ICEL 1996 - Papers & Workshops
5th International Conference (Cape Town, South Africa)
Index of Presenters
Listed in author alphabetical order. Click on any of the links below.
The numbers in brackets (e.g. P 17.1 or W8) to be found in the abstract titles indicate the paper/workshop number used at the conference. The email or contact postal address for each presenter is to be found in the abstract.
Functional literacy programmes for particular target groups in Nigeria (P 18.3)
Remi Ajayi, Federal Ministry of Education, Nigeria (Adult & Non - Formal Education, Dept Federal Ministry of Education, P O Box 53634, Ikoyi, Lagos, Nigeria)
In this paper, which will give some relevant background information, an overview of adult and non-formal education in Nigeria in all its ramifications will be given. The scope and content will be explained, touching on the type of people who are exposed to adult education. The scope covers illiterate adults who are being taught the basics of reading and writing; people who are in post-literacy programmes for the purpose of improving their literacy skills and who are also trying to avoid a relapse into illiteracy and atrophy. There are those who dropped out of the formal education system in their childhood; those in continuing education, in-service programmes, and street children within the various cultural backgrounds. The paper will give an insight into the agencies handling the programmes for literacy and function; education and will summarise the aims and objectives of all. This includes mainstreaming the products of the programmes into the formal system for certification. The main focus of the paper will be an articulate detail of the various target groups which we cater for in our functional literacy programmes. These are usually in professional categories like auto-mechanics, commercial vehicle drivers, illiterates in Federal Government establishments nation-wide, market women, housewives in need of income generating skills, prison literacy programmes, and others. The paper will discuss the curricular content, texts and primers used for the programmes and the process of producing and circulating such materials. Our problems, which we see as challenges, and the modest progress we have made will be highlighted to give a critical analysis of this significant aspect of adult education experience here in Nigeria.
The impact of experiential learning on socio-economic development of Kenya since independence: a critical retrospection (P 3.1)
Maurice Nyamanga Amutabi, Moi University, Kenya
The paper details the various landmarks in experiential learning in Kenya emanating from the budgetary commitments by the Government, especially human resource allocation and development of the physical infrastructure. The paper also looks at similar efforts from the informal sector that include churches and non-governmental organisations (NGOs), both local and foreign in origin. It focuses on the role that graduates of experiential learning have played in the development process since independence up to the present. The various institutional structures of experiential learning in Kenya, both public and private and their role in development are also assessed. Using a sectored approach, the paper looks at the impact of experiential learning in Kenya in the socio-economic and political spheres. In the social arena, it looks at family life education programmes, literacy levels, etc. and how they have influenced the quality of life. In the economic sector, it examines small-scale entrepreneurial activities, the women, homecraft and artisan-type income-generating activities and adult training centres among others. On the political front, it assesses the quality of governance at the local level as a result of experiential learning, the appreciation of democratic ideals and awareness, the level of civil education in general and its receptability, political harmonisation amidst cultural and ethnic tensions and differentiation, among other factors.
An exploration of how societal conflicts are mediated in the experiential group setting (P 4.2)
Jean Anastacio and Alan Turkie, Goldsmiths College, University of London
This paper will explore lessons learned from twenty five years' experience of courses in community development and youth work, democratic social change, and the promotion of racial and sexual equality. Aimed at mature students, our approach has developed and refined a model of education and training by combining group work techniques and experiential learning, enabling students to reflect critically on their life experience, process feelings, and attempt to develop a conceptual understanding of their experience. Thoughtful recruitment ensures that our students are culturally diverse, and that women and recent refugees to the United Kingdom, are strongly represented, which provides the diversity of backgrounds and experience key to anti-discriminatory work and the experiential learning process.
Expanding educational agendas - implementing formal courses in experiential learning (P 7.2)
Ruth Cohen and Lee Andresen, University of Technology, Sydney, Australia
This paper is designed to stimulate ideas for further development of experiential learning courses, through discussion, and focus on the role of experiential learning in the reconstruction of educational paradigms and organisational practice. University of Technology, Sydney, has pioneered an accredited post-graduate course on experiential learning. The presentation will highlight the unusual design features of the course, creative teaching and learning processes, authentic assessment processes, learning outcomes, benefits and concerns, and partnership issues (University of Technology, Sydney with the Australian Consortium on Experiential Education). A poster (photos and graphics to illustrate the development processes and innovative teaching and learning activities) will accompany the presentation.
To tell or not to tell? That is the question!
Examining a fundamental issue in using experience in formal, knowledge-oriented educational settings (W 9)
Lee Andresen, Australian National University, Australia
One of the many basic methodological issues explored in the ACEE's new Graduate Certificate in Experiential Learning's subject "Foundations of Experiential Learning" is that of whether the teacher/facilitator is ever entitled to "tell" or use dialectic approaches and, if so, what kinds of things are appropriate for "telling" and what particular place those "telling" segments might occupy within a broad experiential approach. The workshop will "problematize" this issue, and the leader adopts no particular view on it nor offers any prescriptions or formulae for approaching it. The questions become:- "Are there times we should shut up? If so, how do we know them and how do we keep our mouths closed at the appropriate times? Are there times we should tell everything? How do we know them and how do we do the telling in ways compatible with an experiential stance? A second-level question that may, if it emerges, become a focus of discussion is the relationship between teacher talk and the locus of power in a workshop or classroom. The participants will hear (through brief reports and handouts) of a variety of approaches to this question. They will engage in practising, in small sub-groups, a series of "sample" strategies to illustrate how teachers can "talk less" but still communicate plenty. They will be asked to try to conceptualise their own teaching strategies in terms of "telling" and "not telling" episodes, and to exchange strategies they have found useful for achieving both kinds of goal. They will be challenged to make the connection between the amount of teacher talk, the amount and quality of student thinking that might result, and the power dynamics of the educational event.
Accessing experiential learning through collaborative and multimedia learning processes (W 23)
Anne Sheddick, Brunel University, United Kingdom and Rob Arnsten, IBM, United Kingdom
Experiential learning can be approached in new, exciting and flexible ways through multimedia and collaborative learning processes. Interactive multimedia and groupware will be demonstrated that has been developed in the United Kingdom with IBM and Higher Education partners to open up access to experiential learning, skill analysis profiles and assessment for individuals and groups in the workplace and colleges. A number of case study examples implemented in a range of settings will be presented.
Technology and organisational change (W 20)
Celia Banks, Westcon Services, USA
Attendees will participate in group projects to design conceptual strategies for implementing new computer technology in an organisation, either while the organisation is undergoing change, or to use technology to introduce change in the organisation. The projects will be constructed as excerpts of a case study. The case study is actually an applied portion of an assessment in which I was involved during an internship in organisation development consulting. After the projects are completed, discussions will be held to critique the outcome of each project. To evaluate overall effectiveness, I will present the research and actual case study. The experiential learning model that the workshop will follow is illustrated below:
Doubling standards: quality assurance in RPL for Maori qualifications within the NQF (P 20.2)
Nena Benton, New Zealand Council for Education Research, New Zealand and Richard Benton and Tawhiro Maxwell, Opotiki College, New Zealand
In the last five years, New Zealanders have seen extensive structural changes in the education system. In the face of such changes, there has been a call from various sectors of the community for vigilance over what counts as quality. With the incorporation of "Maori qualifications" in the National Qualifications Framework, questions are being raised on the ownership of knowledge. Maori people would like to make sure that they have an important role in determining the direction in which the qualifications system for Aotearoa is developed. One of the questions that will and should continue to be of concern to indigenous peoples is the extent to which they can retain control of the quality of learning that they consider to be of vital importance to their cultural identity. For Maori, this means having the option to work both inside and outside the National Qualifications Framework. The issues of fragmentation of learning and the possibility of marginalisation loom large as the latitude of choice widens for ways of meeting the requirements of nationally recognised qualifications. How do we deal with these issues in such a way that quality is not sacrificed? The recognition of prior learning (RPL) will be of crucial importance in linking different kinds of knowledge and skills. The best practice of RPL has its own built-in mechanism for ensuring that credit is given only where credit is due. This means that judgement of quality is made according to a set of rules by experts who know these rules and adhere to them. But for Maori qualifications, is adherence to "mainstream" rules a sufficient guarantee of quality? If not, who will make the rules which are acceptable both academically and culturally? This paper will focus on these questions and related issues in quality assurance.
Stories in the making (P 29.1)
Renu Bhardwaj, Indira Gandhi National Open University, India
(School of Humanities, Block 6, Maidan Garhi, New Delhi 110068, India)
Storymaking and storytelling are integrative activities requiring the storymaker/teller to unite disparate bits of information into a whole by gaining knowledge of his/her innerworld through expression in the outerworld. Sharing stories from around the globe broadens horizons, cultivates empathy, provides connections across time, culture and experience, and helps to make the abstract concrete, thereby promoting collaborative learning, critical thinking, writing and discussion. Stories and story-making processes can be used for teaching literature also as language skills. Stories can also be used by a member of a tribe to develop a sense of their own authentic voice in the context of other stories. Tales thus shared from around the world provide the possibilities for connections across time, culture and experience, thus clarifying one's sense of identity.
Using experiential learning to achieve culture change in United Kingdom higher education - a case study into UK universities (P 7.1)
Christopher Bond, University of Cenral England Business School, United Kingdom
United Kingdom higher education has experienced a level of unprecedented growth and change over the last decade. This is a direct result of the shift from a system of "elite" to "mass" participation. Such radical change requires a fundamental and transformational change in the values, operating norms and basic assumptions underpinning and driving the current system. The systems, strategies, style and shared values upon which the elite system has operated can no longer serve the needs of a system of mass higher education. This reorientation challenges the perceived wisdom about the role, function and purpose of higher education. This paper will take the form of a case study approach and, in particular, will focus on the use of: developing an epistemology of experiential learning; university partnerships with company education and training programmes; and the accreditation of prior learning with disadvantaged groups and refugees. This paper will seek to demonstrate how the transformation to an "experientially learning based culture" in global higher education could assist societies and the global community to cope with the demands of moving towards the democratisation of higher education via mass participation. The researcher suggests that the university of the twenty first century, which is focused on teaching in the mass market place, will want to occupy the conflux where the technocratic/academic, competence/managerial and constructivist/consumerist paradigms coincide. In this way a creative synergy can be accomplished. Such an organisation would: be committed to mass participation in higher education; be committed to extending opportunity for those traditionally disadvantaged by the elite education system; be focused on teaching, learning and applied research; committed to experientially based models of delivery of the curriculum; and committed to a philosophy of lifelong learning and continued professional development.
Reflection: use, misuse and abuse (W 15)
David Boud, University of Technology, Sydney, Australia and David Walker, Educational Centre, Randwick, Australia
The role of reflection in learning from experience is well established. Over the past ten years or so models of reflection have been widely discussed and a variety of practices which involve learners reflecting on their experience introduced. Reflection has become a popular feature of the design of educational programs. This has often led to learning being more effectively facilitated (use). However, alongside these positive initiatives have grown more disturbing developments under the general heading of reflection. They have involved both misconceptions of the nature of reflection which have led to instrumental or rule-following approaches to reflective activities (misuse), and the application of reflective strategies in ways which have sought inappropriate levels of disclosure from participants or involved otherwise unethical practices (abuse). The aim of this workshop is to explore the idea of reflection and the contexts in which it is used to promote learning from experience. It will examine the question: what constitutes the effective use of reflective activities? The assumption of the workshop is that reflection needs to be flexibly deployed and that it is highly context-specific. Care needs to be taken in matching the forms of reflective activity used and the ways in which the outcomes of reflection are revealed, with the learning context to ensure that it is not being inadvertently used to oppress and control learners and limit their learning.
Project based learning as an experiential learning method with disadvantaged students (W 2)
Vaughan Bowie and Deirdre Russell-Bowie, University of Western Sydney, Australia
This workshop will explore the application of project-based experiential learning to the education of students from disadvantaged backgrounds. For many of these students, the straight use of experiential learning in their educational and personal development would be possibly seen as being too emotionally confronting and lacking in practical application. However, the project-based approach to learning can overcome some of these difficulties as it includes both practical outcomes as well as the opportunity for students' reflective thinking and increased self-actualisation. Our use of this approach with a variety of tertiary students has validated its usefulness as a learning tool that also could be modified for primary and secondary and other adult education settings.
Doing research on experiential learning - experientially (W 19)
Angela Brew, Centre for Teaching and Learning, University of Sydney, Australia
Engaging in research on experiential learning inevitably involves the researcher in learning experientially. This workshop explores the implications of the dynamic and reflexive character of research in this area. The traditional discourse of research separates the researcher and the subject of investigation. When researchers have to engage in the very activity which they are investigating, their own experience provides a rich source of data. The problem many such post-positivist researchers face is how to maintain a systematic and rigorous research process while at the same time representing their own personal "truth".
