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This article focuses on the requirement for teachers and trainers in adult education to reflect on their professional actions and teaching experiences. After a short overview of the current debate on professionalism, a definition of the term didactical reflection is elaborated, differentiating between two levels of reflection: on one hand a direct didactical reflection on teaching actions or situations and on the other hand a self-including reflection. Subjective definitions of successful teach…
The report introduces the topic of municipal education monitoring based on the »Aachen Declaration« on municipal educational responsibility by the German Association of Cities and Towns. The statistics on adult education centres are essential for the still limited local continuing education monitoring. Two examples (Rheingau-Taunus district and City of Trier) explicate the data benefits, which indicate strengths and weaknesses and reveal operative requirements to decision makers in institutions…
The article presents findings of an ethnographical research project concerning the international concept of literacy as social practice. In this project, literacy was analyzed from an individual and a public point of view, focusing on its multidimensional uses and purposes in everyday life. Referring to a broader understanding of literacy as social practice, the study aims at initiating a discussion concerning the purpose and use of literacy among adult educators and practitioners in literacy c…
Transformations in German adult and continuing education (ACE) are discussed in their relation to more far-reaching transformations in society concerning the ways in which knowledge and non-knowledge are processed. Some features of the discourse related to the notion of „knowledge society“ as well as empirical findings on the general spreading of knowledge transfer activities are pointed out, before three instances of change in ACE are discussed. While issues of transferring knowledge appear to…
Diversity management is a popular management approach. It promises to allow diversity in organisations and thus to appreciate people for what they are. It undertakes to recognise different points of view, ideas, abilities and potentials; not to standardise cultural variety but to reinforce it. For adult education, this concept seems highly promising. After all, one claim of educational management is to promote personality development and personal progress in a business context. However, critica…
From 2002 on the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) will be sponsoring 80 regional networks in the context of the „Learning Regions – promotion of networks“ programme. This programme will be scientifically monitored by a consortium formed by the German Institute of Adult Education (DIE), the German Institute of Economic Research (DIW), and the universities of Duisburg and Munich. The author will be in charge of the overall scientific supervision. In his article he pres…
English version of the "Counselling" tape. What functions can counselling fulfil in literacy courses? Two projects carried out by the former Pedagogic Section of the German Federation of Adult Education Centres clarified this issue in the 1980s ["Literacy" (1982–1985) and "Elementary Education"(1985-19888)]. This summary of the results of both projects clarifies the concept of learning counselling, clarifies the central meaning of non-verbal forms of expression using practical examples and intr…
Lehrkräfte werden in Lehr-Lernsituationen oft mit Ambiguitäten und Ambivalenzen konfrontiert. Unter Rückgriff auf Ergebnisse von Studien zu videofallbasiertem Lernen erläutern der Autor und die Autorin, inwiefern Fortbildungen helfen können, mit ambiguen Situationen im Lehr-Lerngeschehen produktiv umzugehen.
