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The Life History Project at Denmark's Roskilde University is a 5-year research project that was initiated in 1998 to examine learning and participation in adult and continuing education from a life history perspective. The project was designed to build on a broad range of qualitative interview studies and case studies into learning processes. The research methodology designed for the project was grounded in the critical theory tradition and in the following premises: (1) the need to adopt a "holistic" approach that takes the learner's perspective; (2) the notion of experience and the specificity of the learning subject; (3) the need to move beyond conventional hermeneutics to "in-depth hermeneutics," which involves looking for meanings and implications going beyond the knowledge or intent of the acting, knowing, or speaking subject; and (4) the notion that a learning subject is a historical product of modernity and the need to relate it to a dynamic-utopian concept of a learning individual. (Contains 12 references.) (MN)

This paper describes and supports (through citations of published literature) video-based activities that help English (and any other) language learners of all ages and skill levels to acquire and express integrated reading, writing, speaking and listening skills. The paper discusses the use of video to develop and elicit language with an emphasis on clarity of situation-specific communication. By learning how to supplement existing curricular tools with readily available video materials, teachers will acquire ideas and activities that they can implement immediately in their classrooms with minimal preparation. These activities will increase both the level of engagement of students in learning tasks and their subsequent language performance. The author also advises on how to adapt video for assessing performance.

The idea of experience needs to be examined before the experiential aspect of literary reading can be understood, and before literary reading as an ethical practice can properly be defined. Open-mindedness is necessary when fostering student interpretations of a literary text, just as it is necessary for accepting the varying life experiences of others. The paper continues with a brief history of the concept of experience, concluding with an application of the experience concept to literary reading and suggesting possible uses of the term "text" which do not rely on a dualistic concept of experience, such as framing the idea of a text not as a representation of meaning but as a specialized language application for transforming an experience. (Contains 11 references.) (EF)

It is generally assumed that test administrators are accurate and dependable, and that the psychometric properties of validity and reliability applied to test givers are at acceptably high levels. The test giver is thought to have been standardized through training reinforced by experience. This paper considers validity and reliability in relation to test givers regarded as instruments of measurement. The test giver may be regarded as part of the instrument he or she uses, or the giver may be seen as the master instrument in charge of the others. It must be acknowledged that there are differences among test administrators. To ensure the best assessment by the test giver as instrument of assessment, the following must be addressed: (1) acknowledging that the giver is a person; (2) not reviewing a child's records before the assessment; (3) referring to other reports before drafting one's own; (4) talking to other test givers regularly, particularly about scoring; (5) providing training on the issue of behavioral observations; and (6) ensuring that test developers acknowledge the role of the test giver. Two tables illustrate the discussion. (Contains 38 references.) (SLD)

Due to increasing job insecurity, businesses and employees are looking increasingly to the community college system to provide assistance through immediate, on-the-spot training. This is happening as community colleges are redefining their own missions and purposes, and at a time when they are trying to do more with less and to expand the resources they already have. A survey was conducted in order to answer questions about how college presidents feel about their jobs, about becoming presidents, and about their ability to implement change. Twelve community college presidents from the state of Washington participated in a series of telephone interviews. Answers from the presidents are provided for the following questions: (1) As a new community college president what did you find was your biggest surprise? (2) What has been your biggest disappointment? (3) What has been your single biggest mistake or what would you do differently? (4) What was your most important first step? (5) What words of wisdom would you share with those who are interested in this line of work? (6) Which position(s) prepare one the best for this job? and (7) Now that you have been a community college president for a period of time, do you think you made a correct career choice? (HAA)

Focusing on the role of language in learning, this paper discusses schemata and symbolic thinking that help students learn from unfamiliar experiences. The first part of the paper introduces the idea of symbolic thinking by comparing students encountering new ideas with convention-goers making their way around a new city. The section suggests that the convention-goers can do this because they relate unfamiliar experiences to things that are already held in the mind symbolically and adjust old ideas on the basis of new information. The next part of the paper discusses language use in school, and contrasts Transmission teachers, those who see themselves as experts imparting a fixed body of knowledge, with Interpretation teachers, those who acknowledge and work with the ideas with which students come to school. The third part of the paper offers a communication model of language for learning, which encompasses individual capacities for language, language functions, communication modes, and audiences, while the fourth section suggests ways in which the model may be used to facilitate students' self-expressive uses of language. (Four references, a diagram of teaching styles, a diagram of the communication model, and a form for mapping current curricula are included.) (JC)

