It is time to review the schedule for the placement of your session in the AAACE Agenda. This is the final draft of the Schedule. When you look up your name, use the detail listing to check what days/times you asked to be placed. This is a huge program and we can accommodate necessary changes in day and time now, but may not be able to do so after September 1, 2013 except in emergencies. Please carefully check your placement and send any requests to Ginger Phillips, AAACE Conference Planner with AAACE Session Change Request in the subject line. We will respond to your email, but it may take us up to a week to do so. Thanks for your help in "fine tuning" this agenda!
Sustainability and Transitional Learning: Exploring the Influence of Adult Learners’ Mental Models on Adaptive Change
Type of Presentation
Shared
Session Abstract
This presentation will foreground ways that an understanding of mental models can help adult learning facilitators create conditions for adaptive change, as we gradually transition to more sustainable living alternatives.
Target Audience
While most AAACE attendees could see something of interest in attending this session, three groups in particular might be especially interested. First, those who work with older adults or have interests in intergenerational learning would find this session of interest, for creating vibrant lifelong learning opportunities is central to sustainability. Second, those who come from professional schools or work with public policy would find this session worthwhile, for environmental drivers are encouraging organizations to rethink “business-as-usual.” Finally, individuals with strong interests in social justice would find this session worthwhile, for matters of equity and democracy are central to sustainable development.
Learning Outcomes
After participating in this session, learners will know or be able to do the following: 1. Define “sustainability” and apply its comprehensive framework to contexts of personal interest; 2. Understand how adult learners use their brains’ mental models to take in sensory input, filter information, and seek patterns to make sense of phenomena; 3. Appreciate that phenomena not conforming to learners’ patterns and understandings of personal realities can trigger unwanted neural fight-or-flight impulses, thereby impeding learning; and 4. Learn a series of facilitation strategies to help create safe spaces for adult learners, thereby encouraging safe risks central to adaptive change.
Session Description
This presentation will foreground ways that an understanding of mental models can help adult learning facilitators create conditions for adaptive change, as we gradually transition to more sustainable living alternatives that will challenge adults to think in qualitatively different ways. Specifically, we can anticipate that the age-segregated, market-based capitalist society that has largely scaffolded adults’ social roles will—gradually—evolve into a more age-integrated, post-capitalist society that will encourage more value creation in the social economy. In sum, this transition to a more sustainable way of life—one that offers a promise of more social cohesion, as well as a richer respect for finite ecological resources and the broader planet—can, nevertheless, seem daunting and threatening to adults whose mental models may restrict possibilities for safe experiential learning. To that end, this presentation is designed to help learning facilitators create optimal learning spaces for this particular type of transitional learning.
Efforts are made to try to schedule sessions on the day preferred by the Primary Presenter, though this cannot be guaranteed. Please check your preference.
Thursday November 7