Peer Teaching
Differential
Experiences in Teaching
Special Challenges
of Teaching One’s Peers
The Experience
of Peer Teaching in Lifelong Learning Institutes
By: E. Michael Brady Osher Lifelong
Learning Institute
Steven R. Holt University of Southern Maine
Betty Welt Portland Maine
Contact Information: E. Michael Brady,
Professor and Senior Research Fellow,
Bailey Hall 400-B,
(207)
780-5312 mbrady@usm.maine.edu
Forty eight peer teachers in five different Lifelong
Learning Institutes in
interviewed
via focus groups. Five methods are used
in peer teaching practice: lecture,
group
discussion, hands-on experiences, various hybrids of these three, and a course
coordination
approach. Voluntary participation,
tolerance of teacher limitations, and
interest
in developing a sense of community differentiate peer teaching from earlier
faculty
experiences. Peer teachers encounter a
number of special challenges that
include
dealing with a range of educational
backgrounds, subject-matter expertise
among
selected students, limitations in program structure, the physical changes that
accompany
aging, and ambivalence concerning
Lifelong Learning Institutes’ mission.
The Experience
of Peer Teaching
in Lifelong Learning Institutes
Introduction
Lifelong Learning Institutes (LLIs) - alternatively called Institutes
for Learning in Retirement or Learning in Retirement Institutes - are
organizations of older learners dedicated to meeting the educational needs of
their members. Generally Lifelong
Learning Institutes fall into two categories:
institution-driven and member-driven.
In the institution-driven model the curriculum is often planned by
professional staff and taught by regular higher education faculty. In the member-driven model, courses of study
are planned and taught by institute members.
In fact the use of peer teachers
- in addition to the program being sponsored by a college or university,
charging modest membership fees and tuition, being predominately
age-segregated, and offering a wide range of liberal arts and cultural
offerings - is considered to be a core ingredient in distinguishing a Lifelong
Learning Institute from other programs in adult or older adult education
(Manheimer, Snodgrass, and Moskow-McKenzie, 1995; Manheimer, 1995). Despite its importance in the growing field
of senior adult education, there has been surprisingly little research thus far
on the experience of peer teaching in Lifelong Learning Institutes.
A number of studies conducted in the early 1980’s examined different
aspects of older persons as teachers or trainers, but all were located in
social service and community-based programs rather than higher education
contexts. Brown (1981) investigated the
nature of older adult teachers in community learning centers. She found that persons with a high level of
education and an interest in transmitting knowledge to others are motivated to
become instructors later in life. Also,
there was a positive relationship between the extent of the person’s reported
history of community participation and their willingness to teach. In age-segregated settings older teachers
typically viewed their role as a helper or friend as compared with an “expert”
or “leader.” Another study conducted by
Kaye, Monk, and Stuen (1982) examined a “Seniors Teaching Seniors” training
program in
Another project in
A more recent study at the McGill University Lifelong Learning Institute
in
The
peer-teaching model expresses several ideals in adult education practice
including a voluntary spirit, andragogy and self-direction (Knowles, 1990;
Merriam and Caffarella, 1991; Jarvis, 2001).
Peer teaching is a learner-centered activity because members of
educational communities plan and facilitate learning opportunities for each
other. There is the expectation of
reciprocity, e.g., peers will plan and facilitate courses of study and be able
to learn from the planning and facilitation of other members of the
community. Peer teaching is the rare
and provocative model of education in which in the morning a person may teach a
class for her peers, and that same afternoon have one of her “students” become
her teacher.
Research Method and Sample
The Maine Senior College Network consists of 15 Lifelong Learning
Institutes distributed throughout the State of
The specific recruitment of faculty into the focus groups occurred in
collaboration between the research team and the director of each of the five
LLIs. This was a purposeful sample with
the goal being to invite experienced faculty from a variety of disciplines to
participate in one focus group with colleagues in their own LLI. We also sought a balanced gender representation. A total of nine focus groups were
facilitated: three in
Although no survey data eliciting demographic information from the
sample were collected, an overview of the professional background of these peer
faculty was obtained from the opening focus group question (“Would you please introduce yourself and
briefly describe your background?”).
