants drawn from across the Alpine region. The interviews focused on what local stakeholders from the Alpine region understood about water availability in the region and how and what they had learned about living and working with climatic changes in their local area. The findings of our study see that there was evidence of a strong understanding of the direct and indirect impact of climate change oil participants' local community area. The study also sees evidence of learning through a community frames of reference' as outlined by Berkhout, Hertin and Dann et al.
  • Description: 2003007972

Wicked learning : Reflecting on Learning to be drier

- Golding, Barry, Brown, Michael, Foley, Annette, Smith, Erica, Campbell, Coral, Schulz, Christine, Angwin, Jennifer, Grace, Lauri

  • Authors: Golding, Barry , Brown, Michael , Foley, Annette , Smith, Erica , Campbell, Coral , Schulz, Christine , Angwin, Jennifer , Grace, Lauri
  • Date: 2009
  • Type: Text , Journal article
  • Relation: Australian Journal of Adult Learning Vol. 49, no. 3 (2009), p. 544-566
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  • Description: In this final, collaborative paper in the Learning to be drier edition, we reflect on and draw together some of the key threads from the diverse narratives in our four site papers from across the southern Murray-Darling Basin. Our paper title, Wicked learning, draws on a recent body literature (Rittel & Webber 1973) about messy or 'wicked problems' as characterised by Dietz and Stern (1998). It picks up on our identification of the difficulty and enormity of the learning challenges being faced by communities, associated, at best, with a decade of record dry years (drought) and severely over-committed rivers. At worst, drought is occurring in combination with and as a precursor to recent, progressive drying of the Basin associated with climate change. Our research is suggestive of a need for much more learning across all segments of the adult community about '... the big picture, including the interrelationships among the full range of causal factors ...' (Australian Public Service Commission, APSC 2007: 1) underlying the presenting problem of drying. We conclude that solutions to the messy or wicked problem of drying in an interconnected Basin will lie in the social domain. This will include building a wider knowledge and acceptance of the problems and likely future risks across the Basin including all parts of communities. The problem of drying as well as its causes and solutions are multidimensional, and will involve comprehensive learning about all five key characteristics of other 'wicked' policy problems identified in previous research in the environmental arena. The narratives that we have heard identify the extreme difficulty in all four sites of rational and learned responses to being drier as the problem has unfolded. All narratives about being drier that we have heard involve a recognition of a combination of the five characteristics common to wicked problems: multidimensionality, scientific uncertainty, value conflict and uncertainty, mistrust as well as urgency. All narratives identify the importance of social learning: to be productive, to be efficient, to survive, to live with uncertainty, to be sustainable and to share. Combating the extent and effects of drying, causality aside, will require new forms of learning through new community, social and learning spaces, apart from and in addition to new technological and scientific learning.
  • Description: 2003007975

Horse talk : Equine based learning programs and their engagement with individuals

- Townsend, Rob, Hood, Michelle

  • Authors: Townsend, Rob , Hood, Michelle
  • Date: 2019
  • Type: Text , Journal article
  • Relation: Australian Journal of Adult Learning Vol. 59, no. 2 (2019), p. 254-268
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  • Description: Studies about equine therapies or equine experiential learning recommend that significantly more research, specifically longitudinal research, across age groups, genders, contexts and client cohorts needs to occur in diverse contexts. There exists diverse equine-related programs which engage with a range of cohorts, specifically; young children who have experienced abuse; adolescents who have experienced abuse and family violence and adults who have experienced family violence, psychiatric disorders, social anxiety and social isolation. The most common outcomes from the equine learning program studied for this article, from the case-studies and the thematic analysis includes; behavioural changes, stress relief, mind and body awareness and control, forming a relationship with an intuitive practitioner, guided meditations as a means of creating independent meditation techniques and re-engagement with education, work, friendships and family relationships. The mind-body awareness that is gained by participants of the program provides skills and techniques for individuals (and families) to utilise in every-day, with lifelong learning a crucial aspect of the program.