I've got a voice: enabling the learning of women in professional education (W 31)
Imogen Taylor and Hilary Burgess, University of Bristol, United Kingdom
The impact on women students on the approach to teaching and learning adopted by an innovative social work course is explored. Central features of the course are that learning is active, self-directed and takes place in groups. This approach enables pre-course experience to be integrated into new learning and supports women students to speak out and use their voice in the process of learning and creating knowledge, thus enhancing professional development.
Ideas from the ASSHE tray: innovation and assessment in Scottish universities (W 25)
Elayne Burley and Ray Land, Napier University, Scotland
In Scotland a major survey of assessment in higher education is nearing completion. A government-funded project, ASSHE (Assessment Strategies in Scottish Higher Education), has sought to map innovative developments in the assessment of student learning in all Scottish higher education institutions and across all disciplines. A computerised database has been constructed to allow colleagues to identify and evaluate innovative solutions across a range of practices. Workshop participants will have an early opportunity to explore the many case studies within the ASSHE database and to analyse and discuss current and emerging trends in the assessment of experiential learning.
Strategies for reconstructing developments through experiential learning (P 30.2)
Yosiah Bwatwa, National University of Lesotho, Lesotho
Adults throughout Southern African countries have tremendous experiences in identifying their own educational, socio-, environmental and economic problems within their communities. At the same time they could easily be empowered through role plays and life field experiences at their own levels not only in identifying problems, but also implementing them successfully. The experiential learning techniques like role-plays and organised small group discussion can empower adults through campaigns to determine, direct, decide, control and participate fully in their programmes at community levels. The experiential learning therefore calls for people to reconstruct their existing political, socio-, economic structures to enable all people to work together for their development.
Learning in two worlds: creating an indigenous environmental education programme (P 26.2)
Donald Castleden, Centre for Indigenous Environmental Resources, Canada
A national indigenous environmental organisation, in partnership with a major university, has established a program to train indigenous environmental specialists. The case describes how Aboriginal Elders and indigenous and non-indigenous instructors were brought together to create a curriculum incorporating both indigenous and western knowledge. Environmental issues are a major concern for Aboriginal First Nations in Canada. First Nations face an array of issues: hydro electric development and its accompanying reservoirs that flood traditional hunting, trapping and fishing grounds; natural resource depletion that impacts the forest and its capacity to provide medicinal plants, economic resources, food and spiritual sustenance; agricultural and industrial activity that introduces toxic pollutants that may originate thousands of miles from where they impact a community; and a growing loss of biodiversity and ecosystem integrity. First Nations are faced with the task of establishing their own environmental policies while coping with a lack of trained environmental personnel. Until now, First Nations have, by and large, had to rely on non-Aboriginal consultants and interveners to provide environmental assessments. These consultants have often lacked an appreciation of the significance of the land in peoples' lives. As cultural outsiders, they have also often been unaware of indigenous or traditional environmental knowledge and the knowledge forms of the people. This was the situation in 1994 when a number of Chiefs in Canada established a national Centre for Indigenous Environmental Resources. The first major educational initiative of the Centre has been the creation of an environmental education programme. First Nations were initially surveyed to determine the need for environmental specialists. The Executive Director of the Centre followed this by convening a curriculum development group of university faculty, Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal, at a major university in western Canada to discuss the feasibility of creating the environmental education program. Members of the curriculum group agreed the program should incorporate indigenous and western knowledge, courses that are the equivalent of undergraduate degree courses, and experiential learning methodology, and a significant amount of field work. A curriculum has been developed and approved by the University's senate. A structure has been created that links the Centre and the University in the overall management of the program and instructors have been recruited. Each instructional team is composed of an Aboriginal Elder, an Aboriginal instructor and a university instructor. The first group of students began classes in February, 1996. The paper describes the problems and successes experienced in bringing all components of the program together: negotiating control issues across institutional boundaries; creating a strategy to obtain University credit; and integrating both indigenous knowledge and western knowledge in the programme of studies. This environmental education program represents one attempt to bring two world views together, each contributing to a greater understanding of a shared environment.
Putting it all together: a competency-based experiential training programme that works! (P 32.2)
Jaye Castleden, Centre for Indigenous Environmental Resources, Canada (19 Fallbrook Bay, Winnipeg, Manitoba R2J 2P, Canada)
An alternative provincial adult education program was created to provide adults, who did not have the formal education or financial means, with the opportunity to access meaningful employment. A majority of the participants who qualified for this program were female, of Aboriginal ancestry, ranging in age from early 20s to early 50s, with educational levels of grade 5 to first year university and living in rural, northern and/or remote communities. To illustrate the program model, a case will be presented focusing on the training of indigenous school counsellors who for a period of two years alternately participated in on-the-job training in their local schools and classroom instruction at a central location. Initially, there was resistance by some "professional" teaching staff to the idea that local individuals lacking university education and teaching credentials could function as school counsellors. This attitude gradually changed. Graduates were hired by the school division and are seen today as important contributors to the effective functioning of their schools. An overview of the components which contributed to the program's success will be presented.
Experiential learning in the guidance process: forming a personal and career development plan (W 33)
Pamela Clayton, Department of Adult and Continuing Education, University of Glasgow, Scotland
Effective vocational adult guidance involves an assessment of prior experience - personal, educational and work (whether paid or unpaid). We all learn through life, yet many adults do not recognise what skills they possess, or have little confidence in their skills. This applies particularly to women and the long-term unemployed, who can benefit from guidance both in realising what they have to offer potential educational institutions or employers, and in the general raising of their sense of self-worth. The workshop would demonstrate the effectiveness of a particular approach by means of participants trying it out for themselves.
Safety first! How to introduce role-play without tears (W 30)
Kate Collier, University of Technology, Sydney, Australia
Many people feel uncomfortable participating in role-play activities because they find them threatening and embarrassing. This workshop will actively explore how role-play can be introduced to participants in a safe way that will both encourage them to get involved and will increase the potential of what can be learnt through this experiential approach.
From "rolling mass action" to "RPL": The changing discourse of experience and learning in the South African Labour movement (P 5.1)
Linda Cooper, School of Education, University of Cape Town, South Africa
Approaches to education are indicative of larger processes of social conflict and social change. This paper examines changing perspectives on education within the South African labour movement as an expression of broader political and ideological shifts within this movement. The black trade union movement that emerged in South Africa in the 1970s and '80s enjoyed several unique features. Amongst these was a strong emphasis on the building of democratic, shop-floor organisation and on workers' control. Within the labour movement the practice of worker education was closely linked to the project of organisation-building; it was oriented towards building worker leadership and saw education as playing a politicising and mobilising role in the struggle for liberation. Worker education was deeply embedded in the workers' collective experiences of apartheid oppression and exploitation , and took place in a rich variety of formal, informal and non-formal learning sites. Valuable knowledge was gained through the experiences of shop-floor struggle and wider mass action. The momentous changes in South Africa in 1990 signalled the beginning of a new relationship between labour, capital and the state. The trade union movement's key concern became: what kind of development path should South Africa embark upon - and on whose terms? In an attempt to secure the interests of workers, unions took the initiative in proposing a development strategy which would place worker education and training at the heart of the restructuring of the South African economy. This paper argues that in this process the relationship between experience and learning has shifted. With the labour movement's new emphasis on "workplace training" rather than on "worker education", on formal certification within a national qualifications framework, and on the recognition of prior learning, the meaning of "worker experience" is transformed from being that which is shared in order to advance the collective interests of the working class, into a commodity which is individually "owned", and which can be exchanged for a qualification to be tendered on the capitalist labour market. This paper explores the multiple implications of these discursive shifts including their potential impact on the nature of worker organisation and the collective identity of workers in South Africa.
Putting experiential learning to work in the reconstruction and development of learning spaces (P 10.1)
Costas Criticos, University of Natal, South Africa
Experiential learning is often associated with individual growth and change. This paper reports on the practice of experiential learning which takes place as a social experience in which people resolve conflict and collaboratively formulate a plan of action. The author uses participatory approaches in social action projects involving video production. Now, these lessons are being applied to the process of collaborative planning which involves "users" and "providers" in development projects. As a special case, the process of formulating an architectural brief will be examined. South Africa has a backlog of some 50 000 classrooms and this is increasingly rapidly as the new government increases the educational provision for all citizens. Apart from the economic problem of addressing this backlog - there is a question of quality and acceptance of learning spaces built by government and private agencies. In many cases these buildings are being rejected and even vandalised. Simple involvement of users in the consultative phase of design is not sufficient to animate their active and critical engagement. This presentation will demonstrate a range of strategies and principles which facilitate user engagement and ownership of the design process.
Teaching theory to adult educators through experience (P 23.1)
Roy Crowder and Liz Mackenzie, CACE, University of the Western Cape, South Africa
This paper describes experiential learning exercises used to teach adult educational theory on an advanced diploma course. Many students have difficulty linking theory and experience in ways which can inform their practice. The course therefore needs to enable students: to validate knowledge gained from experience; to take cognisance of educational theory developed by experts; to understand principles for linking theory and experience; and to construct from this linkage legitimate knowledge to use in their working lives. Having described the methodology and some student response, the paper reflects on issues which arise.
Self-awareness, creativity and the development of human potential (W 27)
Janice Dolley, Open University, United Kingdom
Personal development, alongside vocational and academic development, generates the self- confidence and self-esteem that enables an individual to realise more of their human potential. But what is the self that they discover and how can we, as practitioners, design creative opportunities for learning that acknowledge the whole self and incorporate transpersonal and spiritual domains? In this workshop we will work on a series of experiential exercises that lead to greater self-awareness and creativity and then consider models of the self that can underpin our own practice and lead to increased global understanding.
Community-based experiential learning for student teachers: facilitating enterprise education (P 16.1)
Bob Finlay, Australian Catholic University, Sydney, Australia and Ken Dovey, Rhodes University, South Africa
The challenge of change in Australian teacher education is to keep in touch with national priorities for education and consider their implications for reconstruction and development. In the current climate of change in Australia heralded in reports of Finn, Mayer and Carmichael, student teachers need to be encouraged to broaden their personal horizons, develop new skills whilst forging professional links with the workplace and wider community. The Community Experiential Learning Program (CELP), now in its fourth year for all student teachers at the Australian Catholic University features a variety of strategies and methodologies of experiential learning. The programme is intended to inject a notion of enterprise into the Australian educational system in accordance with global economic imperatives currently driving educational reform.
Management consultants are never too old to learn: peer review as an effective mode of experiential learning for the profession (P 31.1)
Maarten Driehuis, University of Technology, Netherlands
Demand for Dutch management consultants' services has increased steadily over the last 15 years. Nevertheless, many management consultants appear to have difficulties in demonstrating added value to their clients. In 1993, the Dutch professional body of management consultants developed a professionalisation policy to improve the quality of consultants' services. An important tool within this professionalisation policy is peer review which aims at increased effectiveness of management consultants' practice through reflection in peer groups. In several peer review meetings, groups of six management consultants reflect together on the practice presented by one of them. To assess the effectiveness of the existing peer review system, a PhD-research is being carried out at Eindhoven University of Technology. This research builds on observations of peer review meetings and interviews with participants, using Argyris & Schn's theory on learning. On the basis of this research it is concluded that the existing peer review system for management consultants offers great experiential learning opportunities. However, the existing system can be improved considerably: reflection in peer review meetings should more often lead to new modes of action in practice and to double loop learning. This paper presents a more effective approach for developing and implementing a peer review system for management consultants that can also be useful for other professional groups. Important aspects of this approach are: an appreciative learning culture; an extensive role for learners in the continuous improvement of the peer review system; and an action-oriented vision on learning.
Playing a management game: an experiential approach to exploring adult education management practice (W 34)
Jo Ewart-Smith, Centre for Adult Education, University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa
This workshop will provide participants with the opportunity to immerse themselves in the learning environment created by "playing a management game" and then to reflect on their experience. The game may be played by individuals or teams and consists of a board game in which the players throw dice and journey to a management related educational goal set by them. On the way they encounter hazards and rewards. Decisions about size of the penalties or rewards are also decided by the players. Strictly speaking, there can be a winning team but more importantly there are no losers. Everybody learns something every time it is played.
The dialectic of informal learning (P 8.1)
John Garrick, School of Adult Education, University of Technology, Sydney, Australia
In the theory and practice of adult education and training, much of the writing on informal learning has focused on representing the importance of informal learning as a valid form of knowledge acquisition. Topics explored tend to be how people learn from experience and how learning from experience can be best facilitated and assessed. A post-modern critique of experiential learning has also emerged which challenges the arguments of each of these perspectives. The post-modern critique asks "why has this form of learning become an important discourse at this particular historic moment?" This paper argues that there are many facets of informal learning, and many ways of viewing these facets. It is not enough, for instance, to know how or what a person knows, or the way they may understand. The person is being shaped. Their "own" ways of knowing are not authentically their own, but immersed in discourses, power relations and local networks. Indeed, the comfortable cohabitation of the valuing of experience (in learning) with a period of deeply conservative western governments is worth noting. It is worth noting because without directly acknowledging post-modern forces, there is an implicit acceptance of the "normative" (ideological) world of the state, and thus of state policies that link formal education and informal workplace learning. The structured uses of informal learning in the workplace is now a feature of post-modern learning. But what should not be overlooked is that the 'structuring' of learning at work will often embody the values and ultimate goals of one's organisation. For adult educators and trainers who are charged with promoting and structuring "learning opportunities", this emphasises the need for a broad theorisation of informal learning. Indeed, developing a socially useful theory to eliminate oppression now requires attention to the elusive conditions of post modernity. One's informal learning at work, and in education, is embedded in them.
