Let’s Dialogue--Intentional Adult Development—Is It Important? How Might It Help Increase Our Capabilities?
Session Abstract
How can we prepare ourselves and other adult educators to play a key role in building individual, organizational, and societal capabilities required to address complex challenges we currently face? After reviewing adult development current research and practices. we will dialog on ideas and concepts to apply to practice and/or research.
Target Audience
Conference attendees who would like to participate in a dialogue regarding intentional adult development and its application to: college courses, the workplace, workforce development training, leadership development, faculty development, learner development, or self-development.
Session Description
February 2016’s Special Issue on Adult Development of Adult Learning highlighted theory, practice, and research to increase understanding of adult development and to promote thoughts, discussions, and actions to support and encourage it. This roundtable extends and expands that dialogue. It features theories and practices explored by issue authors Boydell and Treffe and Earnest and also those by Budris; Cook-Greuter; Drago-Severson, Blum-Destefan, and Asghar; and Kegan, Leahy, Fleming, and Miller, presenting brief synopsis of theories and descriptions of related practices to foster development.
Gaining a grasp of such research and practice is imperative for adult educators for us to assume leadership roles in integrating thoughtful theory and tested practices to create environments that encourage intentional adult development. While creating the special issue, we ascertained that while practices fostering intentional or deliberate adult development in universities and workplaces exist, they appear disparate, dispersed and often implicit. Yet what’s needed is a concerted, explicit effort to help adults develop—to bring forth the individual, organizational, and societal capabilities required to address complex, compelling challenges driven by rapidly changing technology, burgeoning environmental threats, and increasing globalization, to name a few. By sharing knowledge and ideas we can move towards that end.