#15 Reflection and question on experiential learnign with working adults

Continuous, Interactive, and Online: A Framework for Experiential Learning with Working Adults by Eric Riedel, Leilani Endicott, Anna Wasescha, and Brandy Goldston published Volume 3 issue 6, August/Septermber/2007

When I was studying some quality assurance issues on adult learning, this article showed up during my browsing. It is like a case report. I gleaned over it and picked some good points for reference.

Summary:
The article started with retrospection on the response to the criticism that universities were either dangerously aloof from the practicalities of the workplace or aligned with the military-industry complex. Later the higher education picked their new roles in facilitating students’ internships, field experiences, and service-learning to demonstrate some functionalities in preparing citizens for meaningful work and participation in the larger society.

The central theme of this article focuses on Walden University’s practice as a showcase. Walden is a distance learning alternative to traditional graduate schools, enrolling over 22,000 masters and doctoral students seeking several of degrees. The programs at Walden are administered through online courses, faculty-guided independent study projects called Knowledge Area Modules (KAMs), or a mix of the two approaches:

A. Lead faculty develop courses and are administered by full and part-time faculty who guide discussion, provide feedback on assignments, and supplement standard course materials.
B. Faculty mentors guide student work on KAMs through e-mail, telephone, and an online forum providing continuous support to all of a mentor's students. Doctoral students are also required to attend 20 days of in-person residencies with faculty and other students held at temporary meeting spaces each year.

The school applies the intersection between experiential and online learning relies on those professional and social experience the students bring to the learning environment from their lives beyond the classroom. This scholar-practitioner approach contrasts with the traditional university model whereby a young adult with little work experience withdraws from the wider society to focus primarily on learning. The opportunity costs for older adults already engaged in professional, community, and family life often preclude such a withdrawal.

Reflection:

A significant point in Walden’s practice is that their admissions policy requires doctoral students having 3 years of practice within the field in which they seek a degree. Master's students are not required to have experience in their field at the time of admission, although these students typically do have such experience above and beyond the requirements they otherwise must meet. The average age of the Walden student is 37.6 years old, and nearly all of them are employed full-time during the period in which they are enrolled.

I can see the functions of the admission standards that obtain a certain degree of homogeneity in terms of age, educational level and occupational elements among those online students. From my observation, they comprise several aspects of adult learning theory: self-directed, transformative, experiential and contextualized learning within and beyond their learning communities. And like most of the busy adult life style, they juggle against time constraints in engaging in the multitasks among family, career, or communities.

Questions:

One of my puzzles in engaging in online teaching and learning is that there are population under various circumstances, seemingly having or seeking the possibility to do more with less resources (both the quantifiable and unquantifiable resources, in particular, time and money, and others, such as the emotions and relations etc.- the cost and effectiveness consideration). Time constraint is a typical factor in many people’s teaching and learning experiences. In Bransford et al’s (1999) “How people learn: mind, brain, experience and school”, pointing out an important component for learning to be transferred to new problems and situations is the time element. The same point was also presented in Lindsey Godwin and Soren Kaplan’s “Designing ee-Learning Environment” as posted in my previous reflection. They honestly addressed an important challenge that confronted the ee-learning: the time commitment from both participants and facilitators. Time spending is a measurable factor. Some research and experienced on liners claim that online teaching and learning are time consuming. According to this line of understanding, then it presents a contradictory scenario that people seek to save time and other resources by selecting a time consuming mechanism to fulfill that goal. I am not referring to the issue of short change of the educational quality. My question is about under what kind of conditions that people can do more with less, in particular, in term of the time constraints – the quantifiable equalizer – because we all have the same 24 hours a day!

Here is a vivid example to illustrate my question- some of my students – such as parents or single parent with young kids, dealing with many other family affairs (sick child, old relatives, personal illness and so on physical and emotional issues), juggling a couple of paid jobs, taking full time loads, busy with other communities issues, and expect to be an “A” student! Sometimes, I am thinking that most of them are supermen and superwomen!! In my case, as a slow bloomer, I have to sacrifice so many things and time in order to get one thing to be done a time!