The nature of the researcher-participant relationship in narrative inquiry is explored by reflecting on the researcher's own experience in such a relationship. It is argued that the researcher who wants to make a difference in the lives of participants must be open to change in return. Personal involvement with participants is an essential ingredient in narrative inquiry, but it must not be confused with a mission to save the participants. Learning must be reciprocal, and dialogue that has a significant impact on the participant must transform the researcher as well. The project on which the exploration is based is a narrative inquiry into the cultural identities of four Japanese students and their readjustment in returning to Japan after prolonged study overseas. Participants benefited from being listened to and from being forced to reflect on their own experiences. Participants felt that the research made them focus on their experiences as returnees, and that the self-knowledge they gained was a valuable result of participation. The researcher experienced a similar gain in knowledge and the benefits of self-examination. (Contains 19 references.) (SLD)

While the physiological explanations from neuroscience help explain the mechanisms of learning, they fall short of explaining the sociocultural and phenomenological factors that determine a stressful versus a challenging interpretation of experience. For this reason, neuroscience seems less than useful to classroom teachers. A major obstacle in developing a humanized neuroscience is the gap between empirical interpretations and the spiritual/philosophical interpretations of neuroscience research. It is suggested that metaphors from quantum physics can be useful in overcoming false separations and mistaken dualisms in the interpretation of neuroscience results. The common language of the brain and mind is hampered by Cartesian dualism. Metaphors from quantum physics can help overcome this mind-body dualism. According to quantum theory, we participate in the creation of our realities through our status as quantum participant- observers. The traditional split between subject and object is overcome through the model elaborated by the participant- observer. The metaphors of quantum physics, including Bohr's Complementarity Principle, corroborate a more holistic interpretation of experience that helps make neuroscience research more practical. Findings from a humanized neuroscience will serve to improve classroom practices and enhance learning. (Contains 12 references.) (SLD)

The process of figuring things out probably is more intriguing than anything else. Metaphor and memory contribute to the figuring out which is done in two personal essays: "Think about It" by Frank Conroy and "The Hidden Teacher" by Loren Eiseley. Metaphor and memory close distances between text and reader, and evoke conditions of intimacy essential in making the essays believable, meaningful, and persuasive. Knowledge comes, among other means, through metaphor and the authenticating act of memory, and in their essays Conroy and Eiseley reflect upon experiences in which knowledge builds accumulatively and moments in which it comes unexpectedly. Both write of experiences in which seemingly insignificant events provide them with insight into the human condition. In each case, the reader/student accesses personal memory to envision the experiences described, then must catch up with the description or the meaning is lost. Memory of past experience authenticates the meaning of metaphor. However, as Conroy observes, understanding does not always mean resolution. Sometimes, memory will enable the observer or reader to resolve the meanings of metaphors and sometimes it will not. If there were no puzzles to solve, there would be no need for metaphors. (SG)

Black technical and professional communication (TPC) is defined as including practices centered on Black community and culture and on rhetorical practices inherent in Black lived experience. Black TPC reflects the cultural, economic, social, and political experiences of Black people across the Diaspora. It also includes the work of scholars in the academy and the contributions of practitioners. In all, Black TPC contextualizes the experiences and cultures of Black peoples through research, teaching, and scholarship. In lieu of a traditional written statement, the authors offer a thematically organized and contextualized list of suggested readings drawn from both within and outside of the discipline and the academy.