Most of the sample, which consisted of 28 men and 20 women, had
professional backgrounds in teaching.
Of the 48 participants, 20 had taught full-time at either two-year
colleges or universities for a major portion of their careers. An additional 13 had been teachers at the
kindergarten through high school level.
The remaining 15 persons in the research sample had careers in business
(N = 5), religious ministry (N = 2), and a variety of other fields (N =
8). The miscellaneous fields represented
by these remaining faculty included child care, library science, museum
management, symphony music, military, and civilian government service. In terms of their educational backgrounds,
most people had degrees in the liberal arts and sciences with “history” being
the most frequently mentioned major (N = 7).
An additional seven people reported having earned formal degrees in
education.
One of the core questions in this study related to teaching method. We introduced this issue in the focus group
by making the following statement: “We
have observed in Lifelong Learning Institute classes that there are three
primary ways people teach - through lecture, discussion, and a studio or “hands
on” approach. Would you please comment
on the way you generally prefer to teach your peers.”
Since most of the courses taught in the Maine Senior College Network are
led by experts in the subjects areas being offered - as compared with study circles, work
groups, or alternative models in elder education (Clark, Heller, Rafman and
Walker, 1997) - the time-tested method
of teaching through lecture is common
practice. A typical way of managing a
lecture-type course would be to present information and welcome questions from
students. “I tend to fall more in the
lecture area because of the subject matter,” commented one instructor who
teaches courses in controversial issues and theater. ”I don’t wait until the end of class to hear
questions. They are free to interrupt
and they frequently do. And it’s very
challenging – you have to be on your toes and also ask questions to put them on
their toes. So this is kind of a
modified lecture.”
Some teachers in this sample went out of their way to defend the lecture
method. “I would like to make my
position against the current idea to dislike lecture. I think lecture is essential . . . it is
destructive to open a topic up for discussion that may be somewhat esoteric to
beginners. What can they say?” Another teacher in the sciences, after
defending the idea of lecturing, engaged a remarkable metaphor for his own
practice of lecturing and for teaching in general: “I wonder if sometimes the word ‘lecture’ and
‘lecturer’ hasn’t fallen into bad repute.
It’s a bad word. Now there are
people who need to be lectured. I took three
organic chemistry classes before I passed one.
The only escape for me was the instructor who lectured privately to me
about it . . . I think there is a place
for a lecturer who has spent the time to accumulate the information . . . I
like to think of myself with a lot of stuff whirling around in my head and my
heart and about three feet away from me is a partially finished bridge. And the student has the same thing. They have bridges. My problem is to get the ends of those
bridges together.”
A second method often used among peer teachers in this research sample
is group discussion. Several people
talked about discussion being at the core of good adult education. One, a woman who teaches life story writing,
argued that participation is essential to any quality learning experience. “I don’t mean to put anyone who lectures
down, but . . . “ Another person
discussed what she believed to be the inefficiency of teaching through
discussion, but then followed by reporting that she could not imagine teaching
any other way. She described the
discussion method as “changing the
direction from teacher to student.”
Other individuals employed a well-known adult education concept by
referring to their practice as student or learner-centered. “I use a student-centered approach. I have a syllabus. During the first class session I distribute
it and say: ‘what might you want to get
out of this course that isn’t here?
Generally we get some good ideas that I add to the syllabus.” Two instructors in the sample referred to
the use of the Socratic method in their teaching. In both cases, when questioned about what
this meant, they described the use of provocative questions that not only got
their students to talk, but to think more critically.
In many cases both class and room size determine whether or not teachers
design their course around a discussion format.
Some courses in the Maine Senior College Network have 40, 60, and even
100 students. Although it is possible
to encourage participation in large classes through the use of small group
activities, it is often necessary to structure the seating in rows rather than
rectangles or circles. As one focus
group participant, who designs her teaching for smaller class sizes, told
us: “I like the hollow square. If you want discussion, me sitting behind
you looking at your head while you’re sharing doesn’t work very well. But if we are all sitting around the hollow
square it creates a comfort level . . .
