In the Alberta research in practice project, literacy educators initiated participatory approaches with groups of adult learners and conducted research about projects. In the process, they learned about participatory approaches, their practices, and themselves. (Author/JOW)

Action research is used in community development practice by the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Outreach Division. They view the community as the curriculum, co-develop education events, and use the research process as a theoretical framework that ties action, learning, and outcomes together. (JOW)

Defines action learning as a recurring experiential process of embracing an issue, raising new questions, reflecting on problems and solutions, and making necessary changes. Describes an action learning group of eight women who explore how they learn about gender in their work and lives. (JOW)

Action science can play a role in virtual team development. Participants write action science cases of problematic interactions in their work and discuss them in small groups. (JOW)

Introduces the theme issue, and presents key questions that address how a public or secular spirituality can best be brought to bear on teaching, researching, and learning processes. (SGD)

Ways in which adult educators can bring spirituality into educational practice include engaging in autobiographical reflection, creating an environment for spiritual learning, creating a dialogical space, and fostering an ethic of care. (SK)

By engaging in reflective practice, adult educators can identify and take ownership of assumptions, preferences, and habits and allow teaching to be informed by and freed from them. Spiritual reflection helps identify connections and contributes to well-being. (SK)

Questions to consider include What drives educators' interest in spirituality? Does it have an ethical place in education? What is educators' position on individualist spirituality? What distinctions among spirituality are significant and defensible? What about the darker side? How is spirit conceptualized within larger social analysis? What is…

Assumptions underlying teaching for transformation and cultural relevance include (1) how is spirituality defined; (2) transformative learning involves cognitive, affective and symbolic/spiritual aspects; (3) transformative learning must attend to sociocultural dimensions (personal, cultural, structural, political, sacred); and (4) instructors…

Emotional reactions to text are manifestations of learners' inner selves. Adult learners can engage in the process of meaning making by working with images and integrating them into their holistic beings. (SK)

Discusses writing as witnessing, in which writers are obligated to record participants' testimony accurately, and writing as participation, a form of dialog in which interpretation is negotiated and which may involve multiple forms of testimony. (Contains 11 references.) (SK)

A study of five adult educators identified internal and external leadership qualities that support a spirituality-infused workplace, including a sense of vocation, a culture that encourages creativity and risk and balances work and home life, and leaders' willingness to express and implement an organization's values. (SK)

Provides a description of action research, shares examples from adult literacy education, and suggests implications for the practice of continuing professional education. (JOW)

A graduate program in workplace learning at the University of Calgary evolved into a continuing online community. A 5-year evaluation revealed some key elements: use of adult learning principles, effective instructional design, timely and meaningful feedback, and a cohort model. (JOW)

Context-rich learning can be promoted by integrating mentoring relationships into continuing professional education. Mentors promote learning in and from the workplace, assist learners in receiving help, and provide developmental and psychological support. (JOW)