Literacy and language policies in Australia

- Golding, Barry, Thompson, Sally

  • Authors: Golding, Barry , Thompson, Sally
  • Date: 2014
  • Type: Text , Conference paper
  • Relation: International Conference on the Methods and Applications of Research on Literacy p. 1-18
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  • Description: Australia faces a complex, intertwined set of language and literacy issues. Combined with emerging contextual issues, these issues affect access to education and employment for many Australian adults. In this paper, we identify and examine six such intertwined issues. Two of these issues are mainly related to language, specifically for Indigenous Australians and non-‐English-‐speaking migrants and refugees. One of the issues relates to the impact of very low literacy rates for rural and regional Australians, particularly as they age and withdraw from the paid workforce. The other three issues are contextual, including the deliberate swing away from public education towards ‘the market’, the surprisingly low average literacy levels of some Australian adults, and the elevated and increasing levels of youth unemployment. Our paper provides evidence and arguments for much more recognition of and attention to the issues of language and literacy in Australian public policy, research, programs and funding, not only in education but also in many other fields in which language and literacy acquisition and proficiency determine people’s life choices, chances and outcomes. This includes opportunities for more positively embracing and building Australia’s existing multiculturalism.

Constructing narratives in later life : Autoethnography beyond the academy

- Golding, Barry, Foley, Annette

  • Authors: Golding, Barry , Foley, Annette
  • Date: 2017
  • Type: Text , Journal article
  • Relation: Australian Journal of Adult Learning Vol. 57, no. 3 (2017), p. 384-400
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  • Description: Learning through life experiences as distinct from learning through the academy and courses have become increasingly important themes in later life adult education research and practice. Whilst the dominant discourse for most younger people is still about education and training for students in standardised and accredited courses, there is increasing concern to find ways of giving voice to empower people otherwise excluded, disempowered or missing from mainstream education, learning, research and the community. This paper specifically explores and actively mirrors ways of using techniques developed through academic autoethnography to empower older people to share and make sense of the lives they have lived by exploring some of the unexamined assumptions that govern everyday life, behaviour and decision making including in the many, often very informal contexts well beyond educational institutions, the academy and paid work. In essence, like autoethnography, our paper seeks to identify, interrogate and celebrate ways of revealing and displaying multiple layers of consciousness connecting the personal to the cultural for sharing and celebrating diversity in later life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] Copyright of Australian Journal of Adult Learning is the property of Copyright Agency Limited and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Community learning through adversity and disaster : an Australian case study of rural adaptation and resilience beyond paid work

- Golding, Barry, Foley, Annette, Weadon, Helen

  • Authors: Golding, Barry , Foley, Annette , Weadon, Helen
  • Date: 2020
  • Type: Text , Journal article
  • Relation: Australian Journal of Adult Learning Vol. 60, no. 3 (2020), p. 515-537
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  • Description: Our paper uses a qualitative, case study approach to critically examine the role of community involvement in learning to adapt and develop resilience in the face of disaster. Within a decade, the already disadvantaged, small, Australian rural community of ‘Bellbird’ faced three catastrophic, human induced disasters: the Millennial Drought (1996 to 2010), a March 2013 bushfire and the COVID-19 epidemic of 2020. Our interviews were conducted during late 2019 and early 2020 with men and women shedders as well as their significant others in the usually vibrant and unusually gender inclusive ‘Bellbird Men’s Shed’. For at least six months following the interviews, the Bellbird Men’s Shed was shut as a consequence of the COVID-19 lockdowns. We opportunistically reflect on the data from our interviews and emerging literature on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic to critically interrogate the role local community learning plays in responding to and developing resilience in the face of locally experienced global disasters. We conclude that Bellbird is a good example of a small, rural community where formal, top down decision making approaches to adult and community education in 2020 in Australia are sometimes impossible or inappropriate. Bellbird in effect exercised agency to create its unique, place and needs-based form of lifelong and lifewide learning ‘bottom up’ at its atypical community Men’s Shed. The practices and commitments the Shed adopted have provided the community with opportunities for developing personal and collective wellbeing and the necessary resilience for adapting to likely future shocks. © 2020, Adult Learning Australia. All rights reserved.
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