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Adult Education

Subject guide for adult education discipline.

Scope

This guide is best used as a starting place to help you find information for your research and assignments. We'll connect you with a variety of information sources, including books, scholarly/research articles, organizations, data and more that explore the many and varied aspects of adult education.

Selected Books

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Adult Learning

Solidly grounded in theory and research, but concise and practice-oriented, Adult Learning: Linking Theory and Practice is perfect for master's-level students and practitioners alike. Sharan Merriam and Laura Bierema have infused each chapter with practical applications for instruction which will help readers personally relate to the material.

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Teaching in the Online Classroom

A timely guide to online teaching strategies from bestselling author Doug Lemov and the Teach Like a Champion team School closures in response to the covid-19 coronavirus pandemic resulted in an immediate and universal pivot to online teaching. More than 3.7 million teachers in the U.S. were suddenly asked to teach in an entirely new setting with little preparation and no advance notice. 

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Adult Learning and Relationships

This book describes how education for young adults (20 to 40 years of age), persons of middle age (40 to 60 years of age) and older adults (age 60 +) can be differentiated to fulfill changing role demands emerging in response to social transformation. Developmental tasks for a society of longevity are defined including why youth should be seen as essential sources of learning for adults. Themes for each generation are school, work, family, and personal identity.

Game On! Gamification, Gameful Design, and the Rise of the Gamer Educator

The changing student body in American higher education demands a new approach to teaching, one that moves toward inclusive, hyperpersonalized learning environments that have much in common with games and social media. Kevin Bell's Game On! presents dynamic case studies of gamer educators and game-derived techniques to help instructors creatively formulate their own teaching strategies. 

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Digital Learning: the Key Concepts

The new edition of Digital Learning: The Key Concepts is the perfect reference for anyone seeking to navigate the myriad of named concepts, approaches, issues and technologies associated with digital learning. Key terms are explained succinctly, making this book ideal to dip into for a quick answer, or to read from cover-to-cover, in order to gain a mastery of how digital concepts fit within the world of education. 

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The Blended Course Design Workbook

The Blended Course Design Workbook meets the need for a user-friendly resource that provides faculty members and administrators with instructions, activities, tools, templates, and deadlines to guide them through the process of revising their traditional face-to-face course into a blended format.

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Disability Studies: Educating for inclusion

Education systems worldwide will only successfully serve the needs of people with disability when we inclusively examine and address disabling issues that currently exist at school level education as well as further and higher education and beyond. The chapters contributing to this edited volume are presented to assist readers with a critical examination of contemporary practice and offer a concerted response to improving inclusive education.

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Planning Programs for Adult Learners

The book offers a popular step-by-step guide that contains information on every area of program planning for adult learners, from understanding the purpose of educational programs to obtaining suitable facilities to incorporating technology appropriately. This important resource is written for educators and practitioners for whom planning programs is a full-time responsibility or only a part of their jobs, as well as volunteers in a variety of organizations.

Search for Books & Videos

The UFV Library has a vast collection of print and electronic books and videos for students to use for their studies. Remember: when accessing resources off-campus, users will be prompted to enter their UFV credentials to gain access.

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[Note: We are working to improve access to our collections and revising our subject headings to be more respectful and inclusive. Please be aware that you may see certain words or descriptions in search results or library materials which reflect the author’s attitude or that of the period in which the item was created and may now be considered offensive.]

Example subject searches (click on the links to see the lists of related books and videos): 

If you are new to searching, or need some reminders, try checking out the Library's resources on how to conduct research and specific links to streaming video collections (see below).

Databases

Databases are collections of different types of sources (usually digital) such as:

  • Books,
  • Videos,
  • Academic articles, 
  • News & magazine articles, etc.  

Here are a few popular databases when looking for information related to Adult Education, but you can find more options in our list of Education related Databases (see link below).

For more information on types of sources (including scholarly articles), please review our Evaluating Sources LibGuide (see link below) and make sure to check your assignment instructions before your start your research to see what types of sources your professor has asked you to use for your project(s).

Suggested Search Strategies for Finding Articles

The following strategies can be useful to help you search for and choose an academic/scholarly research article

1. Analyze your topic statement for search terms

  • Change any question into a statement.
  • Identify the important ideas or concepts within your topic statement - these are usually nouns (or short phrases containing a noun)
  • Nouns make the best search words, so turn any important verbs into nouns first
  • For more information and examples - check out the University of Toronto's How do I choose good keywords page (see link below):

2. Connect different concepts with "AND"; connect similar (or synonymous) concepts with "OR" You also need to use quotation marks to search complete phrases.
e.g. "Adult education" AND women

e.g. "Adult education" OR "Adult learning"

search in academic search complete for "adult education" AND women

3. Use limiters (options on the left or right side of the search results) to narrow your results list such as publication dates, peer-reviewed, and full text

'limit to' options in a database search featured with full text, peer-reviewed boxes checked off and dates limited to 2012-2022

4. Be sure to read the abstracts - they will often reveal enough "clues" to tell you if the article is relevant or not.

5. If you do not find articles that interest you, look at your results. See if there are new words or new search terms that you can use that will help you improve your search.

red box around subjects for an article

Journals

In some cases, your instructor may ask you to look in an adult education specific journal for an article. You can try a search in a related database, or you can search directly within a journal. Most of the links below will take you to the journal information page - under the "Full text access" choose the link (database name) you would like to use to search for articles within that journal.

Please note - sometimes journals have a 'search within' feature (so you can find topics within a journal), but sometimes they do not - so you will need to look around the page to see what options are available. For more information on searching for journals - check out our How to find a Journal by Title video (see link below). 

Organizations

Organizations with missions to support and develop adult education can be useful websites to review for trends in the profession, current topics, and professional development opportunities such as conferences. 

Statistics

Statistics are not considered scholarly sources, but they can be very useful when you want to include quantitative data in your research paper, report, or even presentation! See to statistical resources related to adult education below:

Videos

Videos may be a good non-scholarly source to consult for presentations or projects. Videos can be found from a library database, YouTube, TED Talks, or even news sites. Remember to evaluate videos using the same CRAAP criteria as used to evaluate news and other sources to ensure you are referring to quality content. 

Post-Secondary Teaching & Learning Centres

University teaching and learning centre websites can be a useful resource for seeing what resources are recommended by departments that support teaching adults at the post-secondary level. They may include resources such as guides, videos, and research that can be relevant for some ADED students.

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