Reviews three articles that discuss the ways gender issues and personal characteristics impact computer use. One paper proposes an alternative to using Likert-style attitude measures to study the computer gender gap, and two articles discuss the personal characteristics of teachers that influence computer use. Related studies are mentioned and implications for teaching are inferred. (12 references) (KRN)

Phenomenology, hermeneutics and experiential psychology form the backbone of an emerging paradigm within psychology known as human science. Human science's use of phenomenology provides a way to set aside the naturalistic presupposition and directly study the irreducible involvement of human existence within a meaningful world, as it is given in immediate experience. Traditional psychology's natural science basis leads to the occlusion of meaning. The genetic perspective holds that human involvement in the world is not related to any intrinsic meaning, but is determined by inherited instincts. According to physiological psychology, emotion is casued by changes occurring in the body. Behaviorist theory assumes psychological life is the effect of random associations of impinging stimuli. In cognitive psychology, processed bits of information have replaced stimuli as the efficient reality on which psychological reality is founded. For phenomenological psychology, the fundamental psychological reality is human being in-the-world. Phenomenological research aims to discover the significance of psychological phenomena by studying its occurrance in everyday experience. It does this by obtaining naive descriptions from subjects and explicating the essential structure of the experience. The term human science was selected to connote an umbrella-like unity across different disciplines as well as across technical diversities at the level of method. The unifying factor is the recognition that human existence needs to be approached on its own terms, rather than on conceptual foundations borrowed from natural science. (LLL)

Explores the relationship between life histories, identities, and the act of writing through two students' experiences with academic writing. Diagrams how a writer's experiences shape opinions, voice, and self-concept, which are brought to bear on the act of writing. (SK)

The concept of reflection arises from the Enlightenment view that portrays emotion and the body as unreliable and dangerous, and reason, emotional detachment, and physical distance as preeminent. This reproduces power differentials of gender, class, and race. (SK)

Asserts that qualitative research will gain acceptance when it takes a significant step toward solving a major problem in the discipline. Provides a tentative outline of an approach to metaphysical problems involving radical empiricism and phenomenolgy. Delineates some necessary cognitive shifts involving dialectical and abductive reasoning processes. (JPS)

Relates the experience of an award-winning teacher who, with his wife, chose to leave their materialistic life in Manhattan 27 years ago to live in a barn on a 134-acre farm in southeastern New York state. Describes the pleasures in living with and learning from nature, as opposed to doing meaningless and unrewarding tasks. (LP)

Examines relations between educational practice and learner experience/knowledge, including positivism, empiricism, identity politics, and dialog. Suggests that pedagogy that fails to examine the discursive production of experience is conservative. (SK)

Explores different attempts to specify the supraindividual unit of analysis in terms of which culture's contributions to human development are to be understood. Traces the history and current usage of terms such as practice, activity, situation, and context. (BAC)

This theme issue brings together studies of professional knowledge and its transformation and use. Becoming a professional is a process of fusing theory and experience. Assumptions about learning in general do not necessarily apply to the professional training of teachers, and their applicability should be questioned. (SLD)

A womanist perspective on adult education seeks to give voice to all. It is based on the following: concrete experience is a criterion of meaning; dialog is the basis for assessing knowledge claims; an ethic of caring emphasizes individual uniqueness; and an ethic of personal accountability guides teaching and learning. (SK)

Two scenarios illustrate effective and ineffective ways to use adults' experience in continuing professional education. In successful situations, students had an established knowledge base and used critical thinking to adapt experiences. In unsuccessful situations, learners did not have the experience, knowledge base, or applied background for meaningful learning to occur. (SK)

There should not be a split between literacy of function (ability to deal with institutional procedures) and literacy of voice (expression of knowledge and experience). Acquiring functional literacy often involves voicing experience as well as questioning institutional power. Teachers and students should collaborate in bridging the gap. (SK)

Focuses on decision of "Journal of Counseling and Development" to discontinue "Personally Speaking" section of the journal. Author discusses his own personal/professional history and explains importance of being able to speak personally and honestly about ourselves, supporting others' ability to speak personally and honestly about themselves, and advocating for personal aspects of counseling profession. (NB)

The quality of marriage and family life depends on the quality of the relationship between the adult partners, who create the emotional environment. A marriage education program based on adult learning principles should be a continuing process reaching into each developmental stage of the family life cycle. (SK)