.” In some cases the most popular teachers act generously and allow
large numbers of students into their classes.
However, by virtue of this largesse the teaching methods they can use
become limited.
A third method that is frequently used in senior college is a hands-on approach. This method fits best in painting, collage,
theater, writing, and other studio-type courses that are offered as part of the
curriculum in nearly all
One
of the things that I have is a cardboard box of stuff. I have the
students
pick out a card and that is what they had to do. Somebody had
“How
long is a million dollar bills from end to end?” I gave them a dollar
bill
and they had to figure out the answer.
“If you walk a million paces
how
far would you have walked?” So they went
out into the corridor and
measured
their pace and then came back in and did the arithmetic. “How
much
time will pass when your heart beats a million times?” . . .
at
the end they had to report the answer, but more importantly,
what
procedure they used to get the answer.
A fourth method is actually a combination of the first three, what
teachers in our sample called a blended or
hybrid approach to teaching. These blends included lecture and discussion,
hands-on experiences with group process, and lecture followed by hands-on
techniques. One teacher working in the
area of genealogy first presents ideas and provides resources for his
students. He then organizes small groups
and “each one would throw out a problem they were having and we would discuss
how they might approach that.” His
course also involved the learners making field trips to the Church of the
Latter Day Saints, museums, state libraries, and other sites where genealogical
research may be undertaken. This LLI
faculty member clearly involves a multiple-method approach to teaching and
learning.
One teacher, who was new to the
LLI environment after spending a career in the area of financial investments,
admitted that he had to quickly make a major adjustment in his plans to teach
once he entered the classroom. “I came into this situation with a very
structured notebook and one of the things I quickly ascertained is that these
students are outspoken about what they want to talk about . . . the course evolved into sort of a
hybrid of lecture and discussion.” This
instructor went on to tell of one student who brought an article to class that
became the focus of much of the class discussion. After listening to his colleague relate this
experience, another member of the focus group commented: “I think what it comes down to is that people
come to our class because of our enthusiasm.
We shouldn’t have any textbook dictate our enthusiasm.”
Another instructor, a retired minister who teaches courses in
spirituality, combines in-class discussion with outside-of-class experiences as
his primary method of teaching. “One of
the things I do which seems to work well is I assign partners to meet between
classes so that everybody connects with a number of people for lunch or some
other encounter . . . I think that spirituality is essentially relationships and
so here we have a chance to foster relationships between members of the
class. We always sit in a circle and I
encourage full participation. Usually
everybody has talked two or three times by the end of class.”
The fifth and final method of teaching that emerged from the focus
groups was unique to one senior college program, the smallest (in numbers of
students and courses offered per semester) and most rural in this research
sample. This is the teacher as course coordinator. The way this
model works is that ideas for new courses are discussed by the program’s
curriculum committee and somebody either volunteers or is recruited to manage
the development and implementation of that course. At times this would mean reaching out to an
entirely different person to do the actual teaching. In some cases a coordinated course involves
inviting a series of guest speakers or planning field trips. The job of the course coordinator is to see
that the course runs, to be responsible for managing logistics, and to have a
kind of general manager’s role. In the
words of one of these course managers:
“I coordinated a watercolor course which meant that I not only sought
the instructor but was also responsible for making sure that we had the paint,
getting the right kind of room, and managing the behind-the-scenes details that
the instructor didn’t have to worry about.”
After analyzing the narrative data from this first research question, it
became clear to us that when we began this study we had not thought broadly
enough about the teaching methods being employed in Lifelong Learning
Institutes. According to the way peer
teachers understand and describe their own practices, they use five - not three
- primary methods of teaching. The
teaching technique that is employed the most - the mixed-method approach - was
not among the original three we anticipated (note: while we did not use survey
or quantitative measures with this or the other two research questions we
examined in this study, simply counting the number of references made in the
focus group narratives revealed that twice as many people use mixed-method or
hybrid teaching than any other approach).