Exploring the process of scripted fantasy in the education of student nurses (W 35)
Frances Gascoigne, The Northern College of Nursing, Midwifery and Health Studies, United Kingdom (Northern College of Nursing, Rochdale Campus, Birch Hill Hospital, Rochdale, Lancs OL12 9QB, United Kingdom)
This workshop will explore the process of scripted fantasy in the education of student nurses. It is based on a project for improving student performance in the biological sciences, where clear gains were demonstrated for the learning process in terms of reduced anxiety, actual learning and long-term memorability, providing a bridge between group process and academic learning. The possibilities for application to other forms of professional training will be examined.
Changing institutional culture to support educational change (P 25.1)
Richard Gorringe, Bedford College, United Kingdom and Susan Weil, Nene College, United Kingdom
This paper argues that changes in the educational process are normally thought of in terms of the interaction between teacher and learner. Generally speaking, within the experiential learning movement, lessening teacher control, with greater respect and autonomy for the learner, are seen as key issues. However, within formal educational institutions such as colleges and universities, the institutional culture exerts a powerful influence on the teacher/learner interaction. In particular, the extent to which learner-centred strategies may be introduced and sustained, owe a good deal to cultural norms. Changing education crucially involves changing institutional culture. This paper explores this, and suggests some ways in which institutions mightier develop to support more open, democratic and learner-centred educational practice.
Reaching across the lines: healing racism at work (W 10)
Anne Grady and Vickie Wilson, The Search for Common Ground, USA
Reaching across the lines is designed to improve relationships between people of different backgrounds. Its purpose is to build understanding and trust between people of different ages, gender, life styles, abilities, educational, cultural, ethnic and racial backgrounds. The workshop is not an intellectual exercise. It is less about engaging the brain and more about listening with the heart. Its overall goal is to create a body of people in organisations and institutions who not only understand their own and each other's diversity but value it as a way to create a workplace where each individual contributes to the excellence of the whole. Conference delegates will be exposed, as are participants in the full-scale workshops, to experiencing racism through the eyes and minds of others in the group. Participants will be guided through a series of topics that include getting to know each other, exploring the stereotypes and prejudices that they hold, discussing the reality of racism where they live and work, and creating goals to end racism in the workplace. There is a discussion format for each session that allows people to talk honestly about the things that divide our societies and what we can do to change those conditions.
Experiential learning and the reconstruction and development of a pre-school enrichment programme (P 12.1)
Sarah Gravett, Elizabeth Henning and Estelle Swart, Rand Afrikaans University, South Africa
The paper focuses on the professionalisation of lay adult educators and the simultaneous process of reconstructing an educational programme by utilising experiential learning strategies and the transformation model of Apps (1994). The educators involved train staff at pre-school centres mainly in Soweto "township" to present an enrichment programme called "Clever Play". The purpose of the programme is to lead the oldest group of children in the centres towards meaningful understanding of the concepts of colour, shape and number and to extend English vocabulary. The majority of staff at the centres have no educare qualifications or training.
Building two-way bridges between the ivory tower and the community: the roles of a university in an elementary/higher education partnership (P 14.2)
Joanne Keith and Joy Greer, Michigan State University, USA
Western societies are undergoing a substantial paradigmatic shift as there is movement from the industrial era to the post-industrial era. Universities are faced with preparing students for a very different future than any previous generation. The many current graduates from United States universities are under-utilised for the extent of their education. Further, many graduates are unable to secure employment in their chosen field of study. Given this scholars have suggested that the success of a graduate will be measured not by the hierarchical, management paradigm of the industrial period, but rather characterised by a collaborative, pluralistic, consensus driven framework for the post-industrial society. Experiential education can serve as a methodology to enhance students' individual development, professional development, and subsequentially, the community development. We intend to present how experiential education models can facilitate these three domains of development.
The key success factors of work-integrated learning (or co-operative education) (W 13)
Thomas Groenewald, Technikon Southern Africa, South Africa
The World Association for Co-operative Education defines co-operative education as a method of education that combines learning in the classroom with learning on the job. Students put their academic knowledge into action through relevant work experiences outside the classroom. They bring the challenges and insights they gain on the job back to class for further analysis and reflection. The proposed aim of the workshop is to elicit and unpack the success factors involved in: design and planning of appropriate experiential training, to supplement tuition; placement and co-ordination of students; critical elements that ensure success during on-the-job periods; monitoring and evaluation of in-service periods (methods and techniques); integration of experiential periods with tuition; and post-tuition experiential training (graduated learners). The facilitator developed a questionnaire that enables reflection on two dimensions of experiential training relationships, namely: reciprocity and formalisation. This questionnaire will be shared with participants. The relative "weight" of items debated and additional items explored.
Experiential learning in action: a programme for preparing educators of health professionals (P 27.1)
Nomthandazo Gwele, Department of Nursing, University of Natal, South Africa
Globally, undergraduate education in the health professions is undergoing change. Problem/community-based educational programmes are no longer innovations accessible to only a few prestigious educational institutions. In South Africa at least two medical schools and three university nursing departments are offering such programmes. Amazingly, most teacher-education programmes in the health professionals are still very "traditional" in their approach. The Nursing Department at the University of Natal has started a Masters degree programme aimed at preparing educators of health professionals for teaching in problem/community-based educational programmes. The process of learning begins with the students' encounter with their concrete learning experiences in facilitating student learning in PBL discussion groups; community placements; and clinical skills laboratory. Reflecting learning diaries provide an avenue for reflective thinking. Cognitive analysis of significant occurrences is an important part of this exercise. Students are urged to analyse and interpret their experiences in the light of educational theory and/or philosophy. Classroom discussion sessions which follow self-directed learning activities are an essential platform for both critical reflection and abstract conceptualisation. At this stage, the process of learning is best described as going forward and outward along Kolb's four-stage experiential learning cycle. Through the process of transformation and coming to grips with their experiences, the students' learning cycle never really closes as each step leads to more reflection and action. Students' experiences with the programme as themes emerging from their reflective learning diaries can be categorised as increased self-awareness; conflict between tradition and programme expectations; and the importance of a trusting relationship between students and teachers. For the facilitator, this has been a developmental experience unparalleled by any other form of education encountered before participating in this programme.
RPL in South Africa: context, challenges and options (P 20.1)
Judy Harris, Centre for Extra-Mural Studies, University of Cape Town, South Africa
Practices to value and recognise adults' prior learning have developed at a rapid rate internationally, particularly in "developed" countries. Often "practitioner-led" RPL has largely been accepted unquestionably as "a good thing". This paper draws on international approaches, practices and theoretical debates alongside an analysis of the particularities of the present South African context and recent policy interventions. It argues that, although South Africa offers a fertile site for unique kinds of RPL interventions, there are also potential tensions in terms of the types of practice that are foregrounded in recent education policy. It offers an initial conceptualisation of issues that may need to be addressed in seeking to further develop sustainable RPL practices that will be capable of responding to both equity/redress/social justice debates and reconstruction/development/economic imperatives in the "new South Africa".
Development and changing experience (P 24.2)
Jane Henry, Open University, United Kingdom
This paper examines experiential methods designed to effect personal change and development in education, training, organisation change, management development, therapy, counselling, self help and spiritual practice. It focuses on approaches designed to transform experience in education, organisational development, psychotherapy and selected spiritual practices. It maps out the various approaches, methods, underlying metaphors and relates the main approaches to world views. It goes on to draw out common processes and to question the universality of the underlying assumptions, e.g. Western stress on reflection, control, insight, catharsis and relaxation, with reference to cross-cultural work and recent developments in understanding of cognitive processing.
Open learning and professional development: the challenge to higher education (P 22.1)
Cathy Hull, Macmillan Open Learning, United Kingdom and Simon Shaw, Cambridge Training and Development, United Kingdom
Healthcare professionals are working within health services that are rapidly changing. Staff, therefore, are increasingly expected to be innovative, flexible, resourceful, adaptable, self- reliant, responsible and accountable for their actions. All these expectations can only be achieved if healthcare professionals constantly seek to update and continue their education at undergraduate and postgraduate level in such a way that encourages them to directly apply their learning to their field of practice. This paper will explore how to design an open curriculum which challenges professional practice. We will be looking at the issues involved in designing post-basic, degree level materials, including curriculum development, student support and management structures. Our paper is primarily based on our experience of developing a BSc (Hons) Professional Practice in Healthcare. This has been designed for nurses and professions allied to medicine (PAMS). Macmillan Open Learning has over 10,000 students, supported by around one thousand tutor/counsellors. We will begin with a brief introduction to the main issues our paper raises and will then generate discussion around a number of themes, including: what is the business and discourse of HE? how can open learning enhance the quality, rigour and practice of HE? and what is the nature of professional education?
Piaget and education - the generation of a pedagogical frame of understanding in continuation of Jean Piaget's theory of development and experience from a research project in adult education (P 11.1)
Knud Illeris, Roskilde University, Denmark
In a research project concerning general education for unskilled workers the application of Piaget's theory appeared to be problematic. First, the focus on logical structures was inadequate in relation to the variety of adult life. Second, Piaget's theory does not include motivation and affectivity. Third, Piaget has no notion of psychological resistance. Therefore the contributions of David Kolb, Hans Furth, and Thomas Leihuser were drawn in to generate a theoretical platform comprising both the cognitive and the emotional sides of education, and including general educational design, institutional culture, as well as the didactic level of educational planning and practice.
How farmers learn to take up ecological responsibility (P 33.2)
Joke Vandenabeele, Catholic University of Leuven, Belgium
The development of ecological responsibility: experiential learning and community action (P 33.1)
Marc Jans, Catholic University of Leuven, Belgium (Catholic University of Leuven, Social Pedagogy, Vasliusstraat 23000, Leuven, Belgium)
For the last years we did a number of researches on the way society has to deal with environmental problems. We soon found out that the environmental issue is approached in a very individualising way: it is the individual who has to qualify him/herself in environmental information given by experts. The limits of his approach is more and more recognised as research shows that there is a gap between awareness and behaviour. A lot of people are nowadays aware that there is an environmental problem, a smaller group is also willing to make some financial sacrifices or to take some action and an even smaller group says they have already changed their behaviour in favour of the environment. As adult educators we were challenged to go beyond the limits of this individualising approach of the way people learn to interpret their experiences in the perspective of sustainable development, that is to connect personal life with global issues. With social constructionism as theoretical background the public debate gets a central place in our understanding of experiential learning. Through the communication within and between groups of people about the condition of the environment, about the possible causes and solutions, a learning society is brought about. However, efforts to involve interest groups in the public debate concerning environment are not without risks. The political culture, the distribution of power and conflicts between the different interest groups influence the conditions in which learning processes take place. This model of experiential learning is in our papers illustrated with empirical research. In a first paper (Vandenabeele J. (P 33.2)), we tried to understand the way Flemish farmers learn for sustainable development. In a second paper (Jans M. (P33.1)), we report about the learning processes in the context of environmental community action.
Adult learning and critical practices: towards an authorisation of experience (P 15.1)
Robin Usher and Rennie Johnston, University of Southampton, United Kingdom
This paper deliberately does not focus on either the psychology of experience or on pedagogical techniques of experiential learning. Instead, it seeks to critique dominant mainstream models of experiential learning and adult education traditions from a perspective that highlights the need to re-theorise experience by questioning the assumptions about the relationship between experience, reflection and knowledge which these models and traditions contain. It will be argued that these summations are shaped by an implicit modernist epistemology that foregrounds universality and rationality and that produces a limited and oppressive way of understanding and working with experience. In contrast, we argue for a re- theorising where experience is not subordinated to and separated from knowledge, but where experience and knowledge are seen as dynamically interactive. Such a re-theorisation requires locating experience in the social practices and signifying culture of postmodernity. In particular, there is a need to take account, in a positive way, of consumption. Two contemporary social practices of the post-modern - lifestyle practices and critical practices - are discussed in relation to the place of experience within them. In lifestyle practices, adults adopt a learning stance towards life as a means of cultivating desire and expressing multiple identities. Priority is given to experience but it is not constructed as coherent, complete and materiable. Critical practices can take many forms, and particular attention is paid to those associated with post-modern social movements which are located within contemporary consumer culture, although in an oppositional way. Here, experience is not regarded as something from which knowledge can be derived, but as knowledge itself, a knowledge which is embodied, local, specific and performative.
