Integrating Social-Humanist and Cognitive Approaches to Adult Literacy

This study addresses the age-old problem of integrating personal and disciplinary purposes for learning. Two groups of educators participated in online professional development in which each participant assessed an adult literacy learner. The assignment required participants to synthesize assessment...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:	Adult basic education and literacy journal Vol. 5; no. 1; pp. 26 - 37
Main Author:	Muth, Bill
Format:	Journal Article
Language:	English
Published:	Commission on Adult Basic Education and ProLiteracy America 2011
Subjects:	Adult Education Adult Literacy Barriers Cognitive Style Educational Strategies Faculty Development Humanism Interdisciplinary Approach Reading Instruction Social Influences Teaching Methods
Online Access:	Get full text
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Summary:	This study addresses the age-old problem of integrating personal and disciplinary purposes for learning. Two groups of educators participated in online professional development in which each participant assessed an adult literacy learner. The assignment required participants to synthesize assessment data representing social-humanist and cognitive ways of knowing, develop instructional strategies, and reflect on the experience. Seventeen of the 24 participants created strategies and explicitly categorized them. In 37 of the 50 strategies, they attempted to integrate cognitive and social-humanist approaches. First, I present preliminary patterns in the way integration was achieved and participants' beliefs about the project. Then I discuss implications for professional development and for its role in facilitating pedagogical and dispositional shifts toward integrated practices.
ISSN:	1934-2322