This essay is a critique of educational futures as proposed by educators, members of the business community, and others. Speculations about the future found in most recent literature serve the interests of dominant sectors of Canadian society at the expense of student and general populations. (Author/SLD)

This description of a teacher-researchers's experiences of surprise in daily practice suggests that moments of surprise are opportunities to develop and sustain reflective teaching practice. The experience of surprise is in itself an embodied reflection that can awaken pedagogical possibilities. (SLD)

Argues that ways in which the experience of manhood has structured the course and meanings of American men's activities must be examined. Pioneering work of feminist scholars has made us aware of the centrality of gender in shaping social life. It is now necessary to extend these studies to men. (SLD)

The story of one environmentalist currently serving time in a federal penitentiary presents personal perspectives on engaging in illegal activities to expose environmental destruction to the public. (MCO)

Presents a selective survey of cognitive assumptions informing experiential variation as a platform for consideration of contextual information seeking and the implications for providers of information. Information professionals must bridge intellectual and experiential differences in delivering needed information. Librarians must be literate themselves before they can assist others. (SLD)

Formal education bombards children with information but is weak in meaningful learning experiences. Outdoor education offers learning experiences that integrate experience and information. The Foxfire philosophy and John Dewey's principle's advocate this approach to learning. Organized camping provides an experience-rich environment. (KS)

It is argued that careful attention to the role of the researcher's experience in qualitative research is desirable for several reasons. A rationale for such examination is established, and the research and scholarly activity pursued by the author for the last 11 years are described to present a kind of career case study for analysis of the process as it has evolved. The search for the self in research efforts is considered. Personal predispositions are acknowledged as they affect research work. Also acknowledged are the associations among the nature of the researcher, the focus of the research, the process of researching, and results found in the data. Interrelated themes are revealed that are likely to emerge in the experience of other researchers: (1) the significant role of personal predispositions at the beginning of and throughout the entire research process; (2) the apparent flow of inquiry from one stage of research to another; and (3) the deepening of understanding and meaning through reflection and writing. The experience of the researcher must be valued even as it is monitored. (SLD)

An inappropriate epistemological realism continues to dominate cognitive science. Realism, the idea that there is a single, univocal world which exists independently of us but which we can come to know, is tacitly accepted by almost the whole body of cognitive science. The fatal flaw in any realist approach to cognition and perception is that the stimulus underdetermines experience. The stimulus is ambiguous because one's experience is dependent upon one's values, intentions, and expectations, as well as on the stimulus itself. Realism persists as the dominant psychological approach, in spite of this flaw, because much of the relevant evidence appears to justify it. That same evidence, however, could be used to justify idealism, constructionism, or any of a number of alternatives. A second reason that realism persists is that people have strong intuitions favoring realism, intuitions which are justified in everyday life. Realism is sometimes completely appropriate in situations concerning strong biological constraints and in the social sphere, although it is generally inappropriate for cognitive theory. It is possible that the problems of realism in cognitive science can be solved by adopting an epistemological position allowing multiple realities. (NRB)

Basic questions about the concept of learning style are addressed in this paper along with several ideas about the learning process. Additionally, a psychophysiological developmental experience model of learning and learning style is presented. Included in the discussion is a comprehensive definition of learning style that encompasses elements of previous definitions and is intended as a guide for research efforts and practical applications in early childhood programs. Eight subsequent sections are devoted to specific ideas about the learning process: reduction of entropy, bias against redundancy, self-consciousness and reintegration with the universe, the individual decision to move toward either biophilia (love of life) or necrophilia (affiliation with death), intentionality/expectation and causation, patterning in the universe, interaction and meaning in systems, and generative learning. In a ninth section, a different focus on learning processes is proposed for professional education. Contributions of psychophysiology, life-span human development, and environmental/cultural experiences to the interdisciplinary and ecological model of learning processes are pointed out. The concluding section discusses relationships of world view to learning style. (RH)

Used data from three annual surveys to describe the gap between job seekers' skills and skills that employers want. Employers are seeking broader and greater skill levels and career counselors can help candidates meet these expectations. Reviews employers' suggestions for job hunters and some of the skills in demand. (RJM)