Learning from experience about learning from experience (P 19.2)
William Johnston, Manchester Metropolitan University, United Kingdom
This paper is intended as a challenge to all involved in experiential learning to reflect both on the diversity of strategies and methodologies which are taken to be constitutive of experiential learning and upon the underlying philosophical assumptions both about experiential learning itself and its relationship to what we understand by "education". The paper starts from a UK perspective on the use of APEL in Higher Education. It highlights the concern that experiential learning is being taken as somehow equivalent in terms of entry to Higher Education to formal educational qualifications. This is not a worry about the calibre of the students admitted in this way, nor a reactionary concern to bring back proper educational qualifications for all. It is a concern about what it is that we are measuring by experiential learning that we find comparable with academic qualifications for purposes of admission. The paper then examines from a European perspective a range of ways in which experiential learning is used in Higher Education institutions as a pedagogic strategy and asks to what extent experiential1 learning relates to the notions of 'education' and 'the academic'. In what sense is experiential learning either "academic" or "educational"? Obviously not all learning deserves to be called "academic" - nor does it often have the slightest pretensions to so being - but if we are to use experiential learning as a method within Higher Education, what justifies us in doing so?
Exploring new ways of university and school partnerships through a long-term research and development project (P 6.2)
Viljo Kohonen and Pauli Kaikkonen, University of Tampere, Finland
A central problem in school renewal is how to support the teacher's professional growth and commitment for changes. The traditional ways of top-down management do not work; significant changes cannot be imposed on schools from outside (e.g. Fullan, 1993; Kohonen and Leppilampi, 1994). As part of the current Finnish trend of promoting site-based school curricula, new ways need to be explored for supporting teacher and school development. The Department of Teacher Education in Tampere University has launched the "OK-Project: Learner, Curriculum and Culture Change" to be conducted in 1994-98 with six schools in Tampere region. The project aims at exploring the educational outcomes of schooling as experienced by the participants (Kaikkonen, 1994). The new ways explored for the partnership between the university and the schools emphasise the culture of collegial collaboration. The two researchers function as consultants and action-researchers and participate in the work as equal partners with the teachers. The planning is carried out by a co- ordinating group with the researchers and one teacher from each school. The teachers in each school have formed a local group working on the school's development. The presentation evaluates the process of designing the in-service teacher education in 1994-95, with special reference to the ways of supporting experiential, reflective learning.
The experiential learning of older adults in the United Kingdom and Hungary (P 21.1)
Keith Percy, University of Lancaster, United Kingdom and Zsuzsanna Kozma, University of Budapest, Hungary
Educational gerontology is full of rhetorical statements that the education of older adults should build upon their lifetime "experience"; there is also - in the United Kingdom at least - a developing corpus of knowledge and practice in "reminiscence" work and oral history with older adults. There are a number of significant propositions immanent in this work that merit both conceptual clarification and empirical investigation, e.g. (i) that older adults have "learned" from life experience; (ii) that older adults may be brought to recognise and to verbalise what they have learned; (iii) that such recognition and verbalisation adds "meaning" to the contemporary lives of older adults; and (iv) that the life experience of older adults is valuable educational material in the construction of learning situations for older adults. The paper reviews some of the literature from experiential learning and educational gerontology in order to exemplify and to make some progress in clarifying these propositions. It then goes on to consider some of the issues raised by attempts to gather empirical evidence to test and to qualify the propositions and explains an approach that was taken by the authors in designing a small-scale empirical investigation. The remainder of the paper reports on data gathered in the early stages of this investigation into the experiential learning of older adults in the United Kingdom and Hungary. The investigation is concerned with such questions as what have older adults (from countries with such different histories, cultures, populations and economies) learned "from experience", how do they recognise that learning and what meaning do they attach to it? What light might the investigation shed upon qualitative differences in life experience, upon the kinds of life experiences which are potentially more "educative" than others and upon the relative importance of deriving "meaning" from life experience in later life.
Acquisition versus learning in adult literacy: thinking through the formalisation of ABET in South Africa (P 18.2)
Catherine Kell, School of Education, University of Cape Town, South Africa
Current work in Adult Basic Education and Training (ABET) is strained by the contradictions and tensions involved in the transition from the "old" to the "new". The "old" (adult literacy work in both Freirean and functional literacy approaches) was dominated by the discourse of relevance. This was expressed as teaching everyday skills (lifeskills), drawing on learners' experience and stressing the importance of local knowledge for empowerment. The "new" is about human resources development, progression and mobility. Schooled literacy is now seen as the entry point to the structure of further education envisaged within the National Qualifications Framework. Current policy work casts its eye forward to the "new"; towards the formal requirements for further education and on to human resources development. However, existing ABET provision has to work within the "old", where forms of provision, teacher-training, curriculum and above all, learner histories, are rooted in the everyday. There are strong indications that within the ABET field, the emerging construction of literacy as the entry point to further schooling faces serious problems in both its conceptualisation and implementation. The paper draws on ABET classroom observations to argue that there is a possibility that the way ABET Levels 1 and 2 are being implemented may be setting learners and teachers (and ultimately, the system) up for failure. It also draws on the findings of the Social Uses of Literacy project to argue that much informal acquisition of multiple literacies is going on, and that the gap between these literacies of everyday life and the introduced literacies of formal provision may be a contributing factor towards the lack of success of literacy work in South Africa. Finally, it points to a range of policy arenas in which literacy may be promoted outside of formal provision.
Affecting change through an experiential approach to medical education (W 29)
Diana Kelly and Geoff Wykurz, Department of Epidemiology and Medical Statistics, St Bartholomew and the Royal London School of Medicine and Dentistry, United Kingdom
How can we improve the practice of doctors and other health professionals? What can future doctors learn from working in partnership with people from local communities? During this workshop you will have the opportunity to discuss definitions of health and who defines health needs. We will explore ways in which local communities and individual health service users can be actively involved in medical education and influence the training and performance of future health professionals from the consumers' point of view. Participants will have the opportunity to explore the relevance of a community-oriented approach to the education of health professionals and share ideas for promoting change within their own situations.
Intercultural competence through contract learning: a training application to support overseas effectiveness (P 32.1)
Heidi-Maria Listo-Aln and Reijo Keurulainen, University of Jyvskyl, Finland
International researchers (such as Adler, Brislin, Berry, Kealey, Abe and Wiseman, Paige, Martin) have widely studied the know-how areas that play a key role in developing intercultural competence in working life. The central question is how to develop these qualifications at the personal level. In order to build sustainable personal/professional development, the supportive training should be experiential, processural, and long-term. It should also have a direct and long-term connection to the trainee's actual work context. The requirements concerning the intercultural competence are quite comprehensive. It is possible to evaluate the outgoer's general qualifications, such as personality, in advance, before leaving for the new culture. It is also possible to offer the person pre-departure training which provides him/her with information about the target culture and the future work. Yet, the support is needed first and foremost when working on site. It is the living in another culture that activates the requirements for one's intercultural competence, which, as stated above, is composed of knowledge (culture specific knowledge, international politics, organisational culture, etc.), skills (language and communication skills, co-operational skills, professional skills, etc.) and attitude (cultural sensitivity). These are all factors with which a person interacts with the requirements of the surrounding culture. So it is experience that opens the avenue to the intercultural learning process. The ultimate achievement of the process is the individual's ability to relativise different cultural realities and to behave in an appropriate and optimal ways in new intercultural encounters and contexts (metacultural competence). A supportive training method for transformative learning is one that is based on "communicative learning": a continuous dialogue between the learner and his/her tutor.
Experiential learning in the Philippines: an experience in the rethinking and reconstruction of certain educational and organisational beliefs and practices (P 25.2)
Heracleo Lagrada, Rizal State College, Philippines (Rizal State College, Sampa 1, Tanay, Rizal 1980, Republic of Philippines)
The paper will present the Philippine experience in introducing and using experiential learning (also referred to as autonomous learning) in Philippine tertiary institutions. In particular, the paper will present the experiences in the rethinking, paradigm shifts and reconstruction of certain educational and organisational beliefs and practices. Experiential learning, of an Australian model, particularly that of the University of Western Sydney at Hawkesbury, is a recent innovation in the Philippine educational scene and as an alternative pedagogical approach it is presently used in agriculture and related programs. Presently there are five state higher education institutions (three colleges including the Rizal State College and two universities) and one private university that use experiential learning. Through the Agricultural Technology Education Association of the Philippines (AETAP) of which this writer is privileged to be its founding and present president, a network has been formed where exchanges and sharing of experiences and resources among the six institutions take place. Part of the proposed paper will present the experiences of these institutions in this respect.
Communication groups: helping managers in transition (P 34.2)
Virginijus Lepeska, Vilnius University, Lithuania (Krokuvos 2/30, 10 2005 Vilnius, Lithunia)
Coercive task-oriented managerial style still prevails among Lithuanian managers. Communication groups are aimed to give managers more flexibility in responding to different work situations by developing a participative employee-centred managerial style. Communication groups are oriented towards interpersonal growth. The training focuses on enhancing interpersonal effectiveness through increasing self-awareness of its participants. Communication groups follow the assumption that changes of characteristics of self-awareness result in changes of interpersonal behaviour. Communication groups is a structured training method. The group follows a certain program which includes analysis of the important aspects of interpersonal communication (e.g. stages of communication, non-verbal behaviour, active listening, etc). Analysis of every topic consists of: presenting relevant information; role playing of social work-related situations; and analysis of behaviour presented in those social situations. Learning in communication groups is based on the study and understanding of interpersonal interactions, personal and group experiences occurring in the group. Participation in training activities provides unique opportunities for members of the group to receive open and honest feedback from the trainer and other members of the group. Moreover, videotaping of behaviour during role playing allows participants to observe their own behaviour and analyse it just after its accomplishment. Strong emphasis in the communication groups is placed on specification and verbalisation of personal experiences and making personal conclusions about ways of increasing interpersonal effectiveness. Group dynamics is an especially important factor of successful learning in communication groups. An effective communication group runs through five stages of its development (initial stage, dependency, confrontation, cohesis, separation). Our research of the effects of communication groups has shown significant changes of content and structure of self-awareness. Cognitive structure of self-awareness became more integrative and consistent. New cognitive structures of self-awareness have been developed. The hierarchical system of structural components of self-awareness has been changed. Self-acceptance has been increased, e.g. earlier denied aspects of personality have been understood and accepted.
Using fairy tales for personal growth (W 12)
Vitalija Lepeskiene, Vilnius Pedagogical University, Lithuania (Vilnius Pedagogigal University, Krokuvos 2/30, 10 2005 Vilnius, Lithuania)
The goal of the workshop is to demonstrate how fairy tales can be used in helping people (both children and grown-ups) to discover and accept their values, inner strength and ability to rely on themselves in everyday life. The participants, due to an encounter with the fairy tales, will have personal experience of getting in touch with their own strength and inner potentials and at the same time learn some principles of using fairy tales for developing self-esteem and personal growth based on ideas of humanistic psychology and confluent education.
School change as experiential learning - a Nordic perspective (W 14)
Pasi Sahlberg and Asko Leppilampi, National Board of Education, Finland
During the last decade, there has been a growing interest among educators and scholars in the way schools change (Fullan 1991, 1993; Sarason 1990; Sahlberg 1996). Research literature on the topic today provides us with a solid base for understanding the dynamics of school change and, especially, what are the predictable reasons for the frequent failures in education reforms (Hargreaves 1994). In our own studies on improving schools, we have adopted non- linear models and theories of learning and change to describe the nature of school change. According to that knowledge, we have developed school change programmes to renew the curricula and teaching and learning methods. The workshop will focus on school-based curriculum reform and continuous improvement of leadership and teaching methods as collective and collegial learning processes. We will interpret the change process by using theoretical ideas of experiential learning. The overall aim of the workshop is to encourage participants to reflect upon ways of how to empower an institution's leadership to change the culture and organisation by encountering the change as a learning process.
Experiential learning amidst cultural diversity in Kenya: in search of a compromise curriculum (P 26.1)
Violet Locho, Eldoret Adult Training Centre, Kenya
The structural and operational impediments bedevilling the national curriculum of experiential learning in Kenya are of a long recognised but the least addressed research problematique. Far from being a product of foreign and urban based experts that mistakenly approach Kenya as a monolithic cultural group despite the over forty diverse cultural entities, the curriculum is old and requires an update so as to incorporate the views of the learners and those at the grassroots and in rural areas, plus the recent changes in society. This paper will examine cultural characterisations. Using the Eldoret Centre and experience from the surrounding Centres, the paper will provide a detailed discussion of attempts made at both policy formulation and application level in finding a more acceptable curriculum in Kenya. It argues that there is need to provide a compromise curriculum in the whole nation so as to eradicate the various cultural groupings and interests. There is need for cultural harmonisation of the curriculum in which the various diversities should be expressed. The Department of Adult Education and the Ministry of Technical Training and Applied Technology are working towards this although they are beset by various controversies.