This mixed method of teaching maximizes flexibility and allows LLI
teachers to be more responsive to the needs of their students. Both flexibility and adaptability to
learners’ needs are seen in the general adult education literature as core
elements of good teaching (Merriam and Cafferella, 1997; Palmer, 1998;
Brookfield, 1995, 1999).
Differential Experiences in Teaching
The second research question in this
study explored how, if at all, teaching one’s peers was different from other
teaching experiences LLI faculty may have had earlier in their careers. There were four responses to this question: Students are participating voluntarily, are tolerant of teacher limitations, are interested
in engaging in a co-learning
experience, and both seek and realize a sense of community.
Unlike many learning experiences where participation in education was
mandatory in order to attain certification or degrees in their professions, now
older students are participating
voluntarily. In LLI’s in
The second way peer teaching is different from earlier teaching
experiences lies in students’ tolerance
of faculty limitations. Older
learners do not expect their teachers to have immediate answers to all their
questions. One teacher said, “In senior
college students have more questions and you’d better know the answers. But if you don’t, they’ll be patient with
you. They’ll wait until the next
class.” Other research subjects
commented about teaching traditional undergraduate students and the fact that
many of these younger people considered teachers to be subject-matter experts
and expected a high degree of certitude and even omniscience. On the other hand, what many LLI students
expect from their teacher is a degree of knowledge and experience in the
subject area being taught – and honesty.
“These senior college students have a passion for learning and they
expect you to share what you know.” One
teacher spoke about how she approaches this situation:
I found that the best thing
you can do is think of a course
that you believe would be
enjoyable for yourself . . . First of
all is honesty. You need to stand there and say: “This is
share it with you, and there
may be others here who know
much more about it
and if there are, then please tell us . . . “
The third response to the question about differential teaching
experiences related to the idea of co-learning. Patricia Cranton provides an apt description
of co-learning in her book, Understanding
and Promoting Transformative Learning (1994):
The educator who is a
co-learner acts as an equal participant
in the process of learning,
discovering, and changing. The
effective co-learner is one who builds an
atmosphere of mutual
trust and respect, sincerely
engages in learning, stimulates
enthusiasm and interest in
others, and challenges others’ values
and beliefs.” (p.
128)
The passion for learning expressed by LLI
students and the enthusiasm for teaching expressed by faculty creates an
atmosphere far different from traditional educational environments where
instructors often see their role as providing knowledge to uninitiated
learners. In the LLI context what is
engaged is a “conversation among equals.”
One teacher put it another way:
“I think what we are aiming for is to learn together.” The richness of the co-learning experience
is, in good measure, made possible by the depth of knowledge and range of life
experiences found in each senior college classroom. “The depth of knowledge is incredible. Teachers tap into this reservoir not only for
the other students for but themselves.”
However, because students have such breadth and depth of knowledge,
discussions can be harder to guide once they get started. As one peer teacher reported, “You get
tremendous opinion statements. With
18-year olds you retain the power to end discussion. But this is not the case with one’s peers.”
Another dimension of co-learning that was raised is the challenge of
setting expectations and seeking feedback from one’s peers. One subject talked about how he always has to
ask his students why they signed up for this course, which “helps a lot in
preparing what we do in the next several weeks.” Getting feedback is important to peer
teachers not only to help them keep the course on track, but also to establish
and nurture teacher-student relationships.
The depth of emotion is another aspect of co-learning that can be evoked
during a class. Old feelings, perhaps
long-buried, may rise to the surface when writing stories or retelling
experiences in class. One focus group
participant recounted, “how emotional some people would get {writing about
their life}. The memories they were
writing about were very poignant and painful.”
Another peer teacher recounted:
We had one woman who I thought was going to
have a breakdown
because she was looking directly at the Brookside
Nursing Home . . .
she was obviously uncomfortable in the class
so I said something and
she said,
“My sister is there. She’s dying
in that room. She’s
schizophrenic, and I’m looking right into her
bedroom.” So I
said the first thing that occurred to me: “Why don’t you come
and sit over here so you’re not looking into
that room.”
