Book Description

Emotion is a pervasive force in adult learning -- from fear, anxiety, dread, shame, and doubt to hope, excitement, joy, desire, and pride. For the most part, however, practitioners and scholars view the adult learning process as conceptual, rational, and cognitive. If emotion is considered positively, it is as a helpful adjunct to the learning process. More often, it is regarded as a potential barrier that has to be worked through if effective learning is to occur. Although we are only beginning to attend to the powerful role that emotion can play in our lives as teachers and adult learners, a small but growing body of interdisciplinary scholarship provides an opportunity to revisit earlier assumptions in the field. This volume seeks to build on this emerging scholarship by focusing on the emotional self across a range of adult learning settings: basic and higher education, workplace learning, and formal and informal contexts. Topics include: The meaning and role of emotions in adult learning Adults in programs for the 'academically underprepared' Emotional challenges of adult learners in higher education Adult learning and the emotional self in virtual online contexts Fostering awareness of diversity and multiculturalism Adult learning in the workplace Exploring the affective domain of informational and arts-based learning Teaching and emotions in a nonformal educational setting The emotional self in adult learning The chapters demonstrate, in different ways, the growing integration of emotion into more holistic, constructive ways of learning and knowing. As we attune to the emotional atmosphere in which we work, we stand a better chance of helping adult students achieve their educational goals--and we become better educators in the process. This is the 120st volume of the Jossey-Bass quarterly report series New Directions for Adult and Continuing Education. Noted for its depth of coverage, New Directions for Adult and Continuing Education is an indispensable series that explores issues of common interest to instructors, administrators, counselors, and policymakers in a broad range of adult and continuing education settings, such as colleges and universities, extension programs, businesses, libraries, and museums.