Learning for survival in times of war: problem-based learning (P 13.1)
Loro Lugor, University of Juba, Sudan
The implications for the improvement of economic conditions of the displaced Southern Sudanese women residing in the squatter camps in the outskirts of Khartoum city has been a focal point of concern to those non-governmental organisations (NGOs) who care for human rights existence. The discussion will highlight the efforts made by some NGOs in instituting experiential learning in the displacement camps. This learning has enhanced and improved the economic situation of the women as well as enabling them to sustain the living conditions of their families. The training through experiential learning has been directed towards acquiring skills in various self-help activities like basket making, embroidery, tailoring, pottery, etc. and included in the training programme is a literacy campaign. This learning has enabled the women to become self-employed. It is in this context that the paper will try to elaborate its findings and discussion.
Under one roof - turning conflicts into community: the role of conflict management in team effectiveness and workplace learning (W 28)
Lola Mavor-Green, Queensland University of Technology, Australia
Conflict is an inevitable part of all interaction and increases in times of change. It is also a recognised, natural stage of any group formation and development. The key is whether the conflict is handled destructively or constructively. Destructive outcomes can be prevented if conflict is recognised early and appropriate intervention adopted. Constructive conflict management can also occur even when industrial relations processes have not been successful. Management is the key word. Some conflicts may not be resolved. Developmental approaches have a major role to play in the conflict management process and in on-going personal and team development. This interactive workshop will explore these issues within a theoretical and practical framework.
Linking work-based learning and experiential learning process (P 31.2)
Ian McGowan, Northern College, Scotland
In the field of professional development, the attention which has been given to continuing professional development has been slight in comparison to the attention and investment in initial professional education and training. The pace of social, political, economic and cultural change in Scotland and in the rest of the world demands that increased attention is given both in terms of course design and the pedagogy of continuing professional development. In Northern College, Dundee, Scotland, the Department of Community and Continuing Education embarked on a plan in 1992 to offer a range of opportunities for continuing professional development at undergraduate (BA) and postgraduate (MSc) levels. The first stage of this plan was the BA in Professional Development which was offered for the first time in 1992. This course has been designed to address the mid-career needs of practitioners in the social professions to engage in processes which would enable them to reconstruct their professional practice in the face of changing circumstances. Diplomates in Britain, e.g. in Social Work, Community Education and Informal Education, normally receive two or three year training in institutions of higher education and the Professional Development course being offered by Northern College as well as addressing mid-career needs provided the opportunity to achieve an academic award of BA. Accepting Schn's (1993) critique of the separation of the functions of the researcher and practitioner, a pedagogy has been developed in the BA in Professional Development and is being continued in the MSc whereby inquiry and experiential learning processes are combined in an effort to provide mid-career professionals with the capability and the support to work through process of reconstruction of practice. By reflecting upon the experience of planning, implementing and evaluating the BA in Professional Development, this paper explores theoretical and practical issues and outlines what has been done to complete the undergraduate and postgraduate portfolio of courses in continuing professional development.
The development and implementation of a policy on prior experiential learning in Ireland (P 2.1)
Denis McGrath, National Council for Educational Awards (NCEA), Ireland
The NCEA is the state accreditation agency for the extra-university sector of higher education in Ireland and the author will give a brief outline of its general functions and frameworks. The paper will describe how a Working Group of the Council established a Policy on Prior Experiential Learning which was adopted in June 1993 and launched by the Minister for Education in Ireland. A process of implementation of this policy was then commenced. A team of eight senior academics (Registrars) from the colleges concerned received a three-day intensive training course at the University of Middlesex. This group of eight Registrars was then considered as "seed-corn" for the implementation of NCEA policy on this matter in Ireland. In order to raise consciousness and to invite applications for pilot projects on implementation of the policy, this group of eight organised a one-day conference on the policy which was attended by 70 academics from all colleges. Seven Pilot Projects were submitted and evaluated. The findings of the Pilot Projects were used to devise a new document entitled "Guidelines for the Implementation of NCEA Policy on Prior Experiential Learning". Those who had devised the Pilot Projects (30 people) then participated in a two-day intensive training course organised and delivered by the eight Registrars. A two-day national training workshop was then organised for any academic interested in being trained. 70 academics participated in this workshop which was organised and delivered by the eight Registrars and was held in May 1995. Thus, 100 mentors and assessors were trained in the implementation of NCEA Policy on Prior Experiential Learning and this policy commenced its implementation in September 1995. The paper will also give examples of how the Policy was implemented in the academic year 1995/96.
Freeing the learner: experiential learning in social science research education with reference to qualitative research and participatory action research (P 11.2)
Ineke Meulenberg-Buskens, Mamsie Mogadime and Monika Schamberger, Human Sciences Research Council, South Africa
In research approaches such as qualitative research and participatory action research, a distinctive dimension of the stance, attitude and strategy of the researcher is that of a student, a learner. Often the research process in these approaches takes the form of experiential learning. Examples hereof are participant observation in qualitative research and the action- reflection cycle in participatory action research. Accepting that congruence between content and method in teaching is effective, one could argue that research education in these approaches would have to include processes of experiential learning. "Knowledge-about" without "know-how" is impotent knowledge. It has become obvious that knowledge about research in itself does not provide insight or know-how. This kind of research knowledge can actually have a totally disempowering effect. Many aspiring researchers have through their research education been left too much in awe of research to pursue a career in research. Others have become completely reliant on fixed formulas and procedures, which leaves them helpless in situations where their blueprints do not work. Obviously, students need to be taught about various methods, techniques and norms prevalent in research. It is, however, just as important to stimulate the students' capacity to not only use and adapt methods, techniques and norms appropriately, but to generate new ones when they judge that the situation so requires. Especially in research approaches such as qualitative research and participatory action research, where the research process is open and fluid, the researcher has to be flexible and creative. In these research approaches one has to be able to design research in response to a changing self, participants and context. Experiential learning provides students with opportunities to gain real insight and acquire know-how. Experiential learning will therefore ideally take an important place in research education in qualitative research and participatory action research. Research educators have to create a specific space and have to provide a specific structure for experiential learning to take place. Guiding concepts for research educators would be "instilling confidence", "providing a safe place" and "stimulating self- reflection". This will sound like a taxing brief for research educators in these approaches. It is! However, there is a resonance between the actual research practice in qualitative research and participatory action research, and the teaching of that practice. Research education will therefore enhance competence in research - a worthwhile investment for research practitioners.
"You are projecting your own reality": feedback in experiential research learning (W 3)
Ineke Meulenberg-Buskens, Mamsie Mogadime and Monika Schamberger, Centre for Adult Basic Education and Centre for Research Methodology, Human Sciences Research Council, South AfricaIn this workshop we want to look at the issues which the processes of giving and receiving feedback bring up in us. When is feedback a gift and when does it become a burden? How do we learn from ourselves and each other through feedback? Giving and receiving feedback can be an empowering act which is absolutely crucial in experiential learning processes, but it can also be the most disempowering experience, hampering those learning processes. In this workshop a specific model of feedback is used. The model evolved from experiences with a specific mode of student-centred research education focusing on the mastering of qualitative research techniques. The core concepts of the model are confidence, responsibility and leadership. Self-feedback, peer-feedback and teacher feedback will take place. Learning about giving and receiving feedback will be located within the relationship between student and teacher and within the group process. We will work with learning about qualitative data collection techniques. Various exercises and group discussions will take place. These learning experiences will become the vehicle for reflections on the processes of giving and receiving feedback. Together presenters and participants will try to "catch" the moments of learning within the feedback interactions. Feedback will be highlighted as a process of evaluation, critique and growth. Various forms of feedback will be explored, evaluated and linked-up with theory. The workshop will end with an evaluation of the workshop itself and with feedback for and by all participants.
Taxonomies of sameness: the assessment of prior learning as anthropology (P 2.2)
Elana Michelson, Empire State College, University of New York, USA
The evaluation and quantification of prior experiential learning (APEL) is commonly referred to in the English-speaking world using two words: "recognition" and "assessment". Each can only be understood in terms of sameness and conformity; for something to be recognisable or assessable, it must appear within the frame of the familiar, within conventional classifications that impart meaning and identity. This paper will first unpack the implications of these two words for issues of Otherness and difference, both in terms of social categories such as class, race and gender, and in terms of the power relationships within which APEL operates. It will then locate APEL within a number of historical developments: the invention of the bourgeois individual as white, male European; the birth of the social sciences; and the rise of nineteenth- century technologies of examination and control. Finally, the paper will use APEL's introduction into South Africa as an occasion for examining political embeddedness of APEL world-wide. Specifically, it will inquire how feminist and anti-racist critique might help shift the paradigm within which APEL now functions. By encouraging mutual critique and dialogue, by insisting that all knowledge is locally and historically situated, and by uncovering mechanisms for social and epistemological power, such theories can help re-orient APEL towards a greater affirmation of diversity and the practice of democracy.
Experiential learning and motivation for education (P 9.2)
Nena Mijoc, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia
Basic forms of experiential learning occur in everyday life. Awareness of learning may be present but learning is not a goal for itself. Other goals such as making a product, a project or developing relationships are of higher importance. While trying to reach this goal through a period of time, let's say at least a few months, a person accumulates various experiences, which are connected, reflected upon and may also become a reservoir of knowledge. Since this learning is not intentional, not very structured and planned, we can not define it as self- directed learning. However, the process of learning is life itself; it is usually highly controlled by the learner and it contains a high degree of commitment. It may lead to self-directed learning; it may lead a person into an educational involvement; in both cases, it affects motivation for further education. Conclusions of this paper are based on a research which was carried out by analysing 60 in-depth interviews with persons who were successful while learning experientially.
Experience and education in South Africa (P 5.2)
Clive Millar, Department of Adult Education, University of Cape Town, South Africa
The location of ICEL '96 in a "new" post-apartheid South Africa may enable both local and cosmopolitan participants to explore important ambiguities in what counts as "experiential learning". Where does the EL "movement" come from and what forms of practice does it engage with in South Africa today? What would count as a South African perspective on EL? How has the apartheid past and how does the restructuring present shape our perceptions of experience and education and their relationship? I hope that ICEL '96 will help us to engage with the latter question in particular. In the last years of the apartheid era "experiential learning" can be seen as Education in The Struggle. The experience of oppression constructed education as a project outside the system - one that was anti-system by being pro-People. Non-formal education was authorised and resourced by The Struggle. The exemplars were community education, adult literacy programmes and "People's Education". Thousands of community projects mushroomed in the late 70s and 80s and created a special form of adult educator identity, whose project involved the recognition and mobilisation of the experience of oppression. "Experiential learning" under conditions of negotiated settlement and democratic constitution is much more difficult to grasp or typify. Education that is directed at Development and Redress - through principles of unity, inclusion and integration - has assumed a huge systemic task. "Non-formal education" collapses as a positive category; in its place Adult Basic Education & Training (ABET) is invented to provide access to formal education and its qualifications to those excluded from formal schooling. The recognition mechanism of a National Qualifications Framework (NQF) provides the matrix for redress and development within the educational sphere. All educational institutions have to work within the logic of this qualification matrix. Such conditions propel the professionalisation of the adult education practitioner. It might be useful to review the "Four Villages" of EL and their developmental potential in this new South African context. Each village can be seen as constructing a particular relationship to experience and each implies a particular relationship to the dominant political and economic system, something like the following:
Finally, I want to consider how a reconstructing system, hungry for technological solutions, is prone to abstract these from their historical contexts of development. The prime case at present is Recognition of Prior Learning (RPL). We need therefore to contrast EL as technology for import with EL as a critical resource in the present reconstructive process.
Building a diverse community among school-age children (P 28.2)
Gloria Morrow, University of La Verne, USA
The current literature cites evidence of the growing concern regarding diversity issues in the elementary school setting, which has resulted in the development of numerous multicultural training opportunities for pre-service and in-service educators, as well as multicultural programs for students. While this development may be viewed as a significant step forward, there is little evidence that these approaches actually modify educators' beliefs, attitudes, and behaviours toward children of colour. Additionally, both professionals and laypersons within minority communities contend that these efforts may not significantly enhance the educational, psychological, and sociological development of children of colour, especially African American children. There is the need for implementing multicultural training programs that have the potential to restructure educators' thinking regarding their beliefs, attitudes, and behaviours toward children of colour, which I believe is the first step in building a positive diverse school community. This paper examines the use of experiential learning, cognitive and behavioural techniques in the cognitive restructuring process for educators. It also reviews the importance of building a diverse community; the typologies of racism; the racialisation process; the basic assumptions underlying experiential learning and cognitive theories; and a proposed multicultural training program for educators.
Heart to heart (W 17)
John Mulligan, Mulligan Associates, Ireland
This workshop will present the basic assumptions underlying non-violent or compassionate communication. The process was developed by Dr M. Rosenberg when working with social activists and offers ways of enhancing co-operation in groups and organisations, developing compassionate communication among the culturally different. It also has powerful applications in resolving conflict and value-based assessment and evaluation. Puppets will be used to demonstrate the communication processes and taster exercises will be offered to enable participants to test the value of some of the basic skills.
