GENERAL EDUCATION IN AN AGE OF STUDENT MOBILITY

Lessons from Adult Learning

by William H. Maehl

The growth over the last generation of the number of adult learners among the total population of higher education enrollments has been well noted. The proportion varies from year to year, but during the 1990s the number of students aged twenty-five and older has risen to between 40% and 45% of all enrollments. Most of these persons are between twenty-five and forty-nine years old, making up 39.4% of the higher education total in 1995. The likelihood is that adult participation will remain at those levels or possibly increase (NCES, 1999).

Given its size, this student population is, of course, quite diverse in terms of race, ethnicity, gender, and social background. Further, when compared with traditional-aged students, adults are distinguished by not only their greater mobility but also by their range of personal experiences, their participation in multiple learning activities (both formal and informal), and often by their desire to play a more active role in the design of their own plans of study.

Both the gaps in and the richness of adults' backgrounds present challenges to educators who work with them. Fortunately, though, the field of adult education has compiled a wealth of experience in meeting these challenges, and the long-term success of many adult credit programs provides some important lessons for a higher education community presently coming to grips with new demographic realities and changing patterns of transfer.

The examples I cite here illustrate three basic strategies for achieving the coherence, integration, and critical reflection we desire. First, many adult programs link strong advising or mentoring systems to a high degree of individualization in degree planning. Second, many apply continuing procedures that lead students to make connections among the stages of their study and to reflect on their progress during it. Third, many include a culminating or summative experience that draws together previous learning. Such capstone events may be final requirements or grow out of reflection during the course of the program, but, either way, they involve a closing consideration of the meaning of the program as a whole.

1. Advising and Degree Planning. A long held principle in adult education is to start with the learner. Malcolm Knowles, who deeply influenced many of today's adult educators, extended this idea to urge that program planning should recognize students' autonomy and involve them in diagnosing their learning needs, designing a plan of learning, and managing and evaluating the learning experience (Knowles, 1980. See also Knowles, 1989; Knowles& Associates, 1985).

Several institutions have followed Knowles' advice and established programs that respond to students' learning styles, apply their previous learning to their new goals, and lay out study plans that accommodate their interests while fulfilling institutional guidelines and standards. A key factor is the continuing relationship between the student and a faculty advisor/mentor, or sometimes an advising committee, who jointly reach agreement on, record, and carry out the program design for the degree.

SUNY-Empire State College's (ESC) baccalaureate degree is an early example of such a program. Faculty mentors are content specialists in various areas, but they also serve as continuing guides to students as they design and progress in their courses of study. Together, mentors and students establish an initial degree learning plan, selecting from among eleven ESC specializations, and each term they agree upon specific learning activities, while maintaining the overall coherence of the degree.

DePaul University's School for New Learning (SNL) uses a slightly different model, structuring its baccalaureate degree around six areas of competence for adult life, including arts and ideas, the human community, the scientific world, lifelong learning, integrative learning, and a focus area that reflects the student's personal and professional goals. Following a short orientation and an entry seminar, students work with an academic committee that includes a faculty mentor, a professional advisor related to the focus area, and, if desired, a peer advisor. This group develops an initial degree plan of study activities that include course participation, self-study, and field experience. SNL prescribes some of the activities while students define others for themselves. The committee also continues to advise students and eventually assesses their fulfillment of the area competencies.

2. Connections throughout the Program. Adult programs adopt various strategies, beyond initial planning, to build connections within the curriculum and to illustrate to students the progress and development they have made. A common approach is to designate a theme, arising from the institution's mission, that extends over one to several courses. For example, Alfred North Whitehead College of the University of Redlands (which has long striven to relate liberal education and professional preparation) includes course requirements in the philosophical foundations and ethics of most of its professional majors. Likewise, the Georgetown University master of arts in liberal studies program includes specially designated human values courses in each degree track. The School for Professional Studies at Regis University in Denver, in addition to stressing values content in its general education requirements, also encourages faculty to consider values issues in their courses across the curriculum.