Advocates a new politics of difference for Australia in which the tendency to collapse differences and contradictions of experience into cultural explanations will be replaced by an approach that emphasizes differences conceived of as subjective experiences. Dialogue across difference is advocated rather than dialogue between difference. (SLD)

Focuses on a particular aspect of voluntary activity that is the subject of a pan-European program--life experience counseling by those who have lived long enough to know what are the important things in life. (Author)

Lessons worth noting from existing community-service programs include the importance of reciprocity and benefit to the volunteer; accountability to the community; youth leadership; a multigenerational approach; crossing the color line; and open mindedness. The service movement provides real possibilities for mutual advantage. (SLD)

Looks at what is entailed when education and experience are regarded as equivalent. Identifies faulty inferences resulting from learning by experience. Considers how experience can close avenues to conceptual and social change. Argues that ideas based on secondhand information are more likely than firsthand experience to manifest both the real and the possible. (CMG)

One general theory of knowledge supports a transactional perspective that defines literacy as relative and context-dependent. Exploration of this theory can begin by examining the relationship between metaphor and knowing, focusing on the underlying metaphorical nature of knowledge. If the constructionist, experiential, metaphoric account of knowledge and truth is accepted, then contention that such things as universal knowledge and truth exist must be seriously questioned. Kohlberg and Mayer, Lakoff and Johnson, and Carl Rogers offer three epistemological approaches that attempt to bridge the gulf between subjective and objective knowing and that acknowledge the nonuniversal nature of knowledge and truth. Their perspectives have much in common with those of the pragmatic philosophers. The pragmatic epistemology as expressed by Dewey, Mead, and Hook is an interactionist one. An exploration of the relationship between the experiential, pragmatic theory of knowledge and adult literacy leads to the contention that any attempt to understand adult literacy must consider all the perspectives of different communities and subcultures toward the functions and uses of literacy and ultimately the very specific perspective of the adult who functions within a specific community at any particular point in time. (Author/YLB)

Self-concept is an important element in the growth and developmental process for individual human beings. Adult learners in institutional programs need assistance in probing their inner selves to be able to move ahead in their lives. David Kolb's work with the experiental learning model is especially appropriate in dealing with adult learners. In addition to providing a framework for conceptualizing individual differences in learning styles and social adaptation, the model suggests more normative directions for human growth and development. The particularity of one's cultural/personal history is pivotal in the emerging self-concept. One must look objectively at one's history, relate it, and calibrate it to the present experiences with which one is struggling in the effort to gain self-knowledge. Armed with an accurate self-concept, the individual can find self-actualization. As the individual moves through life, he/she must face various role demands. Each person has some center of ultimate concern that defines the center of self and gives the organizing principle for all the various "callings." The task of bringing these diverse inner elements or roles into a cooperative, contributive relationship with each other is a major task of self-concept identification for every adult. (YLB)

Literary gaps were identified by Wolfgang Iser in 1974 as "vacant pages" that invite the reader to reflect and enter into the text thereby motivating students to experience the text as reality. Arthur Applebee, in 1979, identified three categories to distinguish children's types of interaction with stories: (1) the complexity of literary and personal experiences, (2) a mastery of techniques and conventions of literary forms, and (3) the relationship between the experience of the work and the reader's own life. To determine the types of interaction that occur with modern fantasy, a picture story book was read to children in first, fourth, and sixth grades. They were then asked to fill in the literary gaps with their own writing. The examples of children's writing revealed that they draw upon their experiences with literature and life to interact with the work and this supported the literary theories of Iser and Applebee. (A list of steps for teachers to use to elicit creative responses from children and a booklist of modern fantasies for children age six through twelve are included.) (SRT)

Discusses the basic concepts of andragogy, or the teaching of adults. Topics include differences between children and adults; characteristics of adult learners, including time perspective, motivation, being self-directed, and experienced in life skills; and effective program design for adults. (LRW)

The four cornerstones of Nikolaj Grundtvig's concept of folk high schools are (1) school for life, (2) historical-poetical (myths and folk culture), (3) "folkelig"--a sense of cultural identity, and (4) residential school for adults. (SK)