Vocational qualifications as an aid to development (P 17.1)
Robert Oldroyd, University of Nottingham, United Kingdom
While an improved education system will address prior learning needs, a system of nationally- recognised vocational qualifications enables skills and competencies already being exercised by the nation's work-force to be measured and recognised against national standards. Progressive levels enable a worker to perform increasingly demanding tasks, be better rewarded, and to be flexible both in moving from one employer to another, and from one employment sector to another. South Africa needs people who are skilled and flexible, who can cope with change. The National Vocational Qualifications structure in the United Kingdom provides a valuable model which could be adapted to local needs across many employment sectors. The paper examines the origins of the NVQ framework in the UK, how it is organised and by whom, what NVQs are, the assessment process and benefits to employers and employees, and comments on their implementation. A similar framework applied in South Africa, or in any other nation seeking rapid development, needs to take into account cultural and social factors, including language, existing patterns of work and its organisation, and familiar methods of learning.
The impact of experiential learning in social change and development among small-scale farmers in Vihinga District, Kenya (P 1.2)
John Aluko Orodho, Kenyatta University, Kenya
(Bureau of Education, Keyatta University, P O Box 43844, Nairobi,
Kenya)
Based on recent case studies in rural areas of Kenya, this paper contends that experiential learning is the most powerful tool in bringing about social change and development among communities from diverse socio-economic, cultural and ecological backgrounds. The paper argues that for developmental intervention strategies to be people-centred, for the people and by the people, indigenous knowledge of the local people should be carefully harnessed and blended with modern technological innovations using co-operative educational techniques through logically designed non-sexist and non-racial local institutions. The paper further argues that although members of these communities have devised productive coping mechanisms which intermittently revolve around farm and off-farm enterprises despite the prevailing harsh ecological conditions heavily constrained by acute shortages of arable land, their production levels still need to be enhanced through well targeted experiential educational packages. The paper takes a firm position that given the similarities in the various African communities in terms of their socio-economic and cultural diversity, this paper should be able to generate debate and future networking with other communities in the world, not only to address the legacy of apartheid but also to build a strong democratic, non-racial, non-sexist global society.
Mitakuye Oyasin: we are all related (W 4)
Chani Phillips, Wellness Specialist, USA
The central world view of our Lakota American Indians is "Mitakuye Oyasin": we are all related. We believe that human beings of all cultures, the earth, the animals, the plants and everything else are interconnected to each other. We are all part of one greater body and spirit. In this experiential journey, we will engage in American Indian ritual, inner imagery, and group interaction exercises. Our focus will be to explore and deepen our compassion and connection with the unique and colourful gifts inside each of us, and our vital relationships to everything else, the greater circle of life.
Searching for the main cores of adult experiential learning (P 19.1)
Anita Pietilinen, University of Jyvskyl, Finland (University of Jyvaskyla, PL 35 40351 Jyvaskyla, Finland)
The aim of this study is to search the essences of one central phenomenon in the area of adult education - adult experiential learning. Why is this piece of conceptual analysis needed? The picture of adult experiential learning that emerges is Confucian. I doubt if its true total meaning has yet been encapsulated in earlier definitions (cf. Scriven, 1988). Adult experiential learning is a complex, vague, ambiguous and fluid phenomenon, which is still inadequately defined, conceptually suspect and even poorly researched. Its theoretical foundations are fragmented and confusing. It could be claimed that conceptual ambiguity and semantic chaos surround definitions of adult experiential learning, On the other hand, adult experiential learning is often seen in an overwhelmingly positive and liberating light. Experiential learning, as a somewhat adventitious educational philosophy and method, has tended to attract most those interested in adult education - especially teachers. I shall assess the theory-building efforts concerning adult experiential learning attempted so far and try to contribute to a deeper understanding of the nature of this phenomenon, to offer a "better" conceptualisation of it, to re-define it. A deeper understanding of this phenomenon is an essential prerequisite for dealing intelligently with any educational activity concerning adults.
Work based learning: from marginality to a central place in universities' academic programmes (P 22.2)
Derek Portwood, Middlesex University, United Kingdom
Work - paid and unpaid - is a primary source of learning for everyone. Yet, historically, it has played a marginal role in higher education - relegated to the status of a short period of work experience in a narrow range of business and technological subjects. A series of developments is reversing that position, moving work based learning to a central place in universities' academic programmes. These include: the social and economic importance being given to the concept of lifetime learning by governments and industry; the commitment of universities to access and wider participation and to contributing to national wealth; the redefinition and reorientation of the relationship between employers and universities; the broadening of the university curriculum to include areas of study in which professional practice plays a central role; and the accreditation of experiential and work based learning within an academic framework based on modularity and academic credit principles and practices. Consequently, work based learning is capturing wide interest internationally and is the focus of considerable institutional development. Drawing on a wide range of experience and an in-depth exploration of the case of Middlesex University, United Kingdom, this paper examines the policy, procedural and practical issues of how work based learning is given a central place in universities' academic programmes and the intellectual, organisational and curricular consequences.
Creative writing: its impact on personal growth and professional competence for training staff in the financial sector (P 34.1)
Lynette Priddey and Sue Williams, Wolverhampton Business School, United Kingdom
The authors have been involved in several educational initiatives that are concerned with how students recognise, reflect and consequently build on their personal experiences in order to gain a qualification and develop their skills within their particular profession. This study focuses on the use of the "storyboard" or reflective aspects of the portfolios of evidence that are built up to achieve a National Vocational Qualification at Level 4 in the field of Training and Development. The storyboard enables the students more freely to describe and think about their responses to the units of knowledge or expertise demanded by the NVQ. This study is based on interviews with a number of trainers, employed by a major bank, at differing stages in the completion of their portfolios. The interviews focused on their past experiences, their preferred methods of communication, the perceived value of the written "storyboard" aspects of the portfolio and the extent to which the process had stimulated reflections. Having explored some of the background literature on the role of reflection and reflective writing and on individual differences in approach to communication, this paper then discusses the use of reflective writing in the development of high level NVQ portfolios. The interviews produced a number of common themes but also some rich variations. These have implications for the creation of an appropriate structure for implementing and developing NVQs and the reflective practitioner skills needed by individuals and organisations.
Effective strategies to learn to write (and read): observational learning (W 26)
Gert Rijlaarsdam, University of Amsterdam, Netherland
Learning to write and read in secondary school and in higher education is less effective than it could be. Just writing a text, after some scarce instructions, then getting feed back from the teacher or peer writers, can't be an effective teaching strategy for as complex a process as writing and reading. Therefore, we developed writing and reading lessons, based on the idea that observation is a strong learning activity, with high potential for transfer (from reading to writing and from writing to reading). In the workshop, we will begin with some observation techniques which were applied to students. Then we will watch some videotaped students doing the observation exercises. Some of the results of our research will then be presented and we hope to conclude with a plenary discussion to refine and elaborate the ideas on effective teaching and learning of writing and reading.
Reflection: what's in your toolkit? (W 16)
Mary Rose, Aoteoroa, New Zealand
(4 Jessel Street, Grey Lynn, Auckland 2, Aoteaora, New Zealand)
This "show and tell" for experiential learners will gather together ways of reflecting invented or discovered by those attending. We will use creative ways to explore our collection, swap "tools" and ways of using them, to make a new enlarged toolkit to pass on - perhaps create a new tool to add. Your information sheets are welcome.
Sharing experience: learning from and with each other (P 23.2)
Jane Sampson, University of Technology, Sydney, Australia
In adult education, the knowledge and experience an adult brings to the learning group is much discussed and highly valued as a resource for learning. Within the progressive, humanistic and radical Freirian traditions, experience is seen as providing the learner with a "rich resource" to learn from a "base" upon which to build new learning (Saddington, 1992, p. 47). This resource has the potential to benefit other students in a learning group, but to what extent is it useful to other learners, and how is it most effectively shared? At a time when there is an increased world-wide focus on the individual learner with an interest in providing education programmes through distance or open learning frameworks, and where on some campuses, the idea of drawing on students' experience is to have students as "peer tutors" (where more advanced students teach others the formal context of the course) this discussion of learning from and with each other may seem somewhat old-fashioned. However, I continue to be impressed by the obvious and positive impact students have on each other, often far greater that that of even well-respected teachers. I am concerned that present trends in education may reduce these opportunities and, in so doing, devalue the experience of the students and discard a key learning resource. In this paper, I discuss the perceptions of students in an undergraduate course for adult educators about learning from and with each other. Over the last two years, students have responded to a variety of written questions and have participated in various interviews about their experiences of learning from and with each other. They have provided insight into the value of particular structures within their courses that were specially developed to provide them with opportunities to learn from and with each other and have made suggestions about how these might work more effectively. They have also commented on other ways in which they learn from and with each other, as well as describing what they have actually learned from these experiences and how they value that learning. The relationship between these students is as equals - genuine peers - usually within the same year, adding their experience, their skills and knowledge, to the content of the course as well as working with each other in exploring unfamiliar material.
Assessment and accreditation of prior experiential learning in higher education: policy and practice at Leeds Metropolitan University (W 18)
John Samuel, Leeds Metropolitan University, United Kingdom
The workshop provides an opportunity for participants to discuss issues and share experiences of the different arrangements for identifying, recognising, assessing, accrediting and incorporating prior experiential policies and practices operating across higher education institutions, especially when viewed from a global perspective. The workshop will operate on the premise that the introduction of any system or arrangement for assessing and accrediting prior experiential learning across higher education programmes of study is bound to raise questions about the overall benefits to students and, at the same time, focus attention on major issues of institutional policy and practice, particularly in respect of the enhanced need for curricular reforms (notably modularity and credit frameworks) and for improved student guidance and learning support. Using experience at Leeds Metropolitan University, United Kingdom, as an initial focus, workshop participants will be encouraged to assess various institutional policies and practices underlying the assessment and accreditation of prior experiential learning, not just for their impact on teaching and learning processes, but also for their improvements to internal regulatory frameworks and to institutional arrangements for admissions, assessment and quality assurance.
A question of difference: a critical reflection on participatory methodologies to challenging "race", class, gender and culture in the classroom (P 4.3)
Joe Samuels and Tammy Shefer, CACE, University of the Western Cape, South Africa
The aim of this paper is to present what we believe is an alternative approach to educational practices aimed at challenging oppression, inequality and discriminatory practices, such as racism, sexism, classism, ethnocentrism and others. The approach emerges out of a number of histories, including a broader socio-political context as well as a particular organisational context. Educators have tended to focus primarily on two major areas of inequality, that of challenging racist and ethnocentric practices (under the names of anti-racist training, education for tolerance, multicultural education, etc); and that of challenging gender inequality and sexism (e.g. gender training, gender equity, women's empowerment, anti-sexist training, etc). How one addresses issues of oppression is not a neutral venture, but is informed by and equally reproduces particular ideological and political positions, as we will illustrate. Through an analysis of some of the more popular forms of educational intervention, we have identified certain gaps and problems inherent in these approaches which have particular political consequences. The approach proposed in this paper is therefore in part a response to our criticisms of other approaches predominating in this area. Critical reflection on this work, developed and piloted at the Centre for Adult and Continuing Education (CACE) at the University of the Western Cape, gave rise to an impetus to develop a different approach to these areas of oppression. One of the primary outcomes of evaluation was the realisation of the need to integrate the two areas of work, both theoretically and practically, and expand them into a framework that incorporates all forms of oppression and inequality. We have coined the term anti-oppression as a way of referring to an approach which acknowledges the complex interaction of oppression and therefore provides an integrative framework for practice. The paper begins with a critique of adult educational interventions against racism, sexism, etc.; a critique which guided the development of the integrative, contextual approach (ICA) to anti-oppression training that we are proposing. Next we present the ICA including its process of development, underlying and guiding philosophical principles, methods utilised and a brief discussion of outcomes. We end with a critical evaluation of the approach and conclusions for educational practice in challenging all forms of inequality and oppression in South Africa today.
Taming of the inner snakes: compassionate communication in the school context (P 28.1)
Nada Savic, University of Belgrade, Yugoslavia
The presentation will summarise the basic features of an interactive, experiential learning paradigm for teacher's training based on Rosenberg's model of compassionate communication, which enable participants to communicate in a way that is both self assertive and co-operative. The experience and research data obtained in the realisation of the training programme will be discussed. The nature of a shift participants are experiencing in viewing themselves and others by practising these skills in the real life situations, will be described. The author will try to examine more closely the key cognitive differentiation involved in the process of self- reflection and social change.
The outdoor classroom - let's stop beating around the bush (P 10.2)
Ken Seymour, Australian Catholic University, Sydney, Australia
For decades people working in the broad area of education have recognised that some of the more important and most permanent learning in an educational setting takes place in contexts other than the formal setting of the classroom and quite often in spite of what goes on in "the classroom". Camping, outdoor education, outward bound, scouting type programmes, adventure education, and experiential learning in all of its forms have grown out of this expectation. What is still missing to a large degree, however, is the researched substantiation of the outcomes of these types of experiences. This paper will report on and discuss the researched outcomes of high school based programmes of various types in Australia, focusing on the specific nature of the experiences, gender issues, timing, and so on.
A university community alliance for sustainability (P 14.1)
Daniel Sherrard, Earth University, Costa Rica
One of the principle problems in the sustainable development of natural resources and agriculture in Latin America is the formation of young people possessing a concern for social justice and environmental protection, yet capable of entrepreneurial innovation. The educational programme of the Agricultural College of the Humid Tropical Region (EARTH) in Costa Rica includes an array of experiential approaches to higher education in agriculture which together represent a unique strategy for developing professionals able to integrate these areas critical to the development process in Latin America. EARTH's education programme includes a variety of innovative approaches including entrepreneurial student projects, work experience throughout the four-year programme of study, internships, direct involvement in the development process in the communities surrounding the University, and an innovative curriculum stressing disciplinary integration and the development of personal ethics and leadership. EARTH is seeking to graduate a professional in agriculture capable of making a significant contribution to the development process in each of their communities. In this paper, EARTH's experience will be shared, including a description of the experiential strategies employed as well as the measures which have been taken to integrate the University with the development process in the surrounding communities. Measures of faculty, student and staff perceptions regarding the efficacy of the overall programme will also be included. Finally, EARTH's programmes will be placed in the larger context of agricultural and natural resource education in Latin America.
Research as education in experiential learning: developing a local and global perspective for social change (W 11)
Sue Shuttleworth, Centre for Continuing Education, University of Hull, United Kingdom
At the 1994 Conference in Washington, USA, we presented a report on a recent two-year research project examining collaborative research between workers and academics. This study focused on the experiential process when lay and professional researchers come together to engage in a jointly defined research project. We looked at range of such research events from the point of view of their educative potential for participants, and used the reflexive words of participants to construct an experiential view coming from the eyes of the learner. For this workshop, we wish to take the above initial frameworks further to examine approaches to and understanding of experiential learning through the concept of "research as experiential education". In particular, we are concerned to gather a range of local perspectives from which a global perspective might be developed which could tell us something about the impact of the socio-political context on the nature and shape of non-traditional research involving workers. We are looking to develop a heuristic device which will inform potential research groups.
Literacy, national development and socio-political change: the case of Kenya's system of education (P 18.1)
Kenneth Inyani Simala, Maseno University College, Kenya
(Department of Kiswahili, Maseno University College, PO Box 333,
Maseno, Kenya)
At the dawn of the twenty first century, the world is witnessing continuing and accelerating changes in all spheres of human endeavour. The role of education is to assist in the reconstruction and development of nations. In light of the changing dimensions of society, literacy educators are compelled to find new and more meaningful ways of understanding their place and task in social change. This paper, therefore, analyses the history and role of literacy programmes in a country experiencing a period of rapid change. Concerned with the roles literacy has had on the development of Kenya, the paper discusses the future of literacy programmes, their aims and purpose, in relation to conditions and requirements of a changing society. It is recommended that literacy education requires re-orientation under various aspects.
Introducing the world to science through experiential learning (W 21)
Margaret Skomolo, Institute for African Alternatives, South Afric
Science is as part of our lives as our culture. We live with it just as we live with our language, the foods we eat and even the air we breathe. Traditional methods that have been used to teach science over the years portrayed it as a difficult field of study far removed from people's daily lives. This workshop is a modest demonstration of how the continuous presence in our lives of the principles of science can be revealed and science made easy and interesting through experiential learning.
To strengthen service learning policy and practice: stories from the field (W 32)
Timothy Stanton, Haas Center for Public Service, Stanford University, USA
This report describes early work and preliminary findings from the first comprehensive research and publication project designed to develop a history of the pedagogy of service learning. The project is designed to utilise this history to strengthen the field's theoretical policy and practice dimensions and thereby its potential to transform education and society. The project addresses three sets of questions, the answers to which are essential to understanding service learning's accomplishments, problems and potential: (i) where did service learning come from? who were the early practitioners? what was their social/political/educational context? from what traditions or theoretical bases did they work? what were their motivations and purposes? what were their "theories in practice"?; (ii) what problems, challenges, and opportunities confront the field now? what can service learning ultimately contribute to students/citizens, communities/society, academic institutions? how?; and (iii) where should the field be headed? what is needed to get there? how can the history of this field guide its future development? the first stage of the project has focused on history; identifying and obtaining oral histories from a small but representative number of diverse "pioneer" service learning practitioners. We are interested in how these "pioneers" trace their path to service learning as a primary expression of their educational, social and/or political commitments. By gathering and analysing these stories, by learning what contexts, perspectives and purposes informed what people did, we are building a history of this field's early years of knowledge and a theory base, which will broaden understanding of service learning's many, varied applications. The second stage of the project will build in the first to address the second two sets of questions. With an historical foundation established and using an interactive process similar to that designed for the first stage, we will examine service learning's theoretical dimensions and policy implications, and recommend measures for strengthening the field in its current expression and its future development.
If experience counts, then why am I bothering to come here? Reflection, experiential learning and the tensions of accreditation (W 1)
Mary Stuart, University of Sussex, United Kingdom and Kevin Ward, Department of Adult Continuing Education, University of Leeds, United Kingdom
This workshop will offer participants the opportunity to explore their learning life histories and reflect on the relationship between formal and informal learning, experience and accreditation. The facilitator will draw on her experience of developing a recognition of prior (experiential) learning scheme in the Centre for Continuing Education at the University of Sussex in the United Kingdom. Participants will reflect on their experience of formal assessment of learning and compare the "quality" of this learning with informal learning that has not received institutional recognition. Drawing on this practical experiential work, participants will be asked to explore the nature of social knowledge, power in institutions that own knowledge and issues of the marginalisation of experiential knowledge.
"They don't accept anything I have sketched" A case illustration about difficulties in doing correct interpretations on experienced pedagogical events (P 6.1)
Vappu Sunnari, Oulu University, Finland
A new research group was started at the Teacher Education Department of Oulu University in Autumn 1994. It considers growth, education and multicultural issues from ethical points of view. The project works under the name "Breaking hindrances as a prerequisite for meeting each other and for growing". The project members analyse human relationships in general, and pedagogical relationships as parts of them. Group members pay special attention to the growth hindering hidden in constructions. The starting hypothesis is that there are different kinds of societal and social inequalising value based constructions and that those value constructions are culturally produced and reproduced. They build some kind of valuing and direction frames on the societal and institutional level and on the individual level as well. Group members try to find out these frames in concrete living and learning situations and processes and to find out their constructions on institutional, group and individual levels. In the conference presentation, we try to bring into discussion three different kinds of hindrances and we suppose each of them is also a challenge and topical for experiential learning. The hindrances are included in institutional habits and traditions, in political-economic ideologies and in canalised ways of understanding learning theories, in our case, in canalised ways of understanding experiential learning. Our empirical data is gathered in teacher education, partly in the study processes of the students who study in the "international programme of primary teacher education" and partly in the study processes of the students who study in the so-called "many disciplinary vocational teacher education programme". In addition to the usual professional aims of teacher education, the special aim in the "international programme" is a global and multicultural understanding of each other. The special aim in the "multi- disciplinary programme" is to widen the understanding of experts, for example by breaking down the traditional institutional boundaries. In both programmes, different local and/or international networks are used.
Experiential learning in the period of radical social change (P 3.2)
Jolanta Taruškiene, Kaunas University of Technology, Lithuania
Radical social change is the context in which experiential learning significantly intensifies. In such a context, the general characteristics of experiential learning become more clearly expressed. While experiential learning takes place under the same major influences of the economy, social political order, etc, its implications for different groups of society are contradictory. This is apparent even in the groups having the same cultural and age characteristics. On one hand, experiential learning may lead to quick adaption to new circumstances, while on the other, some people do not organise their learning to benefit themselves and society. This may result in serious hindrance or reforms. Relying on the experience of Lithuania, the conference paper will address socio-technical and social policy influences on experiential learning. It also aims at generating proposals for facilitation and direction of experiential learning under the conditions of radical social change.
Re-engineering within the corporate and the business environment to promote cultural diversity: an experiential learning process (P 4.1)
Linda Tauhid, Fielding Institute, USA
Reconstructing a non-racist society is long overdue. However, to achieve this difficult task, one must acknowledge the role of analytical distortions and faulty beliefs in the long history of racism. This paper examines the use of experiential learning to educate adults in business and corporate settings from an organisational/behavioural perspective, to identify racist typologies, to cope with racism, and to develop empathy, interdependence and a shared reality. Experiential learning and organisational change theories are reviewed as well as the role of the Learning Organisation in the change process. The experiential nature of this research is highlighted in the process of exploring solutions and reviewing models for such change as they exist world-wide as well as involving practitioners, educators and business leaders in the dialogue and change process.
The BEST game: learning business by experience (W 5)
James Thomas, Triple Trust Organisation, South Africa
The most effective way to discover how basic business principles work in real life is through experience. The BEST game provides a platform for this experience by simulating the real world in the classroom. The game was developed by the Triple Trust Organisation (TTO), a non-profit organisation committed to micro-enterprise development in the greater Cape Town area. It was developed out of a need to help people with little or no formal education to understand the basic principles of running a business. Participants are divided into three teams, each running a small manufacturing business. The teams have a month calendar for planning and recording their transactions. The game is played with "real" money borrowed from the bank, and has to be repaid with interest at the end of the "month".
The family - a key context in health professional education (P 27.2)
Rosalie Thompson, Department of Nursing, University of Cape Town, South Africa
Signs of family disintegration confront us daily both as citizens and as nurses, and particularly so in the fractured South African society. The 1994 United Nations Year of the Family bears testimony to international concern for the family as an institution and the recognition of the family unit as pivotal to individual and societal integrity, health and stability. It is thus crucial that the family should be a primary area of experience in the education of all health care professionals. This paper will describe the experience of using the family as a key area of learning in undergraduate nursing education over the past 12 years at the University of Cape Town. Risky, threatening to students, staff and families though this has been ... "it's been the opportunity of a lifetime ... a growing, life changing experience ... restoring and reconciling..." say students.
Whole language teaching in a New Zealand classroom (W 6)
Bertha Tobias, Rowley Primary School, New Zealand
In this workshop I will invite you to become a child and experience a normal day in the life of a five to seven or eight year-old child at school. The particular focus will be on reading and writing; but be prepared to have a massage and participate in brain-gym exercises! The assumption underlying this approach is that life and learning cannot be segregated into boxes and that any topic taught can cover all curriculum areas. This workshop will attempt to demonstrate how this can be done.
Who needs adult education or training? (P 9.1)
Robert Tobias, University of Canterbury, New Zealand
Previous research suggests that class, gender and race, together with a number of other factors, have a significant impact on the extent and nature of participation by adults in all forms of learning and education. Very little research has, however, been done to investigate the views and perspectives on learning and education of adults with little or no tertiary education who are not involved in any organised education or training. Similarly, very little research has been done to investigate the dynamic processes through which class, gender, race and other factors serve to structure the post-compulsory learning and educational patterns, experiences, interests, view and perspectives of these people. This paper reports some of the preliminary findings of an exploratory research project designed to investigate some of these issues. Using a qualitative methodology, in-depth interviews are being undertaken with a sample of adults with little or no experience of post-compulsory or tertiary education with a view to presenting a picture of their lives and learning experiences, and their views and perspectives on learning and education.
Experiential and participatory methods in the training of trainers in early childhood development Kate Torkington, Bernard van Leer Foundation, Netherlands (P 12.2)
(Bernard van Leer Foundation, PO Box 82334 2508 E H, The Hague, Netherlands)
This paper describes and analyses a three-year large-scale training of trainers initiative in nine African countries, which is built on the principles and methods of experiential participatory learning. The paper begins by presenting the rationale for using only these methods in training in development agencies. The theoretical underpinnings most relevant to the training of trainers in the development field are then selected for discussion. These include: experiential learning and the concept of knowledge; cultural differences and experiential learning; adult learning and adult learners; and the relationship of theory and practice. Some of the critical views experiential participatory are reviewed and counter arguments provided. In the paper, there are several examples from the experience of the author as a trainer in many settings, but the main practical focus of the paper is the Joint Training Initiative in Africa of which the author is the Co-ordinator. The Initiative is described briefly and then is analysed in terms of its challenges and successes in relation to experiential participatory learning. Important questions on the relationship between content and process and the appropriate use of "external" theory are addressed as well as the uncertainties about introducing these methods into cultures where education and training systems are highly formal, non-participatory and hierarchical. One of the major successes of the Joint Training Initiative has been the rapid personal development of the 21 core trainers from the nine countries. Although there were considerable differences in educational background, attainment and status in their countries, almost without exception their confidence has grown to the extent that they have been able to exercise significant influence on the development of national ECD policies. The paper concludes that it is inconceivable that conventional didactic training methods could have resulted in the increase of confidence and enhancement of self-image over a very short period of time, which this programme has achieved.
How to support reflection in project-based learning using learning portfolios and information technology (P 17.2)
Eero Tourunen, University of Jyvaskyla, Finland
Project-based learning offers an acting foundation for co-operation between universities and working life. In the Department of Computer Science and Information Systems in the University of Jyvskyl it has been developed for undergraduate students a course of system design, which has the goal of constructing real products with industrial companies and others in the world of business. The purpose of the programme has been to enhance co-operation between university and business organisations, and to develop pedagogical tools for learning. To this end, students are working in self-directed project groups over a period of two semesters. University teachers are supervising the groups and encouraging them to reflect upon their work. Students use computers to document the whole project process such as: project plans; co-operation messages; minutes of all meetings (also internal meetings); reports of interviews; plans and reports of content for the client; and computer software designed by the group. All these documents (called base-portfolios) stored by the computers offer a useful foundation for the evaluation of the project process. At least twice during the course, groups have systematic evaluation meetings. For these meetings, the students have to analyse their own project process and write a report about it. This report is called proof-portfolios, the contents of which must be evidenced in the base-portfolios. The demand for evidence is not only for the use of the teachers, but also for the use of the students themselves. The analysing is based on the material in the base-portfolios. The groups must agree with the full reports which they are writing. By using computers, it is easy to reconstruct the situations of the project process during the analysing phase. This is especially the case when using electronic mail for communication. The understanding of portfolios has deepened the reflection upon the project process. By means of portfolio ideas, the focus of the reflection has turned to the project process in its entirety, instead of small separated events. This has helped students to understand better the whole process of developing information systems in practice and has enhanced the knowledge of their professional identity.
Community radio: primary health care and community development (W 7)
Gabriel Urgoiti, National Progressive Primary Health Care (NPPHCN), South Africa
The aim is to explore the medium of radio as a creative way to communicate primary health care messages. The objectives are: to produce a ten-minute Primary Health Care programme on audio cassette; participate in a mock on-air programme, to broadcast this programme on radio and to determine how and where to distribute these messages. (Participants on the workshop are strongly encourage to go on the site visit to NPPHCN - Media (110) on Wednesday 3 July.)
Building on what we know - a training for trainers programme (P 16.2)
Karen van der Merwe, Early Learning Resources Centre (ELRU), South Africa
This paper is about a Training for Trainers programme developed by the Early Learning Resource Unit. Participants are trainers who are working with teachers, parents, health workers and others who are involved in the provision of Early Child Development services. The paper will focus on a number of challenges that are being faced by both the designers/facilitators and participants, including those which are part of the broader context of education and training in South Africa. The discussion includes challenges such as: building on the diversity of backgrounds and circumstances as positive variables in designing educational events; using common problems as a means of collective critical reflection; developing written materials that assist but do not stifle or limit trainers' creativity; creating networks of monitoring and support; providing a forum for sharing information that is central to current policy initiatives; and two broader contextual issues currently being debated in South Africa: (i) the National Qualifications Framework (NQF) and (ii) a new national concept of Education and Training Development Practitioner (ETDP). Within all of the above, the challenge to those involved in designing programmes is to continually respect and listen to participants so that the training we provide is anchored firmly around their needs, demands and circumstances.
Risk of social exclusion and informal learning (P 8.2)
Ruud van der Veen, University of Nijmegen, Netherlands
Point of departure for the research to report in this paper was the concept of de- traditionalisation of social practices (Beck, Giddens). De-traditionalisation leads to higher standards for effective participation and hence for individuals to a greater risk of social exclusion. Formal learning (training courses, etc.) is a matter of secondary concern for individuals who want to increase their competencies for participation. The primary process is one of informal learning, learning in all sorts of context, self-controlled by the learner. Therefore, the success of informal learning depends on the quality of the reflexive monitoring of learning experiences by the learner. We held in-depth interviews with community educators, who have the reputation to excel in understanding and facilitating these processes of reflexive monitoring in people living under more than average risk of social exclusion.
Out of the hothouse, into the field (P 30.1)
Astrid von Kotze, University of Natal, South Africa
The hothouse of academia provides ideal conditions for providing adult educator training. Within the controlled environment of the classroom, the climate is carefully set for the growth of knowledge and skills. The learning ground is fertilised with quality books and materials, learners are nurtured and monitored and the end product is a breed of well-conscientised educators who pass the test - and go off to work in the fields. Out in the "jungle" of the work- world, the conditions are less cultivated and educators may not yield the crop of transformed empowered learners they aim at with their hothouse tools. The Southern African field is harsh as community-based learners are at risk from multiple socio-economic, political and environmental vulnerabilities. Often they expect educators to come equipped with hard skills, able to eradicate poverty-induced problems and meet their basic needs. As one trainee educator put it: "communities need a community worker who has skills and knowledge, not a person who is going to spend their time in speeches, theories, without helping them to solve any practical problems". This paper explores some of the contradictions of academic "training trainers" programmes developed with reference to but not based in concrete work-world experience. It makes a strong bid for educators committed to social action to test their skills in the field and, in the process, discover the deficits of their praxis. Drawing on experiences gained, particularly in a Southern African training programme for relief and development workers, the paper argues that adult education for social change will fail if it targets individual learners without addressing their sponsoring institutions and organisations. It concludes that adult education must be placed within a clear development framework and include a focus on structural transformation.
Don't push the river? Critical reflective experiential inquiry for social and organisational learning and change(P 1.1)
Susan Weil, Nene College, United Kingdom
Four ICEL conferences have significantly influenced my development of a grounded theory and practice of "critical reflexive experiential inquiry" (CREI). Our attempts within these fora to engage with diversity - in terms of the sheer range of transformative purposes, values, and practices for "experiential learning" - are at the heart of the metaphor "to push or not to push the river". Our encounters here have been both unsettling and rewarding. They compel us to wrestle, time and time again, with the inevitable tension around whether, when and how to shift a free flowing "romantic celebration of experience" (Wildermeersch, 1992) and reflection upon it, to a more critical plane. As facilitators of organisational and social change, we repeatedly face this tension in our work with others. But "pushing the river" with respect also to ourselves is equally essential to maintaining self-respect and capacity for principled action in situations of growing complexity within a post-modern world. This particular discussion of CREI will focus on its relevance to providing developmental challenge for facilitators working with others to stimulate or support "whole system change", within or across organisations and communities. After some background reflections, I explore my own evolving understandings of CREI through a consideration of its purposes, theoretical assumptions, and an epistemology of practice, with illustrations from recent work. I consider my own struggles with how we set in motion what Wildemeersch (1992, p. 27) calls "communicative praxis", involving "narrative and discursive explorations", but in ways that keep theory grounded and some sense of ourselves as human beings connected, despite our needs to negotiate ever moving waters. As such, CREI is based on a commitment to developing forms of multi-levelled and multi-faceted analysis and discourse, involving a dialectical interplay of expressive and explanatory modes of knowing. This includes the use of "critical learning theatre", which will be introduced briefly in this paper, as one approach to CREI that I have been evolving over 20 years, and about which I am also currently theorising my epistemology of practice. CREI provides a means of reflecting critically on the epistemological basis for our judgements and choices in situations characterised by considerable complexity at individual, group, organisational, cultural and socio-political levels; on dilemmas - at play across those levels - both manifest and latent - that we cannot resolve but require alert "working with"; on the contextualisation and contingency dimensions of our action choices; on "living" criteria for trustworthiness, drawing on current thinking in post postivist research; and the development of new understandings of intervention and inquiry in the context of social and organisational change. I close by considering some difficult questions facing me at present in these areas.
Towards the development of "critical reflective experiential enquiry": focus on facilitators' dilemmas (W 8)
Susan Weil, Nene College, United Kingdom
The workshop will build on the paper (P 1.1 on Tuesday 2 July at 10.45am) and will enable participants to consider key dilemmas facing those who use EL to stimulate and support social and organisational learning/change initiatives and the interplay of these at macro and micropolitical levels. To push or not to push the river? What this may mean in different circumstances, will be central to our explorations. We shall also consider the potential of CREI for working with these dilemmas, and enhancing facilitator effectiveness.
Thinking fragments; cultural disintegration and the struggle for personal and social reconstruction (P 24.1)
Linden West, School of Continuing Education, University of Kent, United Kingdom
The paper will focus on struggles for learning, agency and authenticity in contexts of cultural, social and economic fragmentation. It is derived from research in communities and among peoples on the margins, those experiencing major economic and cultural change; in the collapse, for instance, of traditional industries and the emergence of large-scale unemployment. The paper uses longitudinal, inter-disciplinary, biographical research with adult learners to explore the preconditions for agency during periods of deepest uncertainty. Using social constructivist/object relations theories, I will argue that adults, at times of instability, require supportive relationships to tell new stories and participate in processes of social reconstruction. To negotiate change requires good, nurturing relationships and others who can offer positive mirroring. The paper suggests the deep paradox of late modernity in which individuals are more able to experiment with new identities as cultures fragment, but in conditions which necessitate some social and psychological security.
The contribution of social learning for student teachers: facilitating enterprise education (P 15.2)
Danny Wildemeersch, Catholic University of Leuven, Belgium and Catholic University of Nijmegen, Netherlands
I want to present a paper in which I develop the concept of social learning. Social learning is a learning process which can take place within individuals, groups, organisations and communities who cope with new, uncertain and unpredictable conditions. It is aimed at the resolution of unexpected context problems and is characterised by an optimal mobilisation of the problem-solving capacities available within the individuals, groups, organisations or communities involved. Social learning processes have four basic characteristics: they involve critical reflectivity, as basic assumptions which give direction to actions are being questioned; they are interactive and communicative, which means that they make optimal use of the dialogue among involved participants; they are action- and experience-oriented, or based on the principles of reflection-in-action and reflection-on-action; and they are interdisciplinary, because the solution of complex problems necessitates the collaboration between a diversity of actors.
The biographical method to enhance experiential learning (W 22)
Danny Wildemeersch, University of Nijmegen, Netherlands and University of Leuven, Belgium and Joke Vandenabeele, National Fund of Scientific Research, Belgium
In a two-hour workshop, we want to use the biographical method as an educational tool to stimulate people in groups to reflect on how and where they learned to take up or not to take up ecological responsibility. We shall ask participants to write a short life-story about how and where their relationship with the natural environment took shape. The participants will be asked to discuss their life story with each other. In this way, people are stimulated to reflect on their own life-world, the self-evident perception on reality learned through very different experiences in very different social contexts. We will also try to relate the concrete biographical experiences to insights about the transformation of the life-world. In this way, we will emphasise the European outlook on the theory and practice of experiential learning.
Experiential learning in the University of the Third Age (U3A): personal and community development for the elderly (P 21.2)
Alan Williamson, University of Western Sydney, Australia
This paper explores the potential which experiential learning has for personal and community development among people in the Third Age of their lives, defined loosely as "retirement". It starts from the premise that in developed countries, at least, a unique phenomenon exists whereby a whole new set of educational needs for older people has been uncovered as proportionally more are living longer, healthier and more active lives than ever before in human history. It points out that their learning needs in retirement, being no longer vocational or career-oriented, centre on personal needs and interests and the desire to enjoy the social stimulation of learning in the company of like-minded people. Satisfaction of these learning needs, it is argued, can foster a sense of community which has, as yet, an unrecognised potential for encouraging retired people to be active citizens. The paper pursues this theme with reference to the University of the Third Age (U3A), an international adult education movement run by and for people living in the Third Age of their lives. Drawing on literature and research about U3A, it shows how the adult learning engaged in and encouraged by the movement is largely experiential in the sense of Weil and McGill's Village Four which is concerned with "personal growth and development and experiential learning approaches that increase self-awareness and group effectiveness". The voices of the Third Agers from the Liverpool U3A - School for Seniors in Western Sydney, illustrate this point as they relate their experiences of learning through U3A and what it means in their lives, personally and socially. Implications for a model of experiential learning for older people are drawn. The paper concluded that experiential learning can be a powerful educational medium in the Third Age with much potential for keeping older people interested in life and in being active community members.
Teachers learning with and without the academy (P 29.2)
Chris Winberg, USWE Trust, South Africa
The field of adult basic education and training (ABET) in South Africa has traditionally been a non-formal one; but there are currently several initiatives to formalise adult learning. This paper explores one of these initiatives: the National Diploma in ABET, which was developed by USWE (a non-governmental organisation working in ABET) and Peninsula Technikon, a tertiary institution. The paper describes the process of bringing together different paradigms of learning - focusing on attempts to reconcile the apparent contradictions of formal and experiential learning inthe development of courses and materials.
Experiential learning in a multicultural environment (W 36)
Pushpa Wood, Wellington Polytechnic, New Zealand
It is important to note that, in general, mono-cultural assessment tools are currently used to assess multicultural experiential learning. This workshop will provide the participants with an opportunity to explore the definition of culture and multicultural environment and its relevance to their work. It will also look at the current assessment practices for experiential learning for various institutional environments. The participants will be able to look at some assessment strategies which may be relevant for assessing multicultural experiential learning.