Several programs have replaced the curriculum of three credit courses with larger blocks of content that are studied as a related whole over semester- or year-long periods. They believe this avoids the fragmentation of a series of discrete courses and enables connections to be made across disciplines and issues. The adult liberal studies programs of the 1960s, such as the University of Oklahoma bachelor of liberal studies degree, defined curriculum in year-long segments of humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences and usually culminated in a fourth interdisciplinary year connecting the preceding three areas. More recently, the McGregor School at Antioch University developed a teacher certification program for bachelor's degree holders that is competency-based, as well as humanistic and developmental in outlook. It is organized in four academic quarter blocks which students address collaboratively in small groups under the guidance of a team of academic and practitioner faculty. These programs sometimes experience difficulty in challenging the hegemony of the traditional three credit course, but they often achieve greater integration of learning.

Still other programs encourage reflection over the course of the degree by asking students periodically to consider their preceding work or to compile portfolio records of their accomplishments. In its early individualized design, the Georgetown University master of arts in liberal studies asked entrants to submit an essay stating their degree goals, followed by essays reflecting on the direction and significance of their study to date, at points one-third and two-thirds through the degree plan. Discussion of the essays with program faculty confirmed the coherence of the study plan or led to revisions.

Portfolio or extended project requirements serve a similar integrating purpose. Columbia Union College's adult evening program requires students to pursue a project leading to a final report or product that integrates course work over the duration of the degree. Students in DePaul University's SNL programs begin a reflective portfolio as part of their initial degree planning. They maintain the portfolio throughout the program and submit it to their academic committee as part of their final degree review. The recently launched "virtual" institution, Western Governors University, has included a portfolio requirement in its associate of arts design. Although no students have progressed far enough yet to complete the requirement, the portfolio guidelines require inclusion of exhibits created during the course of the degree that demonstrate critical reasoning and analysis, research-based writing, and reflection that touches on several liberal arts disciplines. The portfolio culminates in an integrative essay reflecting on their degree study and the inter-relationship among its parts.

3. Culminating or Capstone Experiences. Some degree programs include final tasks that are intended to bring integration and closure. These may be courses or seminars or written studies undertaken in the last phase of the program, or they may be projects begun much earlier that are completed near the end of the degree. Usually these activities form part of a final assessment prior to degree completion.

For example, New College at St. Edward's University and Capital University's adult degree program each has a course or significant project requirement for this purpose. The Duke University master of arts in liberal studies begins a process of final project development half to two-thirds of the way to degree completion. By their next-to-last semesters, students submit formal project proposals, and in their last semesters they enroll in final project courses which lead to exit interviews, similar to master's degree oral examinations. And University College at the University of Memphis includes a final interdisciplinary special project carried out by independent study in the last one or two semesters.

The faculty role
The history of adult education programs has taught us that in order to achieve curricular coherence for an older, highly mobile student population, schools must depend foremost on an enhanced role for faculty. First, there must be clear communication between the student and the faculty, whether advisor, mentor, or other, on the conception of the degree as a whole and a commitment to plan toward that conception. Second, the faculty member must not only provide content specialization but perform a number of additional roles in support of students, acting as creator, ambassador, standard-setter, energizer, assessor, process specialist, coach, and collaborator (Belasen, 1995). Finally, faculty must reinforce learners' understanding of their development throughout degree study, often leading to a summative or integrating experience. It is not surprising, therefore, that adult programs often include these responsibilities in faculty position descriptions and offer their faculty continuing development programs to encourage holistic approaches to learning.

References
Belasen, A. T. "Mentor role variability and mentor versatility: Some implications for selection and development." All About Mentoring: The Newsletter of the SUNY Empire State College Mentoring Institute 11-14 (January 1995).

Knowles, M. S. The Modern Practice of Adult Education: From Pedagogy to Andragogy. (Second ed.). New York: Cambridge Books, 1980.

Knowles, M. S. The Making of an Adult Educator: An Autobiographical Journey. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1989.

Knowles, M. S.& and associates. Andragogy in Action: Applying Modern Principles of Adult Learning. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1985.

National Center for Education Statistics. Digest of Education Statistics, 1998 (OERI Publication No. NCES 1999-036). Washington, DC: NCES, 1999.