She was dealing with a dying situation and she
eventually
wrote about it . . . and she stuck with it and
dealt to a certain
extent with the problems. But we did have a lot of emotion
and sensitivity and I tried to be very careful
of that, and the class
I would say was very supportive of the
fact. They were great.
The same teacher went on to add,
“You must limit the class in terms of it becoming a therapy session.”
The fourth and final theme that emerged in response to this research
question related to the sense of
community that develops in many senior college classrooms. This feeling of community, in good part,
grows from the commonality of life experiences and ages of the students. It is also nurtured by mutual respect. One teacher said, “You can say what you think. Nobody will
judge you.” Another person shared the
following thought: “This sense of
community enables students to feel safe in class, in a comfort zone where they
are comfortable asking for help when they need it.” This feeling of kinship can make students
reluctant to cut the bonds developed during classes. The relationships they build in class will
often extend beyond the boundaries of a particular classroom or semester. One teacher told the story of how, after her
course had ended, a number of students chose to continue meeting on their own
to work on the subject matter. These
individuals have continued to work as a group, outside of the formal LLI
curriculum, for more than two years.
The spirit of kinship and community is also reflected by the fact that
selected faculty seem to attract “groupies” who make it a point to sign up for
every class they offer. Often small clusters
of friends will register together into the course(s) taught by their favorite
teacher. Frequently relationships
developed in the LLI environment that helps to keep students – and faculty -
returning semester after semester.
The late educator and author, Malcolm Knowles, made an observation that,
we believe, summarizes what our research sample was telling us about the
experience of teaching in an LLI.
Reflecting upon his own transformation from transmitter of knowledge to
adult learning facilitator, Knowles said:
I saw my role shifting from
content-transmitter to process manager and,
only secondarily, content resource . . . I
found myself performing a
different set of functions that require a
different set of skills. Instead
of performing the function of content planner
and transmitter, which
required primarily presentation skills, I was
performing the function
of process designer and manager, which
required relationship building,
needs assessment, involving of students in
planning, linking students
to learning resources, and encouraging student
initiative.
I have never been tempted since then to revert
to the role of
teacher
(Knowles, 1990, p. 181).
Special Challenges of Teaching One’s Peers
Our third research question asked focus group participants to describe
the challenges of teaching one’s peers. Five distinct challenges emerged from
these research data:
The wide range of students’ educational
backgrounds, learner subject matter expertise, program structure, physical deficits
associated with aging, and mission.
The very nature of a Lifelong Learning Institute, an educational program
with no prerequisites, tests, or grades, presents teachers with challenges, one
of which is addressing the needs and expectations of a wide range of students. In any given class, students with advanced
degrees may sit side-by-side with others who are self-educated. As one
instructor said, “I find you run a tremendous spectrum of experience and
education levels in these classes…and my challenge is to nurse along the
neophyte and not put the experienced one to sleep, and that’s a difficult
challenge.” Another said, “The trick is you try to find the magic chemistry:
that the really bright ones will learn it the first time you say it and manage
to drag the other ones up…that for me was always a challenge.” In another focus
group, one instructor stated, “The range in the ability of our students here is
very wide. We get some very brilliant students, and we get some who shouldn’t
be here. For every one of our entry classes there is this range.” More than one
teacher did not find a student’s lack of formal education to be a handicap. One
put it this way, “A lot of people who don’t have the kind of credentials that
we might admire are terribly talented and have read a tremendous amount.”
Another teacher made a similar comment, “They might have a keen interest but
not much education. I found out the first year that I had one man in class who
was really interested and did a lot of reading but he had only two years of
high school.”
In addition to having diverse educational backgrounds, the seniors’
reasons for attending may translate into different levels of effort within the
class. For some students, the primary
motivation may be to learn, while for others social interaction may be more
important. The challenge to the teacher is to cover the material but also to be
aware that some members of the class may not read the recommended text. One
teacher’s way of dealing with disparity is to prepare a list of books and say
to the students, “This is the good stuff. If you read it, fine. If you don’t
read it, that’s your loss but this is where you ought to be headed. This is the
standard.” Another instructor has a different approach, “I like to offer easy
reading suggestions and then I offer some more intellectual things. I try to go
the middle road – interest the intellect and interest the enrichment
people.” In one instructor’s view,
reading or not was immaterial. “I think
simply by doing it, even if they don’t read the book, even if they sometimes
don’t listen, even if they say, ‘I have to go to my neighbor’s for coffee and
that takes more time than reading the book for class’ . . .
I think they sharpen their brains.”
Another major challenge involves the talented and often, highly expert,
people who attend these courses. In a senior college class, it is not unusual
for a student to have considerable subject
expertise. As one teacher put it, “These people are sophisticated. They
come from very knowledgeable backgrounds, have degrees, graduate degrees, some
of them, so in anticipation I think I prepare harder for these eight sessions
than I did in my undergraduate teaching, because I know that someone in there
is going to know a lot about what I’m saying.” How to manage that expertise can
be challenging. As one instructor, who was teaching a math class, stated:
One of my students was what you call an
actuary who deals with probability. In my outline I indicated I’d do one unit
on probability. I began to get a little apprehensive about putting together a
unit on probability that would satisfy the general interest in math, not what
he did… I asked him, ‘Might you be willing to speak on the issue of the
relative probability of anecdotal data?’ He was delighted. He really enjoyed it
and he picked up on a just-for-fun activity on probability.
One challenge in teaching peers who are
highly knowledgeable can be “to balance the class and make sure that not one or
two powerful intellects are dominating the whole class.” Another peer teacher put it this way: “Sometimes we have too much enthusiasm, some
who want to share and don’t shut up.”
Managing class time is important because
the typical course in the Maine Senior College Network meets only two hours per
week for six, seven, or eight weeks. Program
structure, including term length, presents challenges voiced by several
instructors. One person, who worried about not having enough material to cover
the 8-week session, “found that I had to cut short on a lot of stuff because I
had more than enough.” This opinion was
echoed by a teacher who said, “eight weeks is not enough for some courses – you
could just go on and on.”
As one focus
group participant pointed out, “Another challenge is that many of our students
are busy in terms of traveling and you can’t always count on them being here.
It’s not a problem because there are no grades involved, it’s just a reality.”
As one teacher pointed out, by missing one session, “they’ve missed one-eighth
of the class.” In fact, senior college students may miss more than a single
class. One instructor was irked by “the way certain people kind of float in and
out of class. They’d be in class for two weeks and then I don’t see them for
three weeks and then they come back and they’ve been to
Being conscious of the inevitable physical deficits associated with aging,
e.g., impaired hearing, vision, or memory, is important in senior college
teaching. As one peer teacher related, senior students are not reluctant to
admit a special need, “People are willing to come forward and say, ‘You’re
going to have to speak loud because of my hearing aid.’” “You do have to be
very conscious of physical difficulties,” said another person. “You need to
make sure that there is an elevator, make sure that people who go on trips wear
the right kind of shoes.” The students
themselves help in finding ways to circumvent a physical impairment. In a class
on Ukrainian egg dying, one student with macular degeneration was having
difficulty seeing the lines. The instructor said of the student, “She actually
came up with the solution, which was to have a different colored background.
And I said, ‘This is really great.’”
Another peer teacher described his
approach to physical deficits, “I find that with all the dimensions of the
senior student there is the inevitable decay of the mind, of energy. I’m 87
years old but - I’m very conscious of this - there’s all that resilience that
just goes with age. You don’t have it,
and . . . I have to constantly remind
myself of it. I used to teach with a
high degree of irritability, and of intolerance for any kind of slackness or
sloppiness or if the attention is gone, but I don’t do that anymore.”
One common problem reported by focus group
participants is a tendency for the students to nod off, particularly in
afternoon classes. A few refuse to teach after lunch for that reason. As one
teacher put it, “You have to have a technique with the older ones so that you
don’t go too long. They get tired.” Scheduling a break at the midpoint helps to
hold the learners’ attention. It serves another need as well, as one instructor
succinctly stated, “My biggest problem is physical. I don’t know I can last fifty-five
minutes without going to the john!”
Perhaps the most basic challenge for LLI
faculty is determining exactly what their mission is. For example, when
referring to a class in which a strong sense of community was developed, one
teacher observed the students’ desire to continue in some way. “There is a
longing for community and connection and I wonder how senior colleges deal with
that? I’m not sure it’s consistent with the mandate, but I think senior college
is going to have to address that question. What really is our mission?” One focus group participant believed that
“most of the people who sat in these classrooms sat under the weight of their
bad memories from school, and the purpose as I saw…the main purpose I had…was a
tool to make them feel good, to make them feel that they could handle life, and
I think that’s a large part of it.” Another instructor wondered if there might
be some way to structure selected classes “so that they’re more driven to those
people who want the substance rather than watering everything down to the
people who are here because it’s Thursday.” A colleague concurred, asking, “Can
senior college provide some classes that are academically more rigorous, if you
will, and some classes that are academically less rigorous? People will self
select.”
Another facet of mission ambiguity is
tension between whether a senior college instructor is an educator or an
entertainer. In one focus group, the instructor for a course entitled “God and
the American Writer” found his course listed on a bulletin board as
entertainment. He asked, “Am I entertainment here? Am I supposed to come and
fill some spare time for these people who have a lot of time on their hands and
need to be amused? And how many people [who] seek out the senior college do it
just as a release from boredom, not out of a desire as a true learner?” Another faculty member took a more sanguine
approach to the tension between education and entertainment:
I remember a professor I had back in
college who said, ‘I’ve got you for how many weeks? How much are you going to
remember? The best thing I can do is stimulate you to learn more.” And that’s
what I think it’s all about…so I’m very conscious of putting on a bit of a
show… It’s a serious subject, but there has to be some entertainment value in
it and I tell stories, which I’ve told for years and years. I do that
purposely, to make people enjoy what they’re listening to and learn something.
Another telling example of what might be
construed as a mission for a Lifelong Learning Institute lies within this story
from a peer teacher in
I think senior college has another
purpose that can best be illustrated by a story. One day I spoke in class about a photographer
who, back in the early part of the 1900’s, photographed around the streets of
Discussion
In his highly acclaimed book The
Courage to Teach, the educator and activist Parker Palmer suggests that
good teaching is an act of hospitality.
The author argues that the concept of hospitality, which is rooted in
ancient times, for many centuries has suggested that the food and shelter one
gave to a stranger today is the food and shelter one hopes to receive from a
stranger tomorrow. Thus, hospitality
invites reciprocity. “It is that way in
teaching as well,” continues Palmer.
“The teacher’s hospitality to the student results in a world more hospitable
to the teacher” (Palmer, 1998, p. 50).
The unique act of hospitality that is peer education in Lifelong
Learning Institutes represents, in many ways, the epitome of excellence in
adult education. Reaching back to one of
the earliest source documents in the adult education literature of 20th
Century, Eduard Lindeman wrote that “power with” (as compared with “power
over”) is at the soul and center of genuine adult education. In traditional higher education - not to
mention “lower” education - there is an excess of “power over.” Tests, grades, and the exigencies of earning
degrees slant authority heavily toward the teacher and the institution
sponsoring the learning program. There
can be little democracy in such an environment. However, when the external factors of tests,
grades, and diplomas are removed adults may find themselves coming together in
the spirit of freedom and collegiality to learn with and from one another. These conversations among equals represent
the true meaning of adult education (Lindeman, 1926).
Happily the story of higher education is changing such that more and
more opportunities have arisen in the recent past for these conversations -
especially among older adult learners - to take place. The movement that began in 1962 with the
We learned in this study that when a peer teacher enters the classroom
in a Lifelong Learning Institute his/her previously held mental model of
education and methods of teaching are challenged. Older learners are substantially different
from high school or traditional college-age students. A teacher in a more traditional setting who
expressed one point of view on a complex issue may have gone unchallenged, but
that probably will no longer occur in this context. Older students’ great enthusiasm for
learning, as well as their expectations (by many individuals) for thoughtful
and stimulating discourse, present a daunting challenge for the volunteer peer
instructor. One focus group participant
told us that she prepares 20 hours a week for her two-hour senior college
class! She makes this effort without the
expectation of a single dime in remuneration.
While technically this is an environment where, for the most part,
retired professionals facilitate the learning of other retired professionals,
the “spirit of the amateur” - that is, one who acts out of love for the
activity itself - is very much alive in Lifelong Learning Institutes.
We also learned that those who participated in the focus groups
enthusiastically seized upon the opportunity to talk with other faculty
colleagues about teaching. When faculty
gather together - in Lifelong Learning Institutes and elsewhere - often the
agenda is organized around administrative and other necessary but mundane
matters. The enthusiasm generated by
small groups of faculty who were invited to talk about the craft of teaching
itself was palpable throughout this research experience. One interesting outcome of collecting these
data is that in several participating LLI sites teachers have voluntarily
organized faculty gatherings to continue the conversations begun during the
focus groups. This indicates an apparent
need and desire among peer teachers to talk with each other and further reflect
on the richness and subtlety of the craft of teaching.
The finding that some peer teachers are uncertain about the main outcome
toward which they are working in this environment - education vs. entertainment
– is an intriguing one. During most of
the conversations in which this issue arose the assumption seemed to be that
this was an either/or predicament, that is, the primary goal as a peer teacher
either was to challenge students to learn or to make the learning space a
comfortable one in which people had a good time. As we consider this matter further, we
suspect there are situations when education and entertainment may be mutually
exclusive, especially when grades and professional credentialing are factored
into the mix. However, in many
educational settings, particularly those such as Lifelong Learning Institutes,
the goals of education and entertainment are compatible and even complementary. One of the research subjects in this study, a
former college professor with expertise in the history of photography, offered
his focus group colleagues a stunning image when he told the following story:
Winter
Olympics – I think it was in
was
training ski jumpers and his people were always winning the medals
so
the interviewer asked this person, “How do you select the people you
are
going to train?” And he said, “I have
them jump for me, but I don’t
watch
how far they jump. I watch whether they
smile when they’re in
the
air.” This is my task, I feel. I want to
see my students smile.
In Lifelong Learning Institutes, educating versus entertainment is not a
zero-sum game. It is possible for peer
teachers - and their students - to jump a considerable distance and still
manage to smile.
References
Clark,
F., Heller, A., Rafman, C., and Walker, J. (1997). Peer learning: A popular
model for
senior education. Educational Gerontology, 23 (8), 751 – 763.
Cranton,
P. (1994). Understanding
and promoting transformative learning.
San
Francisco: Jossey –Bass.
Delaloye,
J. (1981). Teaching the elderly homebound through learning companions –
A peer-teaching approach.
New York City Technical College: Brooklyn Division
of
Continuing Education and Extension Services.
ERIC Clearinghouse on Adult, Career,
and
Vocational Education (ED 253710).
Fisher,
J. and Wolf, M.A. (Eds.) (1998). Using
learning to meet the challenges of older
adulthood. New Directions for Adult and Continuing Education, No. 77,
Spring.
San
Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Jarvis,
P. (2001). Learning in later life: An introduction for educators and carers.
London: Kogan Page.
Kaye, L,
Monk, A., and Steun, C. (1982). The efficacy
of a self-help leadership training
program
for older adults. Paper presented at
the 35th annual scientific meeting of the
Gerontological
Society of
Vocational
Education (ED 223866).
Knowles,
M. (1990). The adult learner: A neglected
species (4th Edition).
Houston, TX: Gulf Publishing.
Laslett,
P. (1989). A fresh map of life: The emergence of the third age. Cambridge, MA:
Manheimer, R. (1995). The second middle age: Looking differently at life beyond 50.
Manheimer, R., Snodgrass, D., and
Moskow-McKenzie, D. (1995). Older education:
A guide to research, programs, and policies. Westport, CT.: Greenwood Press.
Merriam, S. and Caferella, R.
(1999). Learning in adulthood (